STOP saying healthy food is more expensive

rabblerabble

Each weekend I hit Sprouts (health food store with a great produce section) and spend a modest amount of money on all the fruits and veggies I need for the week, but then at the regular store am obligated to buy sack loads of chips, cookies, ice cream, snack cakes, Hot Pockets, frozen pizzas, and other disgusting unhealthy garbage for the rest of my family (who don't share my enthusiasm for a healthier lifestyle). That junk food is a LOT more expensive then the healthy stuff.

Acg67

Healthy
Convenience
Price

Pick two

That's how it works. The people who claim healthy food is more expensive do so because they're looking for ready-to-eat healthy meals/foods rather than ingredients to prepare their own. As with just about ANYTHING else, you WILL save money if you're willing to buy ingredients and prepare your own meals from scratch rather than foods that come ready to eat out of the box, healthy or not.

Lies

WendyTerry420

Reasonable Quality Steak: $26.99 a pound

$26.99 a pound for steak?? Goodness, where do you live? You can get T-bones and Ribeyes for under $10 a pound here in Texas. And usually $6.99 on sale.

$7.99 all day long in Cow Town (KCMO) for thick, juicy steaks. I would have to go to a restaurant to find steak that expensive. And if I am willing to get "reasonable" instead of "good steak," it can be found at SunFresh for about $5/lb. But of course, to get fresh seafood, I have to be willing to pay about about $20(ish) per pound. Sometimes I think I would want to move to the coast and trade steak for seafood. In our tiny budget, we are happy to get "hotel steak" or the occasional round steak on sale, once in a while at $3/lb. (But it doesn't compare to a 2" thick KC Strip, best cut of beef around @ Curt's Market)

beachbriel

OP, I feel your post is unnecessarily aggressive and doesn't take into consideration the various variables (family size, region, etc) mentioned before me.

Eating healthy for my family is more expensive, but it doesn't' mean that we are not making the sacrifice. I am raising FIVE growing boys from 5 months to 14. Some I made with my body, others I made in my heart. It would be way cheaper to fill my house for junk for them, but I have to find the right balance to meet their needs.

Maybe instead of making totalitarian statements and presumptions of other's lives, we can talk about money saving tips.

-Eating out is way more expensive than making a healthy feast at home in my area.
-Check out a local farmer's market for in-season vegetables, sometimes I find a deal.

Who else????

*Edited for spelling

WendyTerry420

OP, I feel your post is unnecessarily aggressive and doesn't take into consideration the various variables (family size, region, etc) mentioned before me.

Eating healthy for my family is more expensive, but it doesn't' mean that we are not making the sacrifice. I am raising FIVE growing boys from 5 months to 14. Some I made with my body, others I made in my heart. It would be way cheaper to fill my house for junk for them, but I have to find the right balance to meet their needs.

Maybe instead of making totalitarian statements and presumptions of other's lives, we can talk about money saving tips.

-Eating out is way more expensive than making a healthy feast at home in my area.
-Check out a local farmer's market for in-season vegetables, sometimes I find a deal.

Who else????

*Edited for spelling

Where you live dictates your overall cost of living, NOT what choices you make regarding macronutrient ratios and calories.

Topsking2010

Bump

RhonndaJ

Something to consider, not everyone on here lives in the same place. Prices vary with local and availability.

Where I am healthy food is more expensive. Okay, so everything is more expensive, but healthy food even more so. Produce quality is moderate to low, local produce is limited and not a great quality, and what little is better quality is even more expensive.

For us, the cost is simply a fact of life.

Edited to add: Mealwise, we very rarely eat anything out of the box, and never have.

missymakayla

I think it depends on where you live, what you will eat, and what kind of meats you eat. It cost me more to eat a healthy diet, where I live. Fish, turkey,and chicken are more then hot dogs and frozen meals, which is what we used to eat. Now I still have hot dogs, but turkey hot dogs. The regular hot dogs,$.99, Turkey hot dogs,$3.00 , Do the math.......

WendyTerry420

Something to consider, not everyone on here lives in the same place. Prices vary with local and availability.

Where I am healthy food is more expensive. Okay, so everything is more expensive, but healthy food even more so. Produce quality is moderate to low, local produce is limited and not a great quality, and what little is better quality is even more expensive.

For us, the cost is simply a fact of life.

Edited to add: Mealwise, we very rarely eat anything out of the box, and never have.

But what do you mean when you say "healthy food?" Does produce have to be local in order to be healthy?

WendyTerry420

I think it depends on where you live, what you will eat, and what kind of meats you eat. It cost me more to eat a healthy diet, where I live. Fish, turkey,and chicken are more then hot dogs and frozen meals, which is what we used to eat. Now I still have hot dogs, but turkey hot dogs. The regular hot dogs,$.99, Turkey hot dogs,$3.00 , Do the math.......

Hot dogs should be eaten as part of an overall healthy diet. At ninety nine cents for 10, that's a hella bargain! Turkey dogs? meh :noway:

Again, this is suggestive of the notion that some foods are not healthy.

atamrowski

Food in general is just plain expensive. A can of processed fake cheese in a spray can is a whopping $5! Why? It's merely the cost of doing business from farm to fork.

The OP mentioned $30 worth of food lasting a whole week between two people; fairly impossible when you are feeding a family with children. I spend $125 weekly between a family of 3 and I don't sacrifice food. I love to cook and support my local farmers by buying from farmers markets locally. But I have to be realistic in that it often cheaper to feed my family hot dogs, mac n cheese and bologna sandwhiches.

freemystery

I'm currently living in a fairly deprived part of London has made some things come into sharp focus for me:

You eat as well as you want to.

If you want to live on fast food and chips and soda, you will find a way to make that work on whatever budget you have. You will buy big portions because it makes financial sense to bulk order- this might leave you in a place where you don't eat as often. You will use coupons and maybe even go to the sketchy wings place on the corner because they're cheaper than KFC and hey, you have a budget. You might have to cut back on buying fancy kitchenware because you have to eat. You don't have the time/ inclination to crawl around in mud for the sake of growing a handful of spinach over 6 months... you wouldn't know how to start even if you could be bothered. You're not going to drop £3 on a carton of egg whites, £3 can buy you lunch... maybe even part of dinner.
No shaming going on here, this is exactly what I used to do when I lived in Brooklyn. It wasn't Brooklyn, it was ME, I didn't have dollars to drop on accessorizing my kitchen, I had $15 and I needed to be able to feed myself for a week on that.

If you want to live on healthy food your bulk buys will be dried lentils, beans, rice. You will get up earlier or take a bus to the local food market (not organic/ farmers market, just a place where you buy fruit off the street) so that you can get 7 lemons for £1 instead of 3. You will buy the red apples because they're cheaper even though you prefer the green because hey, you're on a budget. You will take the time/effort to grow food. You will cut back on buying new clothes because you have to eat. You're not going to drop £3 on a carton of egg whites, £3 can buy you 18 free range eggs.

I guess this is what my mother did when we were growing up. Not always fun (lentilmania, a freezer full of peas and corn and spinach because fresh was too pricey) but it worked. I'm trying to get to that place.

Of course there's every combination of in-between as well. Healthy eating isn't a zero-sum game. Just because a healthy option is expensive in McDonalds or you have access to low cost fresh vegetables makes no difference to this.

You may have a budget but you always have choices. You do what is possible given your circumstances and your inclinations.

Confuzzled4ever

I blow my budget every week on food.. because it's yummy.. and i like to cook.

Can't even feed myself on 30 bucks a week.

LassoOfTruth

I will not stop saying it, because it's true. My grocery bill went up (at least $50) each week.

dship83

One thing I have noticed is that since I started working out and dieting I have not gone out for dinner near as much as i used to. I may be spending a little more in the grocery store buying healthy food, but I am saving a lot by eating at home and not at a resturaunt so much...

Just an observation!

Khimmie77

This is hilarious. I love those chocolate, caramel and pecan treats myself

tapirfrog

Healthy food is more expensive.

There.

Tishrei

in...to learn how 30.00 feeds two people for a week....

I live by myself and spend about 150.00 a week....

yeah, I'm still waiting for that advice too.
we're a family of 7 + my inlaws for the summer. so that's 9 for now.
would love to know how to keep my food costs down to $270/week
we eat meat/chicken only once/week, and have the puny aforementioned garden and pretty much everything but some condiments are made from scratch at home. good food costs alot of money and the bulk of my bill is produce and milk.

but the tip to snare rabbits is a good one. we have racoons and squirrels, wonder how they taste?

RhonndaJ

Something to consider, not everyone on here lives in the same place. Prices vary with local and availability.

Where I am healthy food is more expensive. Okay, so everything is more expensive, but healthy food even more so. Produce quality is moderate to low, local produce is limited and not a great quality, and what little is better quality is even more expensive.

For us, the cost is simply a fact of life.

Edited to add: Mealwise, we very rarely eat anything out of the box, and never have.

But what do you mean when you say "healthy food?" Does produce have to be local in order to be healthy?

You're right, I should have clarified. Maybe natural would have been a better term. I meant things like fresh fruit and vegetables (I know frozen are perfectly healthy but my husband and I are not fond of the taste and texture of most of them). We don't buy locally grown produce because even the organics, which I could care less about, have low quality compared to imported.

Edited to add: Meat for us is a different matter as we buy ours wholesale so our costs there are lower than the general population.

jofjltncb6

IBTR...

...and to catch up on this epic thread...

...that I somehow missed until now.