But eating right is so expensive...

SummerLovesPhil

Just some grist for your mill, next time you think eating well costs too much. I carry this information around with me for when I'm feeling whiny about my grocery bill.

Estimated lifetime cost of diabetes for an individual diagnosed at age 30, including out-of-pocket medical costs and lost productivity: $305,000. (American Diabetes Association)
Estimated lifetime cost of a heart attack: $700,000 to $1 milion, depending on the severity. (American Heart Association)
Average cost of one year of treatment for a woman with colorectal cancer: $51,327. (National Institutes of Health)

Average increase to my weekly grocery bill so the three of us can eat decent food: $30. If I spent that every week until I turned 100, that would be $103,080. Probably worth it, eh?

jwdieter

If you're eating 3000 calories/day, and you cut that back to 2000 calories/day, you could shave over 30% off your food costs.

SummerLovesPhil

I disagree. In fact, that's exactly the problem with our food supply: Healthful foods cost more than empty calories by orders of magnitude. The number one predictor of obesity in the US is income level, and the very fact that I've decided to alter my lifestyle is an exercise in economic privilege.

The cheapest calories on our grocery shelves are from government-subsidized commodity foods: Corn, soybeans, and the resulting cheap animal products. Think boxed mac & cheese, packaged ramen, and the like. If you eat those foods until you're not hungry anymore, you will have eaten too many calories. If you have to do that every day, you're going to get fat and sick. Eating well costs quite a bit more money than eating the standard American diet, which is why most people don't do it.

sloth3toes

If you're eating 3000 calories/day, and you cut that back to 2000 calories/day, you could shave over 30% off your food costs.

I disagree. In fact, that's exactly the problem with our food supply: Healthful foods cost more than empty calories by orders of magnitude. The number one predictor of obesity in the US is income level, and the very fact that I've decided to alter my lifestyle is an exercise in economic privilege.

The cheapest calories on our grocery shelves are from government-subsidized commodity foods: Corn, soybeans, and the resulting cheap animal products. Think boxed mac & cheese, packaged ramen, and the like. If you eat those foods until you're not hungry anymore, you will have eaten too many calories. If you have to do that every day, you're going to get fat and sick. Eating well costs quite a bit more money than eating the standard American diet, which is why most people don't do it.

I'm all about your statements regarding the cost of getting sick vs the cost of staying healthy.... but, I think what jwdieter is saying is, that the cost of your food is directly proportional to how much you eat. I can't see anything wrong with the logic there. That is, if you continue to eat the exact same food, just 30% less... that will cut your food bill by 30%.

magerum

Your entire premise is faulty.

bethannien

Dry black beans: about 99 cents per lb. Makes about 5 cups of prepared beans.
Frozen chicken breasts: about $8 for a bag containing 6-10 breasts.
Frozen blueberries: $11 for a 5 lb bag at costco. (I bought a bag in July that I'm still working through)
Whole wheat pasta costs maybe 25 cents more than white pasta.
Brown basmati rice is also about $1per pound, delicious and lower arsenic content than regular brown rice.

I spend LESS on food when I'm eating healthier because I eat out less frequently and my junk food budget is a fraction of what it was. I used to buy chips every time they were 2 for 5. That's $5 I can spend on fresh produce. I would buy 1-3 candy bars every timeI went to the store. I can buy a carton of greek yogurt instead. It ddoesn't have to cost much more if any.

Will_Thrust_For_Candy

I also disagree that it is more expensive.

Ultimately healthy choices provide a lot more nutrition which keeps you full MUCH longer than processed food. You are actually eating a fraction of what you would otherwise. At first it feels like it's so much more pricey, but once you get into the habit of what to buy and start eliminating the "other" things from your shopping trip, you really notice how much less it actually is.

ryry_

WTF am I doing on this site? I just need a second job

jwdieter

I'm all about your statements regarding the cost of getting sick vs the cost of staying healthy.... but, I think what jwdieter is saying is, that the cost of your food is directly proportional to how much you eat. I can't see anything wrong with the logic there. That is, if you continue to eat the exact same food, just 30% less... that will cut your food bill by 30%.

I'm a big fan of good food. I spend a lot of money on food, and I despise the Big Mac for posing as a hamburger. But if you're getting fat eating McDonalds, just cutting back on the calories will provide the lion's share of positive health change. Eating under maintenance will reduce weight and directly reduce your risks for obesity-related conditions - and this of course costs less than eating over maintenance.

If money is a concern, you can save money and improve your health at the same time by simply eating less. If you want to spend more, that's fine too.

nomeejerome

:huh:

laele75

Honestly, I spend less money on food than I used to. The $20 less a month I spend on my own junk food goes to adding to the kiddo's choices so he'll gain weight. Trader Joe's is the best place ever for people on special diets.

Birder150

I also spend less money when I'm eating whole food instead of processed food and other junk.
I eat much less because I'm more satisfied so that helps add to the savings.

Ed98043

I'm all about your statements regarding the cost of getting sick vs the cost of staying healthy.... but, I think what jwdieter is saying is, that the cost of your food is directly proportional to how much you eat. I can't see anything wrong with the logic there. That is, if you continue to eat the exact same food, just 30% less... that will cut your food bill by 30%.

Agreed. The issue with poverty and obesity is not just that they're eating cheap carbs, it's that they're eating large quantities of them. So if you buy a 50-cent box of mac and cheese and only eat half of it each day instead of the whole thing...wouldn't your cost go down 50%? And wouldn't your weight drop as well?

Cheap, energy-dense foods are also more "palatable" (they taste good and are comforting to eat) and so stimulate the consumer to eat in greater quantities. Also, I recently read a study where low-income households were provided with nutritious food that was more in line calorie-wise with their actual daily energy expenditures, but study subjects reported that while it was "enough" food, it was not the type of food they preferred to eat. It goes much deeper than just poor = cheap food = fat.

snazzyjazzy21

Just because you can access healthy foods, doesn't mean everyone can. Lower income areas have less access to healthy foods, and when they can get them, the prices are often greatly inflated. Never work on the assumption that everyone can eat healthy just because you can.

laele75

Just because you can access healthy foods, doesn't mean everyone can. Lower income areas have less access to healthy foods, and when they can get them, the prices are often greatly inflated. Never work on the assumption that everyone can eat healthy just because you can.

This is true. There is just no way I could have afforded to eat the diet I do now when I lived in BFE Nebraska. There were two overpriced local grocery store and a super Wal-Mart. Fruit and vegetables that aren't locally grown are obscenely expensive and we won't even talk about fish. It is much easier here in Seattle to eat healthy cheaply.

Mr_Knight

Just made a giant crockpot worth of stew - chicken thighs, mixed vegetables, brown rice, various spices/flavourings - an entire day's worth of food with killer macros for, like, $4.

No reason that eating healthy needs to be expensive.

eryquem

I disagree. In fact, that's exactly the problem with our food supply: Healthful foods cost more than empty calories by orders of magnitude. The number one predictor of obesity in the US is income level, and the very fact that I've decided to alter my lifestyle is an exercise in economic privilege.

The cheapest calories on our grocery shelves are from government-subsidized commodity foods: Corn, soybeans, and the resulting cheap animal products. Think boxed mac & cheese, packaged ramen, and the like. If you eat those foods until you're not hungry anymore, you will have eaten too many calories. If you have to do that every day, you're going to get fat and sick. Eating well costs quite a bit more money than eating the standard American diet, which is why most people don't do it.

Not really. WalMart sells a 5 box Value Pack of Mac & Cheese for $4.50. At 2.25 lbs for all 5, that ends up at $2.00/lb. Most fruits and vegetables are less than that price/lb, with the exception of a few fancy ones like asparagus or artichokes. It's also easy enough to find chicken breast for $2.00/lb if you watch for when it goes on sale. Whole chickens are often less than $1/lb (of course, you're going to be tossing the carcass, so it's not entirely a fair comparison, but still...)

And the fact is, a product like Mac & Cheese is on the low end of the cost scale for processed foods. When you start looking at things like frozen pizza, microwave dinners, breakfast cereals, and snack foods like Doritos and such, it's more like $4-$5/lb.

pavrg

It's only more expensive if you buy into organic produce, whole wheat pasta, 'healthy' TV dinners, and other fad stuff that really has no effect on anything.

If you just shy away from junk like cookies, chips, etc. and stay away from eating out, then eating healthy is significantly cheaper for you. My entire dinner tonight cost me less than $3.50/serving and comes in at under 650 calories.

kristafb

I switched to a plant based diet a month ago, no dairy,eggs, meat, cheese, fish or chicken and thought I'd have lower bills at the grocery store but just the contrary. I was spending about 40-50 a week and the last 4 weeks I've spend over 70-80 each week. Produce is expensive, if you want fresh, In my neck of the woods a small bunch of kale is $4, 3 small sweet potatoes cost me almost $5, a bag of oranges was $6. it adds up pretty fast. But on the other hand I can't put a price on how much better I feel physically & ethically so I'll keep forking out the dough

HeidiCooksSupper

I process folks at the local food pantry and it brings home to me each week how tough some folks have it. Imagine first that you only have a few hundred dollars coming in a month, you are already living in someone's basement or old trailer for the lowest rent you can find, you don't have a car or access to public transportation and your cupboards are bare. You have been looking for work but even the part-time, minimum wage job you had disappeared. In the US, the sequester means your food stamps were just cut to $30 or less a MONTH. These are the people I deal with every Monday afternoon during my volunteer stint.

They don't have many choices and they can only return to our organization once every thirty days. Some of the people I see are young, some old. Some healthy, some sick. I see people with severe handicaps, both physical and mental. Yesterday there was a victim of a drunken driver who had suffered a traumatic brain injury. These are the people that come to the food pantry.

Yesterday, one client said, no, he didn't have trouble with utility bills because he no longer lived somewhere with utilities. He lost his job; he lost the roof over his head. Although some of the people I see are overweight, many are thin, some painfully so. Sometimes they have cancer or degenerative bone disease, worked hard all their lives and have been wiped out by medical expenses. These are the people I see each Monday afternoon.

So, yes, I do believe you can eat very healthily as well as you can eat junk IF you have access to good food at reasonable prices and the knowledge to cook the healthy food. The people I see on Mondays may not have access to a pot to boil beans or the knowledge of how to do it. No one gives them salt and pepper to make the beans palatable. One mentally handicapped gentleman yesterday asked me what he could do with the bag of dry beans someone gave him. I explained how he could cook them in his crock pot like potatoes. He didn't have a stove. He really didn't know and had no one to tell him. He'd had the beans for a year.

So, it isn't easy. How healthy could you eat if your TOTAL income were $700 a month and $30 in food stamps?

armadillolabrat

It is definitely more expensive to eat fresh fruits and vegetables than processed/junk foods especially if you do not shop at big box stores like WalMart of Costco which I do not. I am only purchasing these things for a 2 person household but for someone who may have 2-3 children and be on a budget only shopping the "perimeter" of the store will definitely be felt in the wallet. Perhaps some people are saving money since they switched to a healthier diet due to the fact that they are now eating much less than they used to when they were buying items like chips or cookies.