STOP saying healthy food is more expensive

To clarify, $6-15/lb beef tends to be 'grocery store beef.' Things like "angus prime" aren't real grades of beef. USDA choice, USDA prime, those are real grades of beef.

There really isn't a difference in walmart beef and grocery store beef.

IF you buy from a butcher, ask where they get their beef. One around here buys it bulk frozen... No more cows.

That said. Whole Foods is a decent place for steak.


But anyway, I was joking about steak vs potato chips. I frequently shop at Costco for steak. It isn't terrific, but they do cut it at 1.5" which should be the minimum thickness.

lol- steak at Whole Foods will set you back at least $30! For not too many portions
my 2cents: food overall is expensive, the Federal subsidies keep processed food cheaper- a sad state (at least in USA).
This keeps the SAD going (standard american diet).

This is a non-issue for me. Food is something I'm willing to spend money on. I'll make sacrifices in other areas if I have to, but I've invested too much time and money in my education and my career to say that I can't afford to eat what I want. I'll get rid of cable, Internet, phone, trips, etc., before I cut back on groceries. I do try not to be wasteful with the food I buy because wasting food is just dumb, but that's about as financially concerned as I'm going to get on the subject.

For me personally- I feel the same way. I drive an old car with 240,000 miles on it, but I'll spend whatever it costs for fresh, healthy food - it's one thing in my life that I do not mind splurging on. I do try my best to eat everything that I buy, and I will buy things that can be stocked up on when they are on sale (when blueberries are on a big sale, for instance, I fill up the freezer!), and I'll look at what's on sale today when it comes down to deciding to buy wild caught fish or organic chicken, for example. But other than that - I'll pay the money for good fresh food. I don't care if it costs me more to eat healthy because I enjoy it and it makes me feel better and I'm lucky enough to be able to make that happen. Though if it came down to it I would cancel our cable TV and things like that before I made sacrifices regarding what I eat.

I do completely understand that not everyone can afford to do that, and not everyone has any other areas they can cut back on. If you can't afford to buy organic or whatever, that's completely understandable. I would agree though that in most places you can still find non-organic produce and beans/rice/lentils/etc. that are going to be cheaper than fast food or boxed microwave meals. Is it more work? Yes. But it's not THAT much more work. I can make a crockpot full of food that lasts me the better part of a week and it takes 20 minutes tops to chop vegetables and get it going. And then maybe 5 minutes when it's done to portion it out and stick it in the fridge. Ultimately it's saving me time. You can do healthy, cheap, and easy if you put your mind to it.

lol its so weird how people are trying to make excuses for filling their body with toxic garbage. i spend about $120 +/- on groceries per month so yeah i guess that's $30 a week. mainly fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, and dried beans, and rice. i shop at asian markets, farmers markets, and grocery stores. i would rather eat a giant delicious healthy meal and feel awesome later than eat some ****ty salty candy ultra processed fast food and feel awful. it takes more time and initially costs more (to stock a pantry), but once you get used to cooking for yourself you will never want to go back to eating garbage.

So, please stop with the excuses that eating healthy is too expensive. Grow a garden, pack some carrots, stay up an extra 10 mins to prepare a meal for the next day. Jeepers Creepers, quit complaining and research what groceries you have locally and what seasons good food comes in season/what freezes for winter when fruits and veggies go up in price.

How are you supposed to grow a garden if you life in a flat without a garden? And yes, we could all go out today and buy the stuff to grow them but wait, you have to plant them at certain times of the year. Like if you planted potatoes now they wouldn't be ready until Christmas (and I know that for a fact because my father is growing them). Yes you could go and "research what groceries you have locally" but there are a lot of us who live in the UK where local greengrocers and butchers and fishmongers are dying out and we only have supermarkets. It's unfair to put up a generic comment like this and expect us to all jump and be able to do it. Some of us can't. Our nearest green-grocer (as in only sells fruit and veg) is over 40 miles away. And I don't drive. I'm not saying that all I buy is junk food and I don't eat take-aways much but I will buy tinned and frozen food because it is cheaper.

I'm not buying organic apples or $30 steaks. I'm making healthy choices of bags of apples and babies carrots over $4.00 bags of chips and cheese whiz. There are plenty of ways to have produce during the entire year by canning/freezing while the items are in season. I am just tired of people's excuses on why they make unhealthy choices.

Not everyone has a good income. I don't. I just finished my degree and my hubby works at a gas station. I am willing to pay for quality food over stupid cable TV. Sorry. I have priorities. My body being one of them.

When you eat the way you should as an adult, you don't need to eat a HUGE amount... I'm not talking about growing teens or families. I'm just saying that the normal suburb living young adult with potentially a spouse could afford to not eat chips and soda pop and instead eat a much more sustainable diet... a dinner for 2 adults at mcdonalds can be over $15... I can make 3 dinners with $15 that are delicious and nutritious. So sorry that ya'll would rather feed yourselves microwave dinners and juice boxes.

Sorry but categorizing foods with no regard to context or amount is silly talk. Also I suspect your 3 dinners you made for $15 wouldn't be very good or extremely small portions

Also this. I eat 1800+ calories a day. My husband eats more than that, way more. I'm taking in 600-700 calories at dinner: is the dinner I make for my husband and I going to well balanced, tasty, and meet our calorie needs?

lol its so weird how people are trying to make excuses for filling their body with toxic garbage. i spend about $120 +/- on groceries per month so yeah i guess that's $30 a week. mainly fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, and dried beans, and rice. i shop at asian markets, farmers markets, and grocery stores. i would rather eat a giant delicious healthy meal and feel awesome later than eat some ****ty salty candy ultra processed fast food and feel awful. it takes more time and initially costs more (to stock a pantry), but once you get used to cooking for yourself you will never want to go back to eating garbage.

lol @ food other than fruits and veggies, eggs, dried beans & rice being "toxic garbage".

also, i wish I had time to go to 3 grocery stores.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/is-junk-food-really-cheaper.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

You have obviously never been poor and tried to feed an entire family.

When my husband was growing up, they would buy bulk beans and rice and tortillas. Throw in some eggs and that was breakfast lunch and dinner for DAYS. Cost pp per meal? Like twenty five cents. Or hot dogs! One pack of hot dogs and buns and a can of chili? $3. Or spaghetti! Back before meat wasnt through the roof expensive, it was a $6 meal they could eat on for days. Or a giant pack of sausage. Or the dollar menu at McDonald's.

There's "rich people" junk food' and "poor people" junk food. People really strapped for cash don't indulge in shopping carts full of name brand sodas, TV dinners, oreos, and Twinkies. They also don't want to munch on carrots like a rabbit. They want hearty, filling meals that stick so their kids aren't asking for a snack in 2 hours.

^^This

When you don't have a lot of money for groceries you don't fill your cart with "junk". You fill it with necessities. It was rare we bought chips, cookies, soft drinks, juice or even milk.

When I used to have dinner with my husbands family as a teen they'd have tacos a lot. I thought it was insane that it was just meat and a shell. Where was the lettuce, tomato, onion, CHEESE!
Well, now I know where it was. It was at the store. Instead of luxury items, they bought more meat and tortillas so there would be more tacos to go around.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/is-junk-food-really-cheaper.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

This is just plain wrong. In fact it isn’t cheaper to eat highly processed food: a typical order for a family of four — for example, two Big Macs, a cheeseburger, six chicken McNuggets, two medium and two small fries, and two medium and two small sodas — costs, at the McDonald’s a hundred steps from where I write, about $28. (Judicious ordering of “Happy Meals” can reduce that to about $23 — and you get a few apple slices in addition to the fries!)

In general, despite extensive government subsidies, hyperprocessed food remains more expensive than food cooked at home. You can serve a roasted chicken with vegetables along with a simple salad and milk for about $14, and feed four or even six people. If that’s too much money, substitute a meal of rice and canned beans with bacon, green peppers and onions; it’s easily enough for four people and costs about $9. (Omitting the bacon, using dried beans, which are also lower in sodium, or substituting carrots for the peppers reduces the price further, of course.

A. I could feed a family of 4 at McDonalds for about half that.

B. Why compare McDonalds (an example of expensive 'unhealthy' food) to cheap store bought food? Why not compare hamburger helper to the other stuff?

C. A pack of pork bacon is no less than $7 where I live. How would I have money left for Green Peppers and onions? Also what kind of meal is that? I would be starving two hours later. Four chicken breast alone would set me back over ten dollars. A head of lettuce is 1.69. Milk is $4 for a half gallon.

ANYWAYS what are you doing at the store that takes so long? i BIKE to the store, pick out what i want, bike home in under 30 minutes. everyone making excuses here is just lazy and wasteful.

Lazy and wasteful? Can I ask where you live? I don't need the precise area just the country will do. Cause here in the UK some of us really don't have the time to be doing all of that. We are all on this site to try and lose weight and are doing the best we can. Posts like this original topic and some of the comments on here aren't helpful in the slightest. All they do is make people feel bad because they don't have the same luxury of time or the same options for shopping as you seem to.

I honestly just bought $30 worth of fresh veggies, whole grain bread, meats, milk and cheese. I know it will last my hubby and I at least an entire week....

I calculated how much it would cost to get mac and cheese and chips and soda and crappy foods, I could get about the same amount of food, but a bag of chips goes so fast and it's not filling and makes you feel uber icky. I know that if I bought $30 of junk food, fast food, quick meals - I would not be able to sustain more than a few days between two people.

So, please stop with the excuses that eating healthy is too expensive. Grow a garden, pack some carrots, stay up an extra 10 mins to prepare a meal for the next day. Jeepers Creepers, quit complaining and research what groceries you have locally and what seasons good food comes in season/what freezes for winter when fruits and veggies go up in price.

I've written out 3 replies to this and deleted all 3 because I can't be even reasonably civil in the face of this degree of blatant ignorance, condescension, and stupidity. The long and short comes to: 1) You've quite obviously never been significantly poor enough to have real food choices to make, yet you want to talk about their food choices like you have some idea of what you speak of. 2) You obviously have never fed a significant number of people or children and have no real concept of what is important in food choices first and foremost when on a limited budget 3) Gardens are a luxury. Deep freezers are a luxury. Time to do the **** you're talking about is a luxury. A huge number of people don't have those luxuries.

Frankly, your false moral superiority, condescending attitude, and desire to look down upon others based on objective food choices without any knowledge of their situation is sickening and deserves nothing but scorn and ridicule.

^^^^THIS^^^^ TOTALLY AGREE!!!!!!!!

You have NO IDEA what being broke and having a family to feed is like... Cheap junk food is more affordable than healthy food.. unfortunately...

^^ AGREE!

I like turtles.

:laugh: :drinker:

B. Why compare McDonalds (an example of expensive 'unhealthy' food) to cheap store bought food? Why not compare hamburger helper to the other stuff?

Because they can't make their point without skewing the numbers because the point doesn't reflect reality.

I honestly just bought $30 worth of fresh veggies, whole grain bread, meats, milk and cheese. I know it will last my hubby and I at least an entire week....

I calculated how much it would cost to get mac and cheese and chips and soda and crappy foods, I could get about the same amount of food, but a bag of chips goes so fast and it's not filling and makes you feel uber icky. I know that if I bought $30 of junk food, fast food, quick meals - I would not be able to sustain more than a few days between two people.

So, please stop with the excuses that eating healthy is too expensive. Grow a garden, pack some carrots, stay up an extra 10 mins to prepare a meal for the next day. Jeepers Creepers, quit complaining and research what groceries you have locally and what seasons good food comes in season/what freezes for winter when fruits and veggies go up in price.

I've written out 3 replies to this and deleted all 3 because I can't be even reasonably civil in the face of this degree of blatant ignorance, condescension, and stupidity. The long and short comes to: 1) You've quite obviously never been significantly poor enough to have real food choices to make, yet you want to talk about their food choices like you have some idea of what you speak of. 2) You obviously have never fed a significant number of people or children and have no real concept of what is important in food choices first and foremost when on a limited budget 3) Gardens are a luxury. Deep freezers are a luxury. Time to do the **** you're talking about is a luxury. A huge number of people don't have those luxuries.

Frankly, your false moral superiority, condescending attitude, and desire to look down upon others based on your subjectively better food choices without any knowledge of their situation is sickening and deserves nothing but scorn and ridicule.

First of all, HIGH FIVE, and secondly *hugs* AMEN!!!

You just said everything I was thinking of! I have FOUR kids - one is grown, married, and has a baby of her own (granted she is my step-daughter, but I put food in her belly and helped care for her, so she counts as one of my own), one 17 yr old who lives full time with his father but does come here to snack at my place too, and two more teens who are here with me full time and eat five or more times a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I feed them. Not welfare, and even IF welfare was involved, I can confidently say that the funds I'd even get from that wouldn't be enough to cover the HEALTHY choices I'd have to make to provide these mouths (excluding my husband or even myself) with. I mean... seriously.... this is a child (I don't care if she is 23 or not... her remarks reflect that of a childish thought process) thinks she is talking to? A bunch of "one size fits all" people?

Please go volunteer at a soup kitchen or something before my head explodes.

QFT.

Seriously, I lived on rice and ramen for six months and was thrilled out of my mind to be able to get a pack of american cheese just to make them taste differently... and comparative to some people that wasn't such a bad way to eat for a few months.