Cheap protein that actually works

Protein is the running cost of training. You can train for free, more or less, but you cannot eat for free, and if you are trying to build muscle the protein is where the money goes. I need about 200 grams of it a day, and I am not a man with money to burn — so over time I have worked out how to hit that number without it bleeding me dry.

I have one advantage writing this: I work in a supermarket. I see the prices every single day, I watch what goes on promotion, and I know which "high protein" products are quietly taking people for fools. So this is not a generic list. It is what actually goes in my basket.

My real, everyday protein comes from a short list. Nothing exotic, nothing expensive-for-the-sake-of-it.

Meat is the backbone — mostly chicken and turkey. Turkey especially: a lot of protein, very little fat, and not badly priced for what you get. The catch is that turkey is dry, so you cannot live on it alone — a few days in and you need something else. Chicken fills the rest. I do not avoid pork, but I rarely buy it: it is fattier, higher in calories, and gives you relatively little protein for what you eat. On a bulk it is occasionally fine, but it is not a workhorse.

Dairy does a lot of the work. Curd cheese (twaróg) is excellent and cheap. Yellow cheese too. Eggs. And I drink a lot of milk — lactose-free milk, which I will come back to, because that part matters.

Whey is a top-up, not a staple. I use it to fill the gap when I am short, not as my main source.

One thing I have had to give up: fish. I would happily eat more of it, but right now it is very, very expensive, so it has fallen off my list entirely. That is the reality of a budget — sometimes a good food is simply priced out, and you work around it.

Now the part I feel strongly about, because I watch people buy it. Almost the entire shelf of products labelled "protein" or "high protein" is a con for someone on a budget.

Everything is "protein" now. There are protein drinks, for heaven's sake. And the honest truth is that most of these products do not contain much more protein than the ordinary version of the same thing — sometimes only a little more — while costing noticeably more. A "high protein" cheese might have five percent more protein than the normal cheese sitting next to it, and cost a good deal more for that five percent. That is not a deal. That is marketing.

And some of it is worse than just poor value. The protein added to these products is sometimes plant protein rather than animal protein — less easily used by the body than the real thing — and the drinks in particular can carry more additives than protein. Buying those is neither good value nor especially good for you. If a product needs a label shouting "PROTEIN" at you, be suspicious. Real protein — a chicken breast, a tub of curd cheese, eggs — does not need the sticker.

Here is how I actually keep it cheap, and it is not clever, just disciplined. I buy on promotion and I freeze. That is the whole trick, and it is the best value there is.

I try to buy nearly all my food on offer — meat, cheese, eggs, the lot. When the meat is on promotion, I buy it and freeze what I am not using immediately. It does not mean I go without if there is no promotion on — I still eat — but I shop with my head, watching the offers and stocking up when the price is right, then freezing so nothing spoils. Even yellow cheese freezes fine, and I freeze that too.

I will be honest about why this matters to me: working in a supermarket, with the outgoings I have, I cannot just buy whatever food I fancy. So I have to shop cheaply, and promotions are how I do it without cutting the protein. It might sound unglamorous, but this is the real mechanism behind hitting 200 grams a day on a budget — not a special cheap superfood, just buying good staples when they are on offer and freezing them.

The other small lever is cheaper cuts. I do not always buy the most premium cut. I will buy chicken leg meat, for instance. It has a bit less protein than breast and is slightly fattier, so from a trainer's point of view it is not quite as clean — but it is not bad either, nowhere near as fatty as pork, and it is cheaper. A slightly less perfect cut at a much better price is often the smart trade.

I am allergic to lactose, and I say that plainly because it is not something to be shy about — and because if you are the same, this bit is for you.

I cannot drink ordinary milk at all. Regular milk with lactose makes me genuinely unwell — and we will leave the details there. So the milk I drink in quantity is lactose-free milk. Not the carton kind, which I find tastes a bit worse — I go for the sort kept in the fridge in a plastic bottle, still lactose-free of course. That is what lets me use milk as a real protein source instead of losing it entirely.

The same thing decides my whey. Concentrate has lactose in it, and while it is not as bad for me as milk, I still feel it — a heaviness in the stomach. So I buy isolate instead, which has the lactose removed. It goes down cleanly and I do not feel it at all. If you struggle with dairy, that difference — concentrate versus isolate — is worth knowing, because it is the difference between a supplement you dread and one you barely notice.

• Plain beats "protein-labelled". Chicken, turkey, curd cheese, eggs, milk — ordinary foods carry your protein far cheaper than anything with a "high protein" sticker, which is mostly marketing for five percent more at a much higher price.
• Buy on promotion and freeze. That is the real mechanism for hitting big protein on a budget — not a magic cheap food, just good staples bought on offer and frozen. Cheaper cuts like chicken leg help too.
• Work around what your body cannot take. For me that is lactose — lactose-free milk and whey isolate instead of the regular kind. Whatever your constraint, there is usually a version that works; you just have to find it.