Is anyone else surprised by how cheap it is to eat healthy?
I think for me, it's even more surprising than the fact that eating healthy is freaking delicious.
I avoid the chain supermarkets and go to ethnic markets or to smaller mom-and-pop stores where prices are half of what they are at the big places. Now, I can buy the ingredients for a meal that will last me for 2 days for $8. I remember the days when I would eat mostly junk food, and something like a bag of Doritos, tub of ice cream, chocolate bars and a can of Pringle chips would run $20 (and that's for one day's worth of food!)
Plus, I'm getting to be a pretty good cook nowadays. I never knew it could be so much fun experimenting with cooking. Before this, I was only familiar with a few vegetables (carrots, potatoes). Now, I'm eating zucchini, all sorts of herbs, onions (used to HATE them).
It's kind of a fun way to approach weight loss, where eating right doesn't have to be akin to crawling through a mile of broken glass..
I bounce back and forth between thinking it's cheap and thinking it's expensive. It's expensive when I buy stuff I really want that isn't necessarily in season, and I don't shop around - like fresh berries that are currently $5 for a wee little carton. But they are so, so good with yogurt and a few walnut pieces for my breakfast, that they're worth it. And I always enjoy the healthy food, regardless of the cost, and feel better about spending $5 on raspberries than spending $7 on a McDonald's meal.
I know if I worked harder at it, it would be even cheaper. Where I used to live, it was possible to sign up for a farmer's box of veggies for the winter - delivered to your door, for a flat fee, and you'd get a tonne of whatever was in season. I don't have access to that since I moved, but seasonal veggies (squash, pumpkin, parsnip, carrots, potatoes) are still really cheap, and they can go a long way, particularly in homemade soups.
I know some people consider it expensive to start eating healthfully, because if you're not already set up with lots of herbs, spices, and other ways to make food more exciting, it can be a bit of an investment. But once you have the basics, it's great.
Waaaaaaaay more expensive if I shop locally. Only one store in town. No markets or anything. I single loaf of decent-quality wheat bread costs more than $3. A pound of chicken is $7.50. No cheap eats here...
It's less expensive if we're careful about what we buy and where. We began shopping at Trader Joe's quite a bit, and their prices on produce and other staples can be really good; but that also means avoiding all the delicious, not-so-healthy, expensive "food bombs" they have placed throughout the store.
We eat cheap meat, basically whatever is on sale that week--chicken breasts, steak, ground turkey, pork chops. And the fact that we eat controlled portions of that stuff helps keep the cost down.
We only buy organic produce or canned foods if they are the same price or cheaper than the regular stuff; at Safeway that is often true, because Safeway produces their own line of organic food products. Otherwise, it's just too expensive to try to eat organic all the time.
We don't buy much processed stuff, and the processed stuff we do buy tends to be the cheaper kinds, like Cheerios for cereal.
Also, instead of purchasing whole-wheat bread for the kids' sandwiches and other uses, I now make all of our bread, which is far, far cheaper than purchasing it.
So it can be cheaper to eat healthy, but it's not necessarily cheaper. We still have to be very careful. To be completely honest, getting 1500 calories per day from McDonald's would be much cheaper than getting 1500 calories from whole foods that we cook ourselves; because that's only about one meal from McD's!
We don't eat meat so I think a lot of our food savings came from that
We eat a lot of organics as there is a pretty decent organic (produce) only store near us but the drawback is that they may not stock things that are out of season or out of season produce is expensive. We try to eat as much stuff in season as possible which also cuts back on cost. They also have a nice bulk foods and spices section which is fairly inexpensive.
We are also lucky to have a number of good, well stocked ethnic markets near us where we can get some produce and other items.
I also tend to buy frozen (berries and some veggies) when fresh is too expensive.
We shop Trader Joe's some times but there are only a couple things there I buy that are cheaper, they are actually more expensive for most of the things I buy.
I will also sometimes shop Whole Foods for their 365 brand stuff as well as sales on produce. Their sprouted grain bread is the cheapest around here unless it is on sale at the organic market I go to.
I also will shop farmer's markets in the summer although the prices may not be cheaper but sometimes they are but the variety is good and it is local.
I'd say for us it evens out. I shop at Aldi as much as I can and manage to get 90% of our groceries there. Exceptions are steel-cut oats, quinoa, sweet potatoes, most spices and any must-have fruits and veggies.
I find that the calorie restriction cancels out the cost. We're eating less of more expensive foods.
It's more expensive for us, we only have 3 grocery stores in town, and none with competitive prices on healthy food. For our family of four it's just so much easier to pay $5 for 10 frozen dinners that will last 5 days than to pay $5 for a 1lb bag of apples (which is gone in like 2 days since 1lb of apples is only like 4 or 5 apples). We can buy a loaf of store brand white bread for 86 cents or a store brand loaf of 100% whole wheat bread for $1.99. It's a no brainer as far as finances go for us, spending less on "healthy foods" means more money we can use for bills and our kids. So we try to keep our food budget at about $100 a month (not including things like soap and dog food).
Yeah, I live in a major city so I have lots of options.
I don't buy bread a lot. I find that I eat a few slices and by the time I get to the rest, it already started to mold. If I buy meat, I usually go by what's the cheapest, and even then, I buy the smallest piece. I never really paid attention to meat portions before, and a 3-4 oz. serving of meat is actually very small so it usually works out to $0.80-1.20 per serving.
For grains, I'm a fan of buckwheat. I usually make some meatballs and eat it with buckwheat. It's usually pretty cheap (but again, you have to have some ethnic or health food around to buy it from), great source of nutrients.
I'm spending less money most weeks, too. I use a lot of frozen veggies and berries, and fix a lot more meatless meals. I usually choose my fresh fruits and veggies by what's in season or on sale.
We used to spend an awful lot on fast food, soda, convenience foods and "TV snacks', so even when I splurge on out of season or specialty foods now, my food bills are still lower or at least similar to what they used to be.
yeah, I'm one of those who has expensive local markets. Even those awesome farmers markets that everyone raves about... well, they're actually one of the MOST expensive places to get produce around here. Even Trader Joes is on the pricey side compared to my local supermarket (which is a chain market, but only located in the Northeast). No store has been able to match or beat the prices I was paying to eat crappy.
Although, farmer stands are ALWAYS great... but they're seasonal and you can never know ahead of time where they're going to pop up. It's a luck thing with them.
Does anyone else get frustrated with fresh produce? I swear, less than a week after it's bought, it's no good to eat anymore! I usually opt for frozen, but a lot of yummy veggies don't come frozen. And I'm the only one in my household eating right. Such pressure to eat up those veggies! (You'd think it'd motivate me to eat them more, but it doesn't )
I think we spend about the same. It looked expensive initially, except that we now eat less meat, only meat on sale which means boneless skinless cx breasts at under $2/lb compared to ribey steaks at $8+/pound. And we don't buy junk food...cheesecake costs more than 8 servings of fruit. We used to buy a lot of ext6ra snacks between realy grocieries, nd never counted those as "food"...LOL! I guess they don't count because the AREN'T food...but you know what I mean. I guess it depends on where people have to shop and hwat they buy, but for us it is definitely cheaper. I wish we had ethnic markets and a Trader Joes, but we'll just have to wait and hope we can find stuff at the farmer's mkt this summer.
I spend less because I used to buy tons of junk and spend $$ on fast food. For starters, I spent $5 on my fast food breakfast and another $6-$8 on the fast food lunch. The healthy breakfasts and lunches that I make at home cost much less than that $11 to $13. That is not even taking into account the money I spent on the vending machines.
Is anyone else surprised by how cheap it is to eat healthy?
yeah, I'm one of those who has expensive local markets. Even those awesome farmers markets that everyone raves about... well, they're actually one of the MOST expensive places to get produce around here. Even Trader Joes is on the pricey side compared to my local supermarket (which is a chain market, but only located in the Northeast). No store has been able to match or beat the prices I was paying to eat crappy. 
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