Is Healthy Food Too Expensive?

I think you can save a lot on other grains too, like you mentioned oats, and they last a long time: lentils, chickpeas, beans, brown rice, if you buy in bulk in a place that doesn't provide packaging. Just put them in tupperware when you get home.

For meat and chicken, I don't buy the "lean cuts", like the skinless boneless chicken breasts, I buy the whole breast (sometimes the whole chicken, if the breast is not worth it) and remove skin and bones myself. It is more work, but if you do 12-14 breasts on a Saturday morning, you have chicken for a long time. I buy the full cuts of beef that come with all the fat and then just trim the fat myself, then portion and freeze.

If you have any room at all, like a balcony or small yard, you can grow a few greens too, it takes almost no space. My "yard" is all cemented but in a few bigger vases I've managed to grow arugula, spinach, and 3 types of lettuce. Greens are not exactly expensive, but they last the least of all things you buy, so they cost you a lot in time of going out to buy fresh. When you do buy greens, you can wash them and then layer them with paper towels in tupperware containers in the fridge. That extends their life to up to 1 week, if you replace the paper towels every day.

I totally agree with this. Healthier foods are much more expensive. I also work in the food industry, and I have come away with this one fact: MASS PROCESSED FOODS ARE CHEAP. They are built that way from the ground up. The chemicals and preservatives are cheap. The manufacturing processes pay themselves out given the enormous volumes that we make.

Fresh foods cost more because their handling costs are higher. Organic meats cost more because the animals haven't been stuffed to the point of "meat-bloat", and they aren't raised in such a way to be abusive to the environment. That means less meat per animal and fewer animals altogether.

I like a lot of Jan's suggestions, too. So props to her!

In the end, eating well much be a priority.

(And no, I don't eat anything we make. That stuff will kill you.)

If people ate normal-sized portions, and not the hungry he-man mountains of food to which they're accustomed, they would realize that healthy foods need not bust their budget, along with the seams on their clothes.

I have noticed that if i buy 1 lb of grapes, for example, i end up throwing half of them away because i've bought too much; i couldn't eat them as fast as they expired. it is mindful to buy fresh fruits and veggies little bits at a time to avoid them going bad before you have had a chance to eat them.

I love your suggestions, Jan...very helpful!

I can't help but wonder how often expense is used as a reason to NOT eat healthy...

Brian

I agree with Brian. I think many people probably use expense as an excuse to not eat the way they should.

In a lot of poor neighbourhoods in the US, there just aren't places to buy really good, healthy food (especially produce). There aren't grocery stores, just bodegas, where you'll maybe find three half-rotten tomatoes and some apples. If you're lucky. Most of the food available in some areas is packaged food or fast food.

Eating unhealthy food because it is cheap is sad but a reality. If I have a budget where I can spend X for lunch, and the crap costs X and healthy food is X+3, I can't eat as healthy as I want all of the time. It can be cost prohibitive for some people. Granted, you can defray some of the costs if you put in the time and effort.

I think you left out the single biggest barrier which is our unconscious motivation to eat high energy food to increase our fat stores in preparation for the next famine.

Natural selection has favored those human being who gorge whenever there is a surplus of food. Over thousands of years, their ability to over eat and store the excess as body fat has seen their genes survive and become our genes. Given that sugar and fat represent the highest energy yield, it is not surprising that most of us find these foods delightful and the combination of them almost irresistible.

Notice also that many find themselves binging on these foods once they start eating them. I'm maintain that anything that causes someone to lose control is facilitating a primitive response that serves a survival function.

Admittedly, in this day when commercial agriculture and live stock farming that ensure a constant food surplus, these antiquated reactions cause a lot more fat storage than will ever be needed. This problem is compounded by the speed of technological advances that measure progress by the amount of physical labor we eliminate.

Going vegetarian is actually a great way to improve your diet and save a ton of money ... beans and lentiles are always going to be cheaper than meat AND lower in fat. Other than that, buying what's on sale is the best way to go. I wait for the asparagus to go down to half price and eat a lot of asparagus for the week. The next week the bagged carrots will be buy one get one free. There are foods that will always be pretty cheap, like oranges, bananas and apples. And I like to stock up on soy milk when it's on sale because you can keep it unopened in your cabinet for quite a long time.

lentils ... not lentiles ... sorry.

There is a local co-op in my town that has cheap, healthy one stop shopping. They offer things like soymilk in bulk and only mark up 10%. I realize places like this are rare but if you find one, it may be worth the drive.

One way to stay in control at the grocery store is to only use a basket... no shopping cart. This will make you think twice before picking up any heavy/unhealthy items. I have also developed some freakish biceps from it. Shopping around the perimeter is always a good way to go, along with the grocery list approach. Hannaford offers a bulk selection in most of its stores now and buying in bulk is a great way to save.

I agree that much of the confusion stems from lack of education. There aren't a lot of commercials for lettuce and cucumbers. Coupons are typically for convenience foods and processed items. And the sheer real estate of a grocery store is largely given over to convenience foods that are unhealthy. The dominance of unhealthy foods - in marketing, discount incentives, and actual physical space - makes it difficult to persuade individuals that healthy foods can not only be affordable, but cheaper. Imagine if half or two-thirds of a grocery store's space were devoted to fresh, lean, unprocessed foods. Imagine relevant coupons and commercials. Healthy eating wouldn't seem so intimidating then, simply because our perspective of available choices would be changed. (I recently blogged about feeding a family healthily while on a budget - if you're interested the link is below. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/healthy-budget/)

Oops, wanted to add: Patrick, your insight is right on the money. Our bodies are wildly out of sync with the modern, and in some ways rather artificial lifestyle that we have developed so rapidly. We're not so different from deer in the headlights, are we?

Mark said:
Our bodies are wildly out of sync with the modern, and in some ways rather artificial lifestyle that we have developed so rapidly. We're not so different from deer in the headlights, are we?[...]

I almost hate to say it, but we're a lot worse off than the deer in the headlights. The deer doesn't know it's a car, we know it's sugar water for profit but can't seem to stop ourselves from drinking it can after can in our insatiable and unconscious desire to prepare for the next famine.

This is a question that can lead to easy generalization.

I live in a culturally and racially mixed area. Many asians - middle-class and poorer - get great produce at the Asian markets for a fraction of the cost of a supermarket. It's very good produce, but it's often at the peak of maturity, so you need to eat it right away. Cheap, healthy, but requires shopping frequently. It helps if you're in a couple where one doesn't have an outside job. It also lso helps if you buy your other stuff near the Asian markets.

I find many Latinos - including those clearly on the lower end of the income scale - hitting the local inexpensive supermarket. I think that they shop the edges. Looking in their shopping carts, I see grains, legumes, vegetables, fruit and some meat. This food doesn't cook up in 20 minutes. And, it seems like the wives are shopping with the children.

Ann is right - but going vegetarian is not trivial. You're going to spend more time in the kitchen.

So, there's a bit of culture making this more complex. If one person of a couple has the time to cook and shop, then it's easier to eat more healthfully. If one can haunt the right stores (another Nic makes this point well) then it is a lot easier. On the other hand, if you don't pack your own lunch, then you may end up making choices like FitFiend. And, packing a lunch is a real hassle, especially if one is holding down more than one job and trying to get a little exercise on the side.

staci said:
I have noticed that if i buy 1 lb of grapes, for example, i end up throwing half of them away because i've bought too much; i couldn't eat them as fast as they expired. it is mindful to buy fresh fruits and veggies little bits at a time to avoid them going bad before you have had a chance to eat them. [...]

I have that problem too. There is a green grocer right by my gym, so I can pick up a few things on my way to a workout. It is not a very cheap alternative, but it helps in a pinch.

Our city government has a program where they have green grocers that sell everything for 0.89 a kilo in several places to low-income families. A few of them were having problems with produce going to waste so they are now open to the general public. On Saturdays, I hop on a bus to one that is inside a bus terminal, buy around 4 kilos of vegetables, and get back on the bus, without even having to pay for a second ticket. It has cut my spending a lot. Then I just get the "fancier items", like strawberries, at the more expensive grocer later. I think it is a great program, and sadly, the low-income families don't seem to wanna benefit from it. My assistant used to work at the city hall handling this program, and she said the people would fight for their packets of rice, beans, and oil, but nobody wanted the vegetables...

Another thing is we typically spend a lot on cleaning products, and by buying those in bulk and store brand 4x a year, you can free up a lot of your budget for food. What you eat matters, what brand of dishwashing liquid really doesn't, they all wash your dishes the same in the end.

You have a good point, Quito. I lose a bit in sleep to get to prepare food, not to mention weekend time, but I find I gain energy for everyday tasks by eating better. I'll often wake up and leave some beans cooking in the pressure cooker as I walk the dog, for example, or make soup in the evening as I shower.

Last tip is always be on the lookout for a bargain. I haven't gotten salmon at the market or the fishmonger for ages cause it is always around $24 a kilo, and I can't afford that. Then I found a pay-by-weight restaurant where the grilled and cleaned salmon is $17 a kilo. Every Saturday I go there and fill a doggie bag and I have salmon for both lunch and dinner for less money and trouble.

I do my shopping at a store called Aldi and the prices on everything is ridiculously cheap. They have identical produce to the grocery store and it's about half the price. I only buy as much produce as I'll eat in a week so it doesn't go bad and I try to freeze things if I can. I also shop at the local Asian market to get rice and some more exotic produce. If you are smart about where you shop and when you shop, eating healthy doesn't have to be too expensive.

Oh, and great point about the oatmeal...boxed breakfast cereal must be one of the most marked-up items at the store. It's usually over $3 a box and oats are like, $1.60 for a carton that has something like 20-30 servings in it. No Brainer, right there.

Oh, and a great cheap protein source if you don't want to buy a lot of meat: eggs. I buy them for 70 cents a dozen...ULTRA cheap.

I agree with Quito's comment. Culture is a huge factor. I have had friends on EBT that buy boxes of mini bag of Doritos or other name brand junk food for their kids when whole grain organic crakers are the same price or cheaper, never mind fruit. They didn't skip most of the fresh veggies because of money but because they don't know how to cook them. Eating healthy certianly does mean shopping more often but it also means knowing how to cook more heathful meals and getting your family to eat them.

What's interesting is that we spend less money (in term of % of income) on food than any other nation at any other time ever! www.kingcorn.com

Quito, vegetarian cookingn really shouldn't take any longer than the meat variety ... unless your meat-eating comes from frozen dinners or fast food. If you're cooking at home, meat is usually the thing that takes the longest to cook.

There is no doubt some of the healthy products are very expensive but with this there are some healthy food items like fruits, vegetables and whole grains which are not too much expensive. So one can decide which food items to go for depending upon his financial status and all.

Ann,

It depends on what you're cooking, but you're right that a lot of the inexpensive cuts of meat take awhile to cook. On the other hand, dried beans (the way to get them cheaply, and in ayurveda the healthier way to have them) take a lot of time to prepare.

My brainless dinner lately has been a simple saute of asparagus, onions and mushrooms with cumin, paprika, tumeric and garam marsala and some homemade hummus on bread. It's fast, and good for my dosha, but it's not really inexpensive (and probably not a dish many would like :) )

A few things come to mind as I read this post and related comments:

Humans need to stop eating emotionally. I know people who eat "comfort food" every day and make faces at broccoli or carrots. It's like they're 5 years old again. In that same vein, humans live for the here and now and not concern themselves with their later years - a normal survival extinct to be sure. But life is a little different now than it was a few centuries ago! Eating healthy is rather easy if you just invest some time in the shopping and preparation...and stop making "yucky" faces at vegetables.

I also know people who run out to lunch every day because they don't have time to pack lunch - not sure how that "saves time" or money. My husband and I found years ago that it was actually cheaper to pack lunch than buy it every day.

I once had an email conversation with my sister-in-law about shopping and buying healthy foods (she has 5 people to feed) and EVERY suggestion I gave her she found a counter-argument for. It starts with the determination to make a change and the willpower to follow through with it and, I truly believe, less about expense and budget.

I can't remember off hand the name of these high end, high quality organic oriented food stores, but I use to get about 1/2 my weekly grocery shopping there. I went back to these stores after I got married/with child. I found out I would have to spend about 3X for their delicous meats, fish and vegetables and other items that I use to favor.

Now it comes down to staying on budget.

I agree that healthy eating can be more expensive. It can also take more time and planning. But a lot of money can be saved by avoiding junk foods that offer no nutritional benefits – like soda pop, chips, and cookies. Breakfast cereals are another expensive item. You can eat 2 organic eggs for less than a bowl of popular sugary breakfast cereal with milk.

The real issue, though, is the high cost of poor health. A nutritious diet will allow you to be energetic, to work harder, and to earn more money. You will be less likely to cost your employer sick days. You will be much less likely to develop diabetes or heart disease. If you want to save money, stay healthy. It really pays off in the long run.

For instance if you have diabetes, it may be necessary to take several drugs to control blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure. That is the standard of care in the medical community. But if you pursue healthy eating, exercise, and weight loss, you may be able to reduce or stop your medications and save a lot of money!

So, keep eating those fruits and vegetables, and forget the expensive processed junk!

I agree with Susan. Pay today for fresh raw foods or pay tomorrow for health care.

Invest in your future; eat only God made foods.

Brandy said:
I agree with Susan. Pay today for fresh raw foods or pay tomorrow for health care. [...]

You're not understanding the problem that a lot of people have. They CAN'T pay today for more expensive fancy fresh raw foods, or organic foods, or sometimes anything more expensive than ramen, or rice, or hamburger helper. It's entirely dismissive to suggest someone buy something with money they don't have in the first place.
Sorry, but this kind of answer makes me annoyed. I'm glad you can afford to only eat fresh raw food, but not everyone can.

Amen, Nic. But I think that maybe Susan and Brandy are referring to people who *can* afford good food, they just choose not to for the sake of convienence, not about the working poor, which is a different and more serious problem altogether, especially since many of them are both overweight and have malnutrition levels similar to those of people starving.

I work with a nutritionist who admittedly buys very unhealthy convenience foods because her live-in boyfriend is a "picky eater". He refuses to eat just about every veggie and fruit there is. She caters to his wants and they actually spend quite a bit on food because they buy so many convenience foods. The kicker is that he blames HER for his obesity because "she's a nutritionist and should be feeding him better" Excuse me??? It's definitely a matter of perspective. My husband and I probably spend about half of what they spend each week on groceries and our food is a LOT healthier.

Anushka said:
But life is a little different now than it was a few centuries ago! Eating healthy is rather easy if you just invest some time in the shopping and preparation...and stop making "yucky" faces at vegetables. [...]

Amen to that one. People need to stop eating like perpetual 3 year olds.

Spectra wrote: Amen to that one. People need to stop eating like perpetual 3 year olds.

My mother-in-law - I love her - is in her early 70s, quite overweight, and makes yucky faces at vegetables. Her favorite dinner is ice cream. Pretty three-year-oldish! When I visit her, I make her healthy meals in abundance - main stream food, no weird spices or anything - and freeze them in serving sizes. She loves them because they taste good and are trivial to eat. She's way strong - she clears manzanita brush and shovels her own snow - but gets winded easiliy. So, we keep working on her to walk more (I keep try getting her to do some gentle yoga).

A hint for vege yuckers: try broiled broccoli. Cut into florets, trim the woody part of the stem, put in a bowl with a little olive oil and salt and toss, put on a tray, and broil or bake at 425 for 15 minutes. So far, even the most three-year-oldish person wolfs it down. Cheap too (well, there's cheap olive oil).

If they can afford it and don't buy it, I could really not care less. That's not my business.

Jan said:
Amen, Nic. But I think that maybe Susan and Brandy are referring to people who *can* afford good food, they just choose not to for the sake of convienence, not about the working poor, which is a different and more serious problem altogether, especially since many of them are both overweight and have malnutrition levels similar to those of people st[...]

I noticed this working as a cashier... people will go cheap instead of better. People in a rush for time because of their two minimum wage jobs are going to a 24 hour Kroger, not a whole foods market-- and just thinking of the portion of my life me or my family did not have a car and you go where you can!

Fresh fruits and vegetables, lean cuts of meat... are more expensive than the processed crap most people shoe up with.

Personally, when I had less money, I made it a priority. I never went out to eat, I didn't drink, I didn't go out with friends anywhere that costs money-- but I made damn sure I ate healthful foods.
It's a matter of preference there...
and education. I knew I'd be saving money in the long run.

Some people know they shouldn't be eating certain things--- but especially if they aren't fat, they don't realize just how bad it is. (How often have I heard, I'm thin-- I can eat like this.)

I think you need to find an overall stratagem to learn not to not to grab the highly processed toxic waste while avoiding the out of season grocery store honeypot. Can you say farmers market people?

Here in Norway, healthy food is considerably cheaper than the junk, but many people are too lazy to either cook or do a proper price check (comparing kg. prices, etc.)

My husband tells me stories of when he was very very broke before we met. The way he ate was to buy a basket of eggs at the farmer's market, bags of frozen vegetables and bulk rice. Not exactly tantalizing variety, but very cheap and very healthy, not to mention pretty easy prep. We've gone through some lean times together too, and that's how I learned the joys of eating beans, not ordering pizza and realizing that its easier to eat healthy when you make it a priority. We used to scrounge around the house for change to order a pizza. Now I can buy enough food for the week for a little more than that pizza cost. Where there's a will, there's a way!

Ban the junk foods and factory farms. Market forces will cause the healthy foods to again be affordable to all.

My favorite "I have no money this week" dishes are: pumpkin soup, and rice and lentils. I like to dress up the rice and lentils with browned onions, so they work like the "meat" in this meal. Delicious.

RJ, as someone who just spent her lunch hour on 2 buses and back to get some cheaper vegetables, let me tell you, not everyone can go to a farmer's market. There is a fantastic organic one here, but it is all the way across town and on Wednesday afternoons. I can't simply stop working to lug more expensive vegetables across town.

Well, it's expensive, but not SO expensive. I spent $60 on a LOT of bottled water and a load of fruit and veg the other day. Yeah, it's a lot, but I have lunch and dinners for the whole week out of it, and the satisfaction of eating healthy, which means more to me than any cheapie McDonalds burger ever could. It basically comes down to the question of "How much is my health worth?"

I have to agree with Jan-soup is fantastic cheap healthy meal! Use whatever veggies are in the fridge,or frozen if they're cheaper, beans/lentils, barley, whatever leftover or on sale meat is available(or none if there isn't any) and some water or stock- it fills you up, tastes great, and gets lots of healthy stuff into you!