Eating Healthy is so expensive: How do you do it?

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Eat fresh, in season foods.
Prepare meals from scratch.
Make big batches and freeze in individual (or family sized) portions.

A few more tips...

BULK BINS

buy anything you can from grocery store bulk bins. Beans, oatmeal, rice, bulgur, nuts, raisins, etc. are al significant;y cheaper when bought this way. They also tend be freshers, because the product turnover in these bins is faster than prepackaged goods.

BUY BONE IN CHICKEN

You pay an absurd premium for boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Why? Because you are paying the labor costs for someone else to handle your chicken. Chicken on the bone is significantly cheaper, has had less handling, and is tastier. If the recipe you are cooking absolutely has to be made with boneless chicken, it is worth the savings to do the butchering yourself.

BUY ON SALE AND FREEZE

We have a deep freezer that sits on the patio of our condo. When chicken breasts or whole chickens go on sale for $.99/lb or less, I stock up. This stash usually lasts me until the next sale. I also do this with chuck roasts or tri-tip.

MAKE SOUP

There simply isn't a better way to make your food dollar stretch than by making larger stashes of nourishing soup. You will use less meat and create a dish that feeds your family for pennies a meal. It is a great way to use leftovers, and to hide vegetables if you or your family are picky.

GRATE YOUR OWN CHEESE

Pre-grated cheese is covered in corn starch, so you pay extra to have cheese that tastes worse. Buy cheese in large quantities and grate it yourself. If you have access to Costco, you will get the best cheese for your dollar. I prefer to use smaller amounts of real cheese and not low-fat substitutes, but everyone is different here.

DO NOT BUY, WHAT YOU CAN MAKE FOR LESS

These are some things I never buy, and only make from scratch. The homemade versions are lower in sodium and only filled with ingredients I can pronounce. Added benefit, they cost a lot less: salad dressing (vinaigrettes, ranch, caesar), spice mixtures (taco seasoning, cajun rub, sazon, etc), marinades, pancakes, scones, muffins, oatmeal, breadcrumbs (bread + food processor), and chicken stock (I make it my slow cooker and freeze).

I feel your pain...I just posted on my facebook page today that if healthy living wasn't more expensive I don't think so many would be over weight...

Some tips I have learned (it is myself, my husband, and our 5/8 daughters)
I just started to buy chicken breasts at sams club. They are individually frozen, already portioned out into 5oz cuts and it is $22 for a TON of chicken! I was buying it at the store and spending at least twice that for less product.

use a menu to plan out veggies etc. I don't use canned but love the birds eye veggies that you steam....

Use coupons, try to use left overs for lunches (I break a day in between dinner and lunch) I also go to the farmners market a lot. We eat a lot of tihngs that are on sale...that is what works for us but have found that if I am cutting back on junk food/soda etc/eating out as much I am able to spend some of that money on better cuts of beef and veggies!

Good luck!

You know I hear this a lot and personally just don't find it to be true. Buying whole foods instead of processed stuff is cheaper. pop and processed foods and chips and packaged snacks are all very expensive and it's nice to never even think about spending money on such things. Some of the fruits and vegetables can run pretty expensive but if you buy in season and on sale you can do pretty good. Lot of good tips here, so I won't go through them again. I do make my own bread in the bread machine and cooked from dried beans and a lot of these other tips. Good luck shopping healthy!!

I find it easiest to buy things I don't have to cook / prepare. It cuts down on the ingredients from week to week. So, yogurt, berries, bananas, granola, cereals, cheese, etc. are all staples in my diet. I can just grab and go, and some of that stuff lasts a long time.

I usually make big batches of things like beans or soups. I keep about half of the batch out to eat for the week, and freeze the other half in individual size containers.

Those are my tricks. If I made full dinners with multiple ingredients every night, I'd go broke. Plus I don't really like to cook.

One of our biggest expenses is meat, so we found a local butcher shop with much cheaper prices than Walmart, Kroger, etc. We spend $100 there each time and we can get quality meat that lasts us up to six-seven weeks for our family of six. We make lunch and dinner at home and it still lasts a significantly longer period of time than buying from larger supermarkets.

Another huge expense would be fruits and vegetables. I scour the paper for good deals and only buy what is in season and cheap. A friend of ours joined a co-op and they get fresh fruit often. I'd look into that too to cut food costs since you only pay a low monthly membership fee. And whatever you save on other things you manage to get through co-op can be put toward buying fresh fruits and veggies at the grocery store.

Meal planning will also help you save a lot too. Look for websites that have low calorie recipes and plan accordingly. And you won't get bored if you get to try new recipes from time to time.