I have to say eating healthy for me and my family of 4 is much more expensive. We didn't eat out a lot.....about 2 times a month. I already planned meals and froze ahead about 2 weeks at a time instead of one a month cooking. Doing this I could feed us on about $125/month when I watched sales ads.
I cannot do that now. I am learning to keep expense down but Turkey burger and Bison are a lot more expensive than Ground Beef. I mix Turkey with Beef so that I can get some of the health benefit. My casseroles and soups filled with noodles really don't fit in my new diet. My homemade bread loaves and bread items are not the low cal kind. To make them low cal requires some ingredients that are more expensive and that I normally do not stock.
It really is a learning curve and the lady that posted about hillbillyhousewife was correct. You need to teach yourselves ways to save and still eat the best for your health.
i dont really pay attention to prices since money thankfully has never been much of an issue, BUT it maysoon be true that eating healthy will be significantly cheaper than the alternative if the CDC gets their way...they are discussing implementing a "fat tax" on all unhealthy foods and drinks to not only combat the obesity problem that is costing the country billions, but to help pay for the trillion dollar health care reform policy!
so while this may be their excuse for now, it might not remain even remotely plausible in the near future. hooray for clean eating!
I have the perfect example. Over the weekend the kiddos wanted hot dogs for supper. Okay, no problem. Now this is how the meal would have went a few years back: Hot dogs(whatever is cheapest)-.88
Bag of buns(again,cheapest)-1.08
Box of macaroni- .60
Yet, this is how it went this past weekend:
Hot Dogs(98% fat free)-$2.50
Bag of Buns(light and Fit)-$1.98
Corn on the cobb for four-$1.00
Sliced tomatoes-outta the garden
So, there is a little something to that "excuse". However, it is a choice. A little less money now for a lot more health later!!!
There are a few things I have had sticker shock on. I am a big ole cheapskate, buy generic 95% of the time, shop at Aldi's for much of my food.
Since I have started paying attention to my nutrition, I find myself at Kroger's or Publix more often. Usually, it is the bread products that I have to make a special trip for. I did have sticker shock on the "Flat-outs", sandwich thins and the healthier english muffins. Before, I just bought my bread products at Aldi's but I can buy healthier breads at the name brand store.
I will say, my Aldi's has a growing selection of Fit-n-active stuff which I have been very pleased with.
The Fiber one type bars are too expensive, IMO. But Aldi's has a version of those too.
So the bread products and the fiber one bars are my main gripes. But, my Dorito spending has gone down dramatically! I have a bag going stale and that has NEVER happened!
I LOVE ALDI! I would be lost in Fatland without my dear friend Aldi. haha. Their Fit&Active stuff truly is great, plus you can get amazing deals on produce if you're flexible.
Dinner at our house is nearly always - cheapest lean protein, cheapest seasonal veggie and a salad, + cheap whole grain or potatoes. Throw it all on the grill and we've got a good hot meal. I go to the grocery store about 3 times a week so stuff rarely goes bad.
I'm going to the store tonight and I'm going to pay better attention but I don't think a dinner ever costs more than 10 dollars for me, hubby, and 2 kids.
After my husband and I had a few back-and-forth arguments over whether to buy the cheap bread, or the healthy bread...I started just making all our bread for the kids' sandwiches and other uses, which is both cheaper and healthier than any of the store options. However, in order for this to be "easy" for me to do (four loaves a week is a lot of work!), I have to use a breadmaker, which cost me a fair bit of money a few years ago.
I generally agree that it is actually more expensive to eat healthier. And, in order to keep the cost of eating healthier down, it takes a much greater investment of time. Grocery shopping at more than one store, finding the good deals, buying what's in season, home-baking, home-cooking almost all meals, packing my own lunch for work every day, staying on top of kitchen messes and dishes, then add to that the whole training-kids-to-eat-healthy-and-not-whine-about-wanting-fast-food-instead thing...this is all quite time-consuming.
So I don't blame anyone for being daunted by the process. I learned to shop and cook and eat healthy as a child myself, and it is still daunting to do all this, as an adult.
Since I have started paying attention to my nutrition, I find myself at Kroger's or Publix more often. Usually, it is the bread products that I have to make a special trip for. I did have sticker shock on the "Flat-outs", sandwich thins and the healthier english muffins. Before, I just bought my bread products at Aldi's but I can buy healthier breads at the name brand store.
This is sort of my point about healthy/cheap/easy. You can make bread products from whole wheat flour in portion-controlled pieces, including "flat-out" type buns, at home, for pennies. But that means you have to learn how to make bread, plan when you'll need them, and spend some time in the kitchen. If you're willing to pay for the convenience of NOT having to do that, that's wonderful, but it doesn't mean that healthy foods are more expensive, it means that healthy, convenient foods are more expensive.
I do a lot of things to keep my grocery bill low, while still eating high volumes of delicious, nutritious foods. In additional to a smallish garden, I go to the Farmer's Market (and not the convenient one in my small town, either, the big city one where parking is a nightmare and you have a 2 hour window, 1 way a week) with the lowest prices for produce in my area (very rarely do you find anything other than specialty items like mushrooms and etc more than $1 a pound). That limits me to produce that's in season (the out of season stuff not only costs more, it doesn't taste as good...so why buy it when there's an in-season alternative?) Not convenient, but cheap and healthy. I buy my meats about a month at a time from a specialty butcher where the meats are not only butchered on-site, but are also WAY cheaper than grocery store and usually pre-marinated, meaning I save money on seasoning as well. Of course, I buy once a month and freeze because while it's cheap, it's an hour and a half away. Definitely not convenient! I sacrifice the convenience of one-stop shopping to get the best quality for my food dollar, and I don't regret it. If I shopped at standard grocery stores, I'd probably spend double.
What I do buy at stores, I sacrifice convenience by looking at ads to determine which of my local markets has the best price for the things I buy most and finding coupons if I can. It's work, but it saves me money, each and every week.
And it goes without saying that (other than the conveniently marinated meats) these foods involve a lot more prep time. My garlic is minced by hand, it doesn't come from a jar, so it's a ton cheaper, but takes time and gives you garlic-smelling fingers. I buy the brown rice that has to cook for an hour, not the instant or microwaveable kinds. Even pilafs I pretty much make myself, using cheap grains and bulk spices. All those veggies need washing, slicing, dicing, drying, and proper storage, and on top of that, proper menu planning to make sure you use them up before they go bad. all of those things take time, but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make to get healthy food at prices I can afford.
Sounds like produce in CA is a bargain, I notice the OP and Mandalinn both show CA addresses.
Where I lived most of my life (West MI), produce not too bad and really affordable if you went to farmers market. NOT the case here. I have a really hard time wrapping my head around farmers market (both the local one and the State one) are even more expensive than grocery store. I still love shopping them but have to remember not to look at the prices or I talk myself out of almost everything.
But still, there are alternatives. NC has many, MANY good CSA programs that deliver fruit/veggie boxes at least 5-6 months of the year. One, Bluebird Farms, offers a program that provides produce boxes each week for 20 weeks, for $350. That's the bulk of the produce you'll need, plus some lovely extras (fresh flowers!), for 17.50 a week. Base most of your meals around that and you're already ahead. Of course, you don't have much choice and you have to use what you get, but really, that's sort of fun! And the price can't be beat.
I know I'm lucky being in CA, but only because I search out the alternative sources and go with them. There are alternates EVERYWHERE - you can look at www.localharvest.org for more information.
I too find it more expensive to eat healthy. The cost of produce alone can be expensive. However, I wouldn't use it as an excuse to eat poorly. In the long run it will cost you more to eat badly b/c the amount of medications you will be on and the trips to the doctors you would have to make will cost you greatly.
At work they have a poster that shows a serving of fruit on one side labeled $.73 a serving and a dose of blood pressure medicine on the other saying $50 a month and below "Which would you rather have?". I've pointed out to a number of people that .$73 * 5 servings a day * 30 days a week is over twice the cost per month as the medication and that's before the insurance steps in and covers a large portion of that cost.
I think the problem comes in when you're trying to eat the same way but healthy. Beans are cheaper than lean or regular meat but lean meat is more expensive than regular. If you still want your burger you're going to pay more if you want it to be healthy. Likewise CSA's are nice if you have one in your area but they're a pretty large upfront expense. At least the few I looked at wanted the $300 in advance and then you don't have any say in what you're getting on a weekly basis. Likewise the famer's market here in Dallas isn't particularly cheaper than Walmart when it comes to produce. Last time I went a pint of blackberries was $5 and a few squash were $3. The quality's better so I don't mind paying it but it's not exactly cheap. And I think the biggest price difference of all is when you look at restaurant and fast food. I don't know anyplace that has something I would consider healthy on the dollar menu. Most of the salads and grilled chicken items are sold at higher prices. Even since my calorie counting began if I find myself without a pack lunch and hungry I will usually get 1 less than perfect item off of the dollar menu rather than spend $4-5 for something the same calorie ranger but a healthier item.
Can you do it without blowing your budget? Absolutely. Can you eat really well and healthy? Yes but it will take extra time and energy. Am I worth it? You bet. Of course for some people it's still not going to be enough. My mother was a larger child and her parents were subsistance farmers. The joke in her family growing up was that sometimes they were lucky and would get beans and potatos for dinner instead of their usual potatos and beans (occasionally livened up by the squirrel my grandfather would hunt or the fish he could catch in the lake). The food was dirt cheap yet she still managed to be large on that diet while her siblings were thin. Me? My diet consists of less starches and more veggies and lean meats. I have no doubt I would continue to gain weight on potatos and beans even if I was just eating enough not to be starving all the time.
I think it is more expensive but I have vowed not to pay too much attention.I am way to good at finding excuses to buy the unhealthy alternative.So....I spend more at the store each week.
Misora-I do love the BP pill vs. fruit price comparison.Sometimes we need to see than in black and white for it to sink in.
