Getting frustrated over the cost of healthy eating?
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gardensneeze wrote: »meganridenour wrote: »Those of you saying processed food is more expensive than fresh food, clearly don't understand that ramen is 10 for $1.
When I was living by myself and on a grocery budget of about $60 per MONTH, I mostly survived off processed food.
Now between my boyfriend and I, we easily spend $800 a month on groceries. It sucks, but we do like to eat well.
WHAT????? Are you eating gold leaf corn flakes?
Hahaha no, I guess this is what happens when you shop at Costco and Whole Foods.
Although to be fair, sometimes this also includes things like paper goods and dog food, so technically not all $800 would be food. But most of it is.0 -
It is expensive. Cauliflower, $7.99 for one head, vs two kids' meals at McD's for $7.98. Seriously. (Which is not to say that I bought the kids' meals.) A bagged salad or a bag of spinach, $5.99. A salmon fillet big enough for the four of us will run almost $30.00. And these are not organic choices. Our grocery budget creeps upward every year. Right now I don't do much meal planning or flyer-shopping, but I know from experience that by doing that I could bring the spending down a bit.
Watching the sales and stocking up when certain things like bagged frozen fruit or veggies go on sale, and checking the meat counter for markdowns are both good ways to save a bit of money. Farm markets and bulk meat orders are definitely no savings in some parts of the country, but in other areas the little roadside veggie stands can save you a lot in the growing season. If you can get in with a CSA garden and do a working share, that can keep you in veggies all summer long for just the sweat of your brow.0 -
gardensneeze wrote: »clafairy1984 wrote: »It doesnt help that i have an active family, who are constantly hungry. My OH cycles 8 miles a day to and from work, and plays American football (so has a massive appettite) plus we hit the gym together 4 times a week. I walk up to 5 miles a day too. So we may be eating bigger portions compared to less active families. According to the papaer this morning 'healthy eating' costs up to 1/3 more than regular eating, whatever that is. I'm trying to put in perspective, to feel less depressed about it by thinking how much my bill comapares to take out of restuarant prices. Just frustrating knowing that other in my family are eating for £40-50. Fair enough there are lots of 'cheats' and not overly healthy, but it frees up money for activities and non food related treats. Atm it feels like my wages are just going on food and the gym.
No, your costs are the true costs. Their costs are destroying the planet, farmers globally, exploit animal welfare and fish stocks, and contribute to greenhouse gases. People who underpay are unhealthy and obese. People who pay the right price and paying fair prices for the costs of ethical production.
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gardensneeze wrote: »clafairy1984 wrote: »I dont understand why it's working out so much more expensive for me. Typical day, like today, consists of wholewheat toast with avocado and tomato with a green smoothie, homous and veggie sticks as mid morning snack. Soup, ryvita and piece of fruit for lunch, mid afternoon treat of couple squares chocolate. Dinner protein with lots of veggies, tonight im making a sausage a root vegetable bake.
Can you post a copy of a shopping receipt? Are you buy lots of expensive health food items like quinoa, 'ancient grains', alternative milks and flours, bee pollen, protein powder, date syrup, coconut sugar, chia seeds, that sort of expensive and very trendy blogger-friendly stuff?
Lol, yup, I used to be able to get quinoa for around $2/pound (bulk) before it became trendy and supply failed to keep up with demand. Now, the best price my coop has is a little over $4/# (bulk).
I pass on alternative milks for smoothies and just use black or green tea, depending on the recipe.
I'm sure I've had a dozen alternative sugars over the years. I no longer feel the need to go buy whatever exotic ingredient a recipe calls for when I have a suitable substitute on hand.0 -
meganridenour wrote: »Those of you saying processed food is more expensive than fresh food, clearly don't understand that ramen is 10 for $1.
When I was living by myself and on a grocery budget of about $60 per MONTH, I mostly survived off processed food.
Now between my boyfriend and I, we easily spend $800 a month on groceries. It sucks, but we do like to eat well.
Or perhaps you didn't/don't realize that you can buy 5 pounds each of brown rice and dry pinto beans for less than $10, and have many more meals (each with more nutrition) than the ramen would give you. But you do have to process - i.e., cook - them yourself.
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My only question would be, do you completely pre-plan your meals and then shop for the ingredients, or do you shop for what's in-season, freshest-looking and cheapest and then plan your menus? If you are shopping strictly from your list and ignoring the deals on items you see at the store, that's one possible area of savings. Most stores these days have their sales flyers online, so you can even use those to pre-plan a bit.
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lynnstrick01 wrote: »Just curious here, I live in central florida, lots of farms... so also lots of little road side stands that sell all sorts of local fruits and veggies at VERY reasonable cost. Do all of you have that same opportunity where you live? If so it is a much better option than the grocery stores
I live in the same area and I agree... I was able to get 5 HUGE bags of various veggies and fruits from a large popular road side produce stand for about 20 dollars yesterday. The same amount of produce would have probably cost me 50 or 60 dollars at the local grocery stores. I buy my meat either frozen or fresh from the local big box bulk stores and then I portion it out into smaller freezer bags, or I buy it fresh from the local butcher shop... all much cheaper than buying it from the grocery stores.0 -
A banana is 16p in my local tesco! Shop for fruit when it's in season aswell makes it cheaper
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I guess I'm lucky because my wife is a stay at home Mum and enjoys cooking food from scratch. When I mean from scratch I mean - from scratch. We don't have jars of anything (other than Nutella haha)
Our weekly shopping for veg, fruit, spices and the usual is £60. That feeds a family of 4, from ASDA (UK's Wall Mart)
We then buy our meat in bulk from Muscle Food. Currently they have 5kg of chicken breast for £19.99.
We get our fish from the fishmonger.
But as I said above, I'm lucky because my wife has the time to do that. I do have friends who have a very busy life and are single who prep their meals over the weekend and still spend £80 just on their own, you just have to be smart about it.0 -
I haven't read every post, but I think you need to do some comparison shopping. If you are buying organic, look at what you can switch to regular, non-organic. The more expensive items may be the meat & fish, shop around, look @ different places for prices. I buy frozen tuna steaks, much cheaper than fresh; I buy in-season produce as it's cheaper, also frozen veg is just as healthy as fresh. Some things you can buy cheaper in bulk, like porridge oats, for example; a slow cooker can help you cook cheaper cuts of meat that turn out healthy & tasty. If you're in UK, plenty of local butchers & farm stores to shop, plus Aldi & Lidl have some great stuff pretty cheap. If you prefer to show @ expensive, trendy supermarkets & stores, you'll pay a premium. But I buy good quality food, do a lot of cooking, all healthy stuff (except for hubby's goodie shelf), spend about £225 a month.0
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I cook for 5 everyday--3 young men, my husband and myself. We live in the city (Rome), and I do my shopping with a cart that I lug 6 blocks to the grocery store and then 6 blocks back home. That's up and down curbs and some stairs. Now to the economics. I take every flyer that I see and study it to find the best prices. I buy almost entirely those items, very seldom to I buy something not on sale. I buy in bulk, and freeze alot in smaller packages, or buy frozen to begin with. I do not buy bio, I think it's too expensive for what you get. I do look for quality, and buy quality products when I consider them to be at a reasonable price. Italians are very picky about quality eating. Because I'm American, and we have a bad rep about food, I had to learn alot and overcome the prejudice here. I get alot of compliments on my cooking, so I've been successful I think. You can eat well at a reasonable price. It takes planning and determination.0
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You are frustrated over the cost of expensive eating??0
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KareninCanada wrote: »It is expensive. Cauliflower, $7.99 for one head, vs two kids' meals at McD's for $7.98. Seriously. (Which is not to say that I bought the kids' meals.) A bagged salad or a bag of spinach, $5.99. A salmon fillet big enough for the four of us will run almost $30.00. And these are not organic choices. Our grocery budget creeps upward every year. Right now I don't do much meal planning or flyer-shopping, but I know from experience that by doing that I could bring the spending down a bit.
Watching the sales and stocking up when certain things like bagged frozen fruit or veggies go on sale, and checking the meat counter for markdowns are both good ways to save a bit of money. Farm markets and bulk meat orders are definitely no savings in some parts of the country, but in other areas the little roadside veggie stands can save you a lot in the growing season. If you can get in with a CSA garden and do a working share, that can keep you in veggies all summer long for just the sweat of your brow.
Yeah well it's people's choice to buy a $8 cauliflower or two bags of frozen veggies for $2. Or to shop at Whole Paycheck instead of Aldi (which I need to check for cauliflowers!).
If people buy the outrageously expensive stuff, they can't really complain that it costs too much to eat healthy, can they? When I was growing up we didn't even have access to the out of season stuff at all. You know it's not the season, you still buy it... your choice. Don't complain about it after...
Buy produce in season, or frozen (or freeze when it's in season). Know the prices at your local stores and what to buy where (I know I won't buy salmon at store A, for example, because store B is $2 a pound cheaper. And heck we don't buy a lot of salmon anyway because we can buy 2 pounds of ground turkey for the same price as 2/3 pound of salmon...
And yeah, check flyers. I typically knock off easily 30% of my bill by stocking up on non perishable when they are on sale.0 -
This won't be too helpful in the short term but it will pay off. I find that I can save a lot with having a dedicated freezer. I have a small chest freezer. Over the growing season I will go to local farms and farmers markets where I can buy fresh produce in bulk for much less than it sells in stores. What I don't eat fresh I put in the freezer. It takes very little work to do this. Just cut up your veggies and put them into quart or gallon freezer bags. No need to blanch or cook. If you wash them make sure the veggies are dry before bagging and freezing or put them in a single layer on a cookie sheet (especially for berries) and freeze before bagging. Use a sharpie to mark the contents and the date it went into the freezer and a 1 year expiration date.
Also that freezer comes in handy for sales where you can get bulk meats and other things. I am just one person and maybe have no real use for a whole ham but when Aldi put hams on sale for .98 a pound you can bet I bought one and popped it in the freezer. One of these days I will cook it off, portion it into freezer bags and have many meals for the $8 spent.
Also cut back on the Amount of meat your family consumes. We americans tend to eat a lot more than we really need to and it can get quite expensive. For health we don't need all that much meat in our diets, although I do think that optimally humans should eat at least some meat and while I respect those who make different choices I will never recommend vegetarian or vegan lifestyles.
If you have friends who hunt check with them. Often people who hunt have more venison than they really want or need. I have a lot of meat in my freezer right now that was given to me by a friend who hunts. In the past I have gotten an entire deer for just the cost of the processing. You can also purchase a cow or half cow from a local farm and have it processed, and put in your freezer, which will save money over time.
I used to do the freezing because I had to in order to survive on a very small income. It helped me to not have to rely as much on cheap filler foods that have little nutritional value. When my life circumstances got better and I moved I left my old freezer behind. it wasn't long before I regretted that. Eve though I live in a very small apartment I decided that having a freezer was a priority and got another one. My little 4 cubic foot freezer only cost $100 so it isn't even that big of an expense to get started.
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Since everyone's talking the price of cauliflower I just paid €1,47 for 1.5 kilo---that's around 50 cents a pound, on sale, of course. 0
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Buy on sale a freeze! Meats, cheese, milk, veggies, etc...
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I concur with whoever has said freezing. Freezing has come on leaps and bounds since the days of old since everything was pumped with water and tasted like cardboard. You can check packets and often will find no added water meat and fish in better produce- higher end stores tend to have these (in the UK thinking Waitress, Marks & Spencer, but I get mine from a delivery service often)- which is still cheaper than the fresh stuff. 'Flash' frozen foods often taste just as good and last forever, especially vegetables like edamame, mangetout etc.
Ok....i know most of the names of veggies in the uk...but mangetout was new to me!
Its sugar snap peas for anyone who doesnt want to google 0 -
Rice, beans, and chicken. I eat oats and eggs every morning for breakfast. I'm probably gonna be the unpopular opinion here but I think organic items are ridiculously overpriced for basically the same thing, and unless you have something health related tying you down, should be avoided for the sake of your bank account. Chicken isn't expensive. Buy the bulk options if you can fresh and separate portions to
freeze. Produce is something regular deals are offered for.
Edit: vegetables however, from the farmers, do tend to be reasonably priced. Totally agreeing with a commenter above on that one.0
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