There are definitely some problems with this article. But really, I'm not surprised. At all. Like the rest of you I noticed how it'd cost $10 to feed a family on Mac N Cheez and hot-dogs and fruit roll-ups, or $30 for boneless chicken breasts, fresh organic broccoli, carrots, and nugget potato and low-fat yogurt.
I make good money in my line of work but live in a fairly expensive city (Vancouver Canada) and sometimes it seems like my budget is tight, but I WILL spend $200 on groceries to get better food instead of spending $100 to get cheaper stuff so I have more spending money. It doesn't work. I need to put healthy nutrients in my body WAY before I need to buy that pair of shoes that I really want.
So I find that shopping at different shops saves me a lot of money (it definitely doesn't save time but oh well). I have a fresh produce outdoors market right next to my place so I buy all of my fruits/veggies and all my bulk legumes/grains. It's usually even cheaper than buying them from Safeway, because it's all local so no transport costs! I shop around. Bread from the bakery next door (pre-packaged, shipped, mass-produced whole grain bread for $5 from Safeway, VS freshly baked on the same day whole grain bread for $2. You don't have to be a genius to figure it out). Things like that. We usually spend about $100 a week on groceries for both me and my partner. I don't think it's that much at all, to eat the food we eat. There are no boxes of anything processed in the house, no Little Debbies cakes or frozen chicken nuggets. I cook from scratch all the time, and I really enjoy it. I can make my food taste like whatever I want to, no more settling for ketchup!
Seriously though, I think it's so sad that many people can't afford to buy healthy foods so they have to resort to the super-cheap, super-processed, super-fattening foods. At the same time, when I was in college I had a $30/week food budget, and I ate great food all the time! I rarely had meat or cheese, but boy did I eat all kinds of grains and legumes and veggies!! It really was not hard, I just had to shop around a little. After a while I knew exactly where to go.
Also think about it; a pound of pinto beans may be about the same price as a pound of ground beef, but do you know how long a POUND of beans last??? Definitely longer than a pound of meat.
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