Healthiest Cheap Food In America

Thanks!! I love the Eat This Not That series and this is really nice to see how to do it on a budget.

awesome! awesome! awesome! awesome!


thanks so much!!!

this is great, thanks!

Great article, but does anyone on a budget actually pay $4.50 for a box of cereal? Just asking...

for instance eggs @ $1.76/doz are from corporate farms that don't give a crap about your health. eggs are something you should pay more for and therefore eat less of. but just bcause you pay more for it, doesn't mean your overall budget should go up.

Could you elaborate on this? I love eggs, and I eat a lot of them. Why is it better to pay more for eggs and eat fewer of them? Is it better for me? The chickens? The environment? And if more expensive eggs are better for all of the above, why shouldn't I eat as many as I do of the "bad" eggs?

Could you elaborate on this? I love eggs, and I eat a lot of them. Why is it better to pay more for eggs and eat fewer of them? Is it better for me? The chickens? The environment? And if more expensive eggs are better for all of the above, why shouldn't I eat as many as I do of the "bad" eggs?

Well, there are a number of reasons, but I'll try to list them all:

1) Corporate egg farms are raising sick hens. The corporate farm is all about the dollar, and therefore they're not exporting food, they're exporting "product". The hens are typically kept in very poor conditions and become sick or lame (the lameness in itself doesn't hurt the egg, but the fact that the lameness is a byproduct of the sickness is the problem). These chickens are fed the cheapest feed possible.

2) Much of the cheap chicken feed is laden with GMO crops. We don't know exactly how GMOs will react in our bodies, even second-hand (egg), but what we DO KNOW FOR SURE is that many GMO crops are created to withstand heavy applications of herbicides and pesticides, which gets run off into rivers, lakes and other soils. The feed itself will likely contain these same chemicals which the chickens eat and then we eat.

3) Eggs are a high source of protein and cholesterol, but they're very good for you if they're eaten moderately, maybe a couple times a week? With low-nutrient eggs, you are getting the cholesterol without the nutrient. The yolk of an egg should be almost orange, not yellow.

4) Corporate accountability does not truly exist - they have millions of dollars invested in marketing teams to combat the bad press. I don't even trust the "organic" or "free range" label much myself, though I will choose them if I'm in a pinch. These labels have been bastardized by lobbyists to mean very different things than what they really are. For instance, "free range" can mean anything from a little bit of sunlight to actually free range. Marketers lie.

5) Purchasing eggs from a local, responsible, ethical chicken farm supports a local business whose livelihood actually DEPENDS on the quality of their product / word of mouth. You should be able to drop in on your farmer and keep him honest.

for instance eggs @ $1.76/doz are from corporate farms that don't give a crap about your health. eggs are something you should pay more for and therefore eat less of. but just bcause you pay more for it, doesn't mean your overall budget should go up.

Could you elaborate on this? I love eggs, and I eat a lot of them. Why is it better to pay more for eggs and eat fewer of them? Is it better for me? The chickens? The environment? And if more expensive eggs are better for all of the above, why shouldn't I eat as many as I do of the "bad" eggs?

Yeah, please specify about the eggs. I'm wondering if you're talking about the way they treat & feed the chickens that produce the eggs as in the chickens are unhealthy, then so are the eggs?

Eggs are healthy for you. Not sure why you said we should eat less of them. One large egg has 6 grams of easily digestable protein and all the essential amino acids and are a significant source of a number of vitamins and minerals.

Thanks for your input. I buy my eggs from the grocery store, but they come from a farm just miles from our home: http://www.wilcoxfarms.com/consumer/index.html#

So it's commercial, but it's local. Their website sounds (to me) like they're doing things the right way. Do you think I should be skeptical? And, while I do eat a load of eggs, I eat very few yolks. I have one yolk in my scrambled eggs every morning. If I eat more eggs in the day (and I often do), I eat just the whites.

*I* would be skeptical, but if it's very close to your house, why don't you just drop in on the farm? Don't take my word (or anybody's for that matter) about it. If it seems fine to you, then fine. But I wouldn't take the website as proof that it's fine. Its your body, you put what you think you should in it.

Good luck!

Okay, so I posted my previous reply before yours was. Ignore it. ha

no problem. the eat less part was regarding the budget. I'm a fan of pay more, eat less to keep in budget.

Okay, so do you think if I paid a little more for the eggs I buy, they'd be a little better nutritional wise? There are no local farms where I live, so I can't really go to one and buy them.

go to http://www.localharvest.org

for new orleans, go here: http://www.localharvest.org/search.jsp?lat=29.932682&lon=-90.0732&scale=10&ty=-1