Eating healthy costs more

DaBossLady24

It's like the woman who said she can feed her kids cheaper by going to McD's because it's $2 for a Happy Meal. Assuming she has 3 children and herself at a minimum that's $8 she could have spent if she also ate a Happy Meal. I'm thinking for $8 I could make a fairly decent meal with a lot more nutrition than anything McD's is serving!

A lot of it comes down to laziness (expecting everything to be prepacked and convenient) and the false impression that you need to only buy organically grown, hand harvested by Tibetan monks on the rising of the full moon fruits and vegetables.

You are wonderful for this.

DoomCakes

What makes 90/10 a better quality ground beef?

Less fat = more meat, most people view the fat as waste.

Edit: There is also a perception that less fat = healthier/better therefore they charge a premium for it because people will pay it.

I just vote for taste. Honestly the less fat the less grease that builds up. I can't stand the taste of a greasy burger or meat loaf for some reason. But that's just a personal preference.

mrsclc

I like to remind myself that it's cheaper than your medical bills and medication will be later on due to poor food choices made now.

Athena53

Eating unhealthy will cost you more in the long run when you're at the doctor 24-7.

Yeah, but the insurance pays for it, right? So it's free!

Seriously- we have a High Deductible Plan and i don't like prescriptions anyway. I LOVE cheap prevention.

drchimpanzee

I love Spring, Summer, and early Fall because it's wayyyyyyyyy cheaper to get fresh veggies from the farmers market. Plus I even tend to load up on some of the expiring stuff and freeze them. In the winter I tend to just get large bags of frozen veggies from the store. As far as being cheaper/more expensive to eat healthy I think it depends on how extreme you go. Sure, if you buy ultra organic grain fed free range chickens that were massaged daily and raised an isolated tribe of monks in Tibet yeah, you will probably pay a premium. Other than that it's mostly the same. The real investment is time and that's the real reason people don't want to eat healthy. They don't want to think about food. They want it to be easy. They want to yank something out of a box and have it be ready two minutes.

vicky1804

For me personaly the cost isnt that bad.
My husband is a picky eater and wont eat many fruits and vegetables. It has caused arguements before as im concerned for his health but I cant make him change.

So for me I buy 1-3 types of fruit and 1-3 types of veg depending on whats on offer/cheapest. Other things I have built up over time, brown rice, cous cous, quinoa, lentils etc and use chicken and fish from the freezer.

Riemersma4

What makes 90/10 a better quality ground beef?

Less fat = more meat, most people view the fat as waste.

Edit: There is also a perception that less fat = healthier/better therefore they charge a premium for it because people will pay it.

I just vote for taste. Honestly the less fat the less grease that builds up. I can't stand the taste of a greasy burger or meat loaf for some reason. But that's just a personal preference.

85/15 ground beef, bought in bulk when it goes on sale, add some seasoning salt or garlic powder, make patties, toss it on the George Foreman grill (a dieters best friend)! Yum! Most of the grease runs off. Great taste and reasonable fat/calorie ratio.

fiferize

eating healthy only costs more if you have a family like mine where everyone eats differently. There is me eating clean and lean, my husband who has a different schedule and refuses to cook for himself unless it involves microwaving so he eats processed/prepared foods, and the son who will only eat pizza, burgers, mac and cheese and chicken patties. So there ya have it. If you can get everyone to eat the same as you it's cheaper to eat healthy! I swear by it. The money you save eating clean and lean helps you afford all the fresh fruits and vegies.

jakidb

I totally agree with the post--the few cents is well worth it and pretty much evens out with what you normally spend (at least for me)

714rah714

I just wanna know why grapes are so damn expensive. It's like $6 for a bag of grapes yet I can buy a cheap bottle of wine for $3. :sad:


Other than that, I find we spend less buying healthy food!

Because you have to pay for all the grapes that they don't sell and which end up being thrown away..

Mokey41

I just wanna know why grapes are so damn expensive. It's like $6 for a bag of grapes yet I can buy a cheap bottle of wine for $3. :sad:
Other than that, I find we spend less buying healthy food!

Because you aren't eating wine grapes and most governments highly subsidize their wine industry so they can dump it cheap into other countries.

Treece68

Buying a whole chicken costs less then buying just breast or cutlets and you can make so many meals out of it ... if you a willing to cut up a whole chicken which many people are not.
I make every meal and only spend about $40 a week for two people it just depends on how you plan and work with what you have.

bmqbonnie

I was all ready for a rant. Heh.

It seems expensive when you go to the store and you buy a bunch of veggies, canned goods, spices, etc to cook from scratch with compared to buying a couple frozen pizzas and ramen, but the prior goes so much further. Once you build a collection of necessities in your pantry it is so much cheaper.

Healthy food is not more expensive than unheatlhy food. "Healthy" PROCESSED food is more expensive. For example, Amy's pizzas and prepared stuff from Trader Joe's, lean pockets vs hot, etc. You can make any of that stuff from scratch and come out way ahead.

Also hate the time excuse. In the time it took you to get in the car and go to a restaurant, you could have thrown together a salad.

I also do a big cooking day about once a month so I have stuff in the freezer that I can just heat up on a day I'm low on time. I have ready to go taco and spaghetti meat, meatloaf, and a bunch of stuff that can be thrown into the crock pot in the morning and will be all ready that evening.

I also stopped buying lunch meat and instead cook a whole turkey, ham or roast and then put it into baggies and freeze extras for making sandwiches.

susanp57

It does take some planning to cook for one person and I still lose foods to spoilage on occasion. But the freezer is your friend. Double wrap meats to help prevent freezer burn. Foodsaver makes a little handheld shrink wrapper that is very useful for about $20.

To give an example, I bought a big pork loin roast that was on special. I sliced off several chops and two smaller roasts.

In my freezer I also have frozen burgers (which is a good way to freeze ground beef even if you want to use it for something else), beef meatballs, turkey meatballs, chuck for bourguinon, etc. I also freeze soup portions.

I think I'll have one of those pork roasts for Super Bowl Sunday.

HTH,

5ftnFun

A woman looked at my grocery cart one day and said, no wonder you are so skinny, look at all that healthy food. I smiled and agreed with her. To that she replies, well, I can not afford to eat healthy. I added up the groceries in my cart which came to 36 dollars, we added up JUST THE CRAP food in her cart, like chips, little debbie cakes and soda and just that came to 40 bucks. Then, realizing what she had done, she starts in on how she has to have snacks for the kids. In order to not start a fight about her feeding her children crap, I walked away.

I am of the belief I can not afford NOT to eat healthy. My deductible is 4000 and have you seen the prices of prescription drugs these days?

In saying that, I have made the choice to keep driving a car I have had for 14 years. I also do not spend much money on expensive hand bags or other accessories for show. We spend our money on investments, and the biggest investment we have is our health.

I live like you do. I save money at the store when I don't buy the sodas & cookies, drive my car til it falls apart, buy a new coat during the end of the season sales, etc. It works. My grocery bill is less than it used to be by far. It can be done and it's worth it.

HJMAYES

what you are getting is 14.4 ounces of meat and 1.6 ounces of fat to pour down the drain.

Please don't pour your fat down the drain...it's bad for the pipes. :bigsmile:

zenalae

I was about to ask a similar question.

Im from the UK and cook for 2 of us but was wondering is it cheaper to cook from scratch or not? I don't mean buying ready meals that you stick in the microwave or anything like that, just things like the Birds Eye chicken fillet things for example, or stuffed mushrooms Tesco sell.

Also, is it cheaper to shop at supermarkets generally or shops like fruit and veg, butchers... ?

I LOVE the idea of cooking from scratch, eating healthy and being able to say "I made that" but we're shopping on a budget.

im from the uk too, and i find making things from scratch much cheaper. stuffed mushrooms especially, you can make much more than the prepacked ones and you know what is inside them! the little veg shops are usually really good on prices, a lot of the time cheaper than asda depending on what is in season. have a shop around! lol

tturley

Dortios from a vending machine. 1.75oz for $.85 works out to $7.77 per pound. You can buy a log of apples for that.