But eating right is so expensive...

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.

I call BS on this. If it were true, the lowest income earners wouldn't have the highest percentage of smokers in their group.

I shop at Trader Joe's for certain items and notice that the average shopper there is fit, to slightly overweight. In their carts are a mix of what many on this site would consider 'more healthful' items. They seem to have no problem paying for them.

I shop at the local Mexican Supermarket because they have great produce & fresh meat prices. The average shoppers I see there are obese to morbidly obese. In their carts are a mixture of tortillas, sugary drinks, some produce and lots of carbohydrates. They also seem to have no problem paying for their groceries.

The real difference in these shoppers: education, upbringing and attitude.

I never said low income earners spend their money wisely, but they do have less access to healthy foods. I put links in a post above if anyone's interested in facts outside their personal experience.

eta: yes, it looks like I have my groucho pants on today, my apologies. :flowerforyou:

Okay honestly what you eat really has nothing to do with your income!! it has to do with your knowledge and want to eat healthy foods and stay active! I mean come on, I was raised in a very healthy home and then I got out in the world and bam! look at the ticker it shows and tells all.. I figured forget moms healthy meals and hello soda, candy, pizza and microwave!! We CHOOSE what we want to be, not because of our income. But because of the drive in us to either succeed or fail. I mean don't get me wrong I know there are health issues and other things that play a role for others ( I have one myself) but in the long run it all comes down to YOU!

So, how do you eat healthy food when you don't have a car and the only places to get food that you can walk, bike, or take the public transportation to are fast food and 7/11?

Make a stock with that chicken carcass! :happy: I'm a total frugal geek....a Chicken carcass (or bones accumulated from dinners saved in the freezer) a couple of carrots an celery tops, 1/2 an onion, a quartered potato and a bay leaf in a stock pot filled with water and simmered for a Saturday makes an impressive amount of stock! Freeze it in containers and you can make tasty homemade soups and stews for next to nothing. Best part.....no sodium! Campbell's/ Chunky/ Habitant..... Pfffft, you got nothing on homemade soup!

This is a tough conversation on a global scale like MFP. Personally I think it is way cheaper but more time consuming to eat less processed foods where I live (smallish town in BC, Canada) but I can see how in some parts of the world it is much different. In Northern Canada it is insanely expensive compared to the rest of the country for fresh foods and milk, we're talking $15 for a bag of apples (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/07/30/nutrition-north-food-subsidy-auditor-general_n_3677106.html). Something needs to be done about that!

I can get at least 1.5-2 meals out of a whole chicken for a family of four (including a ravenous teenage son), and I always freeze the stock after cooking the chicken. I usually boil the bird, cool, and shred the meat. Any shredded chicken I don't use for that night's meal goes into the freezer, which ends up being around a pound, depending on the size of the bird- usually more than enough for a second meal, and often, a workday lunch.

Considering chicken stock is, on average, $1.00 a can (about 2 cups?), saving and using the stock is where I "make my money back" on the cost of the chicken. It's the cheapest, most versatile protein you can buy.

The last couple of years, I've also bought an "extra" turkey during the holiday season for later in the winter- they are even cheaper than whole chickens when they're in season. You have to do some prep work, but it's so inexpensive it's worth an hour of a weekend afternoon to do it.

ETA: It's NOT that expensive to eat healthy. It takes a little time, some nutritional education, calculations, and mostly, experience. Put some time and effort into it if it's something you care about. Read healthy food blogs (there are some FANTASTIC ones out there!), type up a dinner schedule (this REALLY helps me, including on cutting costs!) and take your time in the grocery store, to really think about what you're buying, when you will be using it, if it fits in with your lifestyle goals, and if it's cost/time effective for you. It all simply takes some practice.

You're welcome! I rarely buy chicken/turkey stock anymore, which saves me big money- I use it in an awful lot of recipes- especially in the winter when I do a lot of soups. I ladle it into sandwich size ziplocks, lay them flat on a cookie sheet, and freeze them. Once they are frozen, they are pretty easy to find room for if I have to rearrange. If I'm feeling lazy, I just use bigger ziplocks.

Okay honestly what you eat really has nothing to do with your income!! it has to do with your knowledge and want to eat healthy foods and stay active! I mean come on, I was raised in a very healthy home and then I got out in the world and bam! look at the ticker it shows and tells all.. I figured forget moms healthy meals and hello soda, candy, pizza and microwave!! We CHOOSE what we want to be, not because of our income. But because of the drive in us to either succeed or fail. I mean don't get me wrong I know there are health issues and other things that play a role for others ( I have one myself) but in the long run it all comes down to YOU!

So, how do you eat healthy food when you don't have a car and the only places to get food that you can walk, bike, or take the public transportation to are fast food and 7/11?

Well I myself normally walk the 8 miles it is to the store and get what I want and put it in a backpack. I only have one car and my husband normally has it all day for work. *shrugs* I mean it depends on who you are and what you are willing to do for your health. I understand most people can't do that and I have no ill will towards them. But it has nothing to do with the income. It has to do with other means that stop you from being able to get to the healthy food.

The two factors the USDA uses in determining if an area is a food desert are income and proximity to grocery stores. Income is a factor in one's access to healthy food. To make ends meet, people making minimum wage typically have to have two or three jobs, and thus are unlikely to have time to walk 8 miles to the store. Yes, these obstacles can be overcome, but that in and of itself can put a lot of strain on a family. My point is, there are many factors that affect whether or not someone has access to healthy food, and income is one of them. It's a complicated issue, and it will take many methods to solve it.

Okay honestly what you eat really has nothing to do with your income!! it has to do with your knowledge and want to eat healthy foods and stay active! I mean come on, I was raised in a very healthy home and then I got out in the world and bam! look at the ticker it shows and tells all.. I figured forget moms healthy meals and hello soda, candy, pizza and microwave!! We CHOOSE what we want to be, not because of our income. But because of the drive in us to either succeed or fail. I mean don't get me wrong I know there are health issues and other things that play a role for others ( I have one myself) but in the long run it all comes down to YOU!

So, how do you eat healthy food when you don't have a car and the only places to get food that you can walk, bike, or take the public transportation to are fast food and 7/11?

Well I myself normally walk the 8 miles it is to the store and get what I want and put it in a backpack. I only have one car and my husband normally has it all day for work. *shrugs* I mean it depends on who you are and what you are willing to do for your health. I understand most people can't do that and I have no ill will towards them. But it has nothing to do with the income. It has to do with other means that stop you from being able to get to the healthy food.

Is it uphill both ways?;)

ETA: You live in MAINE, and you walk 8 miles to get groceries? In the winter?

ha ha its up hill one way!! In the winter I will snowshoe sometimes to get little things if its a nice sunny day out. But most days I will wait till saturday when I can have the car

Well, I can tell you that tomorrow, 9/12/13, I will have been doing this for 18 months, and I can tell you that I have spent way less money eating healthy than I did before. A lot less money. If you are eating correct portion sizes and cooking from scratch, I don't know how it could be more expensive. Buying sale items, preparing and freezing individual portions.

Sorry, I just don't buy the more expensive theory.

Oh another one of these arguments. Yes it is more expensive, it just depends on how much you want to eat healthy and you can make it happen. In the UK we have the NHS so dont pay for medicine. It comes out our taxes

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.

Organic is a fad? Lol. I'll be sure to let my naturopath know that and my father in laws John Hopkins oncologist know that.

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?

Dude, right on. For me personally just with quick calculations I've saved over 3K by not having a monthly blood pressure medication or having to buy supplies for my CPAP machine. Those are the only things that I figured out but I know there is more.
People that say it's to expensive to eat healthy are just looking for an excuse to keep eating the way they are. Great Post.

I find healthy eating cheaper than eating junk

I dont buy pop (soda), chips (fries), crisps, chocolate, cheese, pudding etc

I stock up on veg and meat and I cook as much as I can from scratch my food bill is less than it used to be as its more thought out and controlled

I find healthy eating cheaper than eating junk

I dont buy pop (soda), chips (fries), crisps, chocolate, cheese, pudding etc

I stock up on veg and meat and I cook as much as I can from scratch my food bill is less than it used to be as its more thought out and controlled

This is how I feel. Chicken breast is $1.99 a pound at Walmart. Frozen veggies are a buck a small bag and maybe $5 for a HUGE bag. Farmers markets are pretty cheap if you go the fresh route. The argument I usually hear is how a salad at a restaurant costs more than a burger. So? Cook at home and skip the mark up on either.

For me personally, food and fitness are two places I am willing to spend more money. I will shop at TJ Maxx and Marshals until the day I die for my clothes and drive my car until it's falling apart. But even when I was making much less money than I do now it was much cheaper for me to buy whole foods and cook for myself than it was for me to eat fast food, buy frozen dinners and other prepared meals or food items. And this was in a supposed BFE town in Montana.

I understand that not everyone has good financial situations and we all live in different ares. But I also bet that if people ran out the cost of prepping your own meals and yes even the time it takes if you use things like slow cookers while you are at work, the cost and time of fast food and prepared food items really isn't that much cheaper. Just takes a little bit of planning to do... which is work... which most people don't want to do.

I'm not guessing, I've kept financial track: I spend less now that I'm eating healthy foods than I did when I was eating junk. Alcohol, chips and dip, candy is outrageously expensive. I find it amazing how little per pound it costs to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

Eating healthy would be cheaper for me if I didn't buy organic. The biggest change is the time it takes to prepare meals now instead of unwrapping them. I can do this because I only work part time, but it would be much harder if both parents worked full time. Sometimes, there's a 15 minute window between activities to actually eat. So, I can understand why it seems daunting to eat healthy.

Quite a few foods that are raised "organic" don't actual involve any different practices than what is involved in standard agricultural operations: http://whole9life.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/whole9-seasonal-produce-2012.pdf