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Healthy eating adds $2K a year to family grocery bill

5K views 42 replies 20 participants last post by  Contrary Housewife 
#1 ·
#2 ·
~The article is very ambiguous as to what "more healthy eating" actually includes. Is it all organic? Is it free range meat? Is it a Mediterranean diet? How many servings of fruits and vegetables? How much meat protein? Nutrition professionals the world over disagree with what exactly constitutes a healthy diet. Personally, I go by the research results on diet and mortality that I've studied in my nutrition classes.
My toddler and I eat great, very healthy, but the rest of my family could use improvement. But there's no forcing fresh veggies and fish down the gullets of people who have an extreme dislike to those things. If all my family ate like me, we'd be spending about $350 a month on food over the $325 I spend now. Extra veggies would cost more but I'd make up for it in the budget with far less meat consumed. I could drop it down to $275 with home gardening.
A $2750 a year addition to my grocery budget would allow me to buy absolutely everything free-range, Fair-Trade, and organic, with some $ leftover. Without any real research to support the notion that those things have any effect on overall health(although I do buy many things in these categories already for philosophical reasons), I'll just stick to my Flexitarian, 5+ servings daily of F&V, lots of water, whole grain, low salt and sugar, high fiber eating style.
And taxing junk food at the consumer level, like cigarettes, is a bad idea. Maybe, if they must tax, tax the manufacturers for every junk ingredient they use(trans fat, excessive sodium, artificial flavors/colors, chemicals, wood pulp). The increase will be passed on to the consumer but it won't directly punish the consumer in terms of good food/bad food. The burden and pressure would then be on the manufacturer's to make healthier products as they see their sales falling off in favor of healthier foods.~
 
#4 ·
articles like this drive me crazy.....really there is not much info there as to how they arrived at this $$ figure.

Honestly I think anyone interested in eating healthier and for less can learn alot from nuisance. I would love to know what she eats and what her family eats in a week ( besides dinners, I have seen those ) Hint, Hint nuisance!!!

We are only 2 people here and I want to get my part-time working at home down to very part-time. I know I can make up the difference by my spending. I tend to buy to many little things here and there for the house. Also, the food budget, I have the time and the knowledge to get it down just need to do it. From the last week I can see that eating leftovers will go along way in getting the budget down.....I am learning to love leftovers! Aiming for absolutely 0 food waste. I am also getting very good at substituting in recipes.
 
#5 ·
I agree it doesn't define their idea of Healthy Eating nor what they ate prior.
In my experience it can all be balanced to fit in a moderate grocery budget.
Snack foods, dairy and meat are the most costly items on my food list.
In my opinion I can cut the meat dramatically and replace with beans. The dairy can be reduced/replaced depending on ages and needs. We switched to soy and almond milk and it is cheaper for us. Reduced cheese consumption.
Snack foods--you can make muffins, brownies and popcorn for cents a serving and save all the packaging that goes to the landfill.

It aggravates me to no end when articles want to make veggies look so expensive! Much of the price depends on what you buy and when. Buy in season and also use frozen veggies. In my neck of the woods you can buy frozen veggies for $.99 a 16oz bag.
You can buy a bag of chips or Doritos for 11oz for $2.50, so per ounce the veggies are cheaper. Also I would bet that a bag of green beans will fill you up much faster than a bag of doritos. Also if you try to buy a watermelon in the middle of December in the US midwest of course it is going to be expensive and probably taste very blah. Not to count all the travel miles that it has taken.

So I don't buy it............
I also think much of the publicity that the cost of healthy gets is to try and encourage the increase of government food assistance programs. Which in my opinion needs a makeover, not necessarily a increase.
 
#6 ·
I saw a documentary about food deserts in the US. Thousands of people didn't have access to fresh fruit and vegetables in their home town and had to travel long distances to find shops that sold it. To them the cost of travel to get their fresh groceries was often too high. This was also happening in cities where many people had to travel quite a distance to get their fruit and vegetables.
 
#7 ·
Makes perfect sense to me, CH. I know we pay a lot more because we buy fresh fruits and veggies, even in season. Junk food is much cheaper, and I'm not talking just about snacks. Coupons are usually more available for stuff like Hamburger Helper and other highly processed, high sodium junk foods and not usually so much for whole foods, for one thing. When you're poor, you tend to add more refined carbs like pasta and cheap white bread to your menu to stretch more expensive ingredients, so you get less meat and veggies per serving than if you could afford more veggies. Junk food, including homemade snacks, is often less expensive than giving the kids fresh fruits to snack on. Food manufacturers add more bad things to their products too, because it's cheaper for them and helps make them more competitive.

It's not hard at all for me to believe eating better can cost that much more per year, especially since the article is talking about Canadian dollars.
 
#8 ·
#9 ·
I just want to point out that this is the direction a society goes when they start trying to dictate how people should live instead of allowing for personal responsibility and freedom. The article wasn't so much about the study on healthy eating but the concept that a national government (Canada, in this case) should step in and create laws designed to change people's eating habits and "equalize" financial disparities.

First of all, $2000 more per family to eat healthier is completely worth it in terms of general health and increased productivity. I contend that if the family eats a more vegetarian diet, the cost differences would be almost negligible because in the study unhealthy eating included a diet of meat. So the unhealthy family just has to substitute processed foods for fresh and they are well on their way to healthy eating.

What the study doesn't point out is the reasons people eat processed foods instead of fresh - fresh, unprocessed foods are harder to store, not as portable, aren't taste-consistent and spoil. Processed foods are desirable because you can buy them and store them for a long time, you can take them almost anywhere, they're quick to prepare, they can be eaten quickly (with few utensils and little clean-up), and the taste is consistent from one batch to another. In advanced countries, processed foods are also desirable because the calorie count is perceived to be consistent - example: 100 calorie packs versus a "small" banana (try to define "small").

Cost has little to do with the motivations of what people eat.

Second, while many people may spend more on a healthier diet, the costs are often balanced out by a higher income. The focus and self-control in eating healthier often translates into other healthy habits that can eventually make someone financially successful. In short, the added cost of food is negated by higher income and lower costs in other areas of the budget.
 
#30 ·
I just want to point out that this is the direction a society goes when they start trying to dictate how people should live instead of allowing for personal responsibility and freedom. The article wasn't so much about the study on healthy eating but the concept that a national government (Canada, in this case) should step in and create laws designed to change people's eating habits and "equalize" financial disparities.
I'm going to give your post a thumbs up and a thanks, but a disagree with this part. The problem with people making bad choices (either because of economics, poor education or something else) is that the consequences become socialized. Poor health in children is the tax payers problem. Poor health in the elderly (60+ basically) is the tax payers problem.

So on the one hand we're saying the government, or society at large has no right to tell people how they should live, but on the other hand we have to pay for the bad choices people make. Sounds like a lose/lose situation for me. Funnily enough, this is exactly what Bloomberg was trying to tackle by banning smoking indoors, in parks and within 25 feet of building entrances, as well as 20oz buckets of soda. He was vilified for encroaching on people's 'freedom' to make bad choices, but no one seems concerned about the freedom of people who will have to pay more and more tax to fix these people up with world class medical expertise in 20 years time.

Having said all that, I am not convinced by the article. I think you can make excellent food choices on a budget, but you have to work a little harder to do so. Farmer's markets, independent grocers etc usually do fresh food for much less than the larger stores. Also buying local seasonal items as well.
 
#10 ·
~I just had a brainstorm. What if all foods were rated by registered dieticians and professional nutritionists on a 5 star scale like Amazon products? The star rating would be required to be displayed on the front of the packaging and you could look up the detailed, text ratings online or on your phone with a scanning app. The ratings would be somewhat subjective to each dietician's opinions and experience with healthy eating but would probably even out with several hundred reviews per product. I think it would work like "poll the audience" in Millionaire. The manufacturer's would be free to change their recipe at any time to improve their rating but will start from scratch with their stars on the improved product.
I know what all the nutrition facts on the side panel mean and how they fit into my personal diet, but most people do not even look at that info. A simplified star rating by professionals may hook the people who merely want to buy the best rated item and don't care to understand how or why it is best for them. Right now this demographic constitutes the majority of consumers and even includes me from time to time. On my last outing I was absolutely overwhelmed with buying some crackers(something I rarely buy) that had some redeeming health value. It would have saved me a lot of aggravation if I could have just reached for a 4 star box.~
 
#13 ·
~I did buy triscuits. I'm eating some now as a matter of fact. :) But triscuits were on my list anyway to go with the cheeseball I made. They're fatty but at least they're high in fiber. I thought they made a reduced fat variety but I didn't see those or that would have been my choice over regular. And I'm the only one who eats them so I had to buy something different for the rest of the gang. So I also bought store brand whole wheat buttery rounds. The had more fiber and less fat/calories per ounce than the brands that splashed healthy slogans and brags on their packaging.~
 
#12 ·
I wouldn't mind a system like that but it would have to be voluntary for food manufacturers.

Yet such a system doesn't get away from the fact that most of our food is manufactured. Even our "fresh" eggs, dairy products, meats, salt, sugar and other basics are heavily processed before we see them on a store shelf. In the summer, there was a food poisoning scare that originated in fresh cantaloupe. In response, an article was written that traced all the processing steps a simple fresh cantaloupe goes through from the field to the grocery store (inspections, forced ripening, washings, testings, tracking, etc). We've lost touch with the process of going out into a field, picking a piece of ripe produce off the plant then eating it.
 
#14 ·
I can see how that is true living in Canada....food costs alot here...right now apples are 1.99'lb and thats suppose to be the 'cheap' fruit choice...oranges for a 4 lb bag were 4.99...our grocery bill per week has about 60 bucks in fresh fruit and veggies...then add in 4L milk at 4.97 a jug...Cracker barrel medium 700 gram block was on sale for 7.99...regular price is 9.99 lol no, we do not eat 2 lbs of cheese per week. Was just sharing some prices. I buy Triscuits too...they are tasty.
 
#15 ·
Those are the same prices I am paying here for things. And US and CA dollars are about equal right now.
 
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#16 ·
We like the Walmart brand of Triscuits. I forget what they're calling them these days. They're actually better than Triscuits, and we love Triscuits. The WM clones have caraway in them now since they changed the name, but they're still good and one of the few items we prefer to buy at WM. I think they're a little less salty than Triscuits, too.

Wish I could figure out how to DIY Triscuits, but so far, no luck with that.
 
#17 ·
I find this to be true. A vegetarian diet isn't even an option for my family. I would be fine with it, but my husband has to get as much of his protein from lean meat as possible.

Whole grain items (bread/pasta) are almost always more expensive than the processed stuff. Lean meat costs more than fatty meat. Fruits and vegetables are expensive where I live. I can eat hot dogs, canned soup, bologna on white bread, and store brand Mac and cheese much more cheaply than what we currently eat.
 
#18 ·
I keep records of what I spend on everything using a computer program. We spend about $1500 per year buying in bulk from a co-op..organic, non GMO foods like raisins, nuts, seeds, nut butters, and basic ingredients like whole wheat flour, brown rice, Ener-G Egg Replacer, Kosher Jel, molasses, cooking oil, other whole grains and flours, rye and barley flakes, oatmeal, etc.

There is a market about 50 miles from us that we buy beans in 100 lb sacks. Besides the 100-200 lbs of dried beans that we grow, this fall we bought 50 lbs pintos, 100 lbs red beans and 100 lbs black beans. This was $159. We are nearly out of pintos already.

Then we spend another $1200 per year at regular grocery stores buying things like bananas, olives, olive oil, almond milk, coconut milk, lemon juice, fresh produce in winter. This includes dog food, paper towels, toilet paper, light bulbs, health & beaut stuff, etc.

Then we grow and can, freeze or dry hundreds of pounds of fruits and vegetables every summer and fall. We have been making maple syrup for the past two springs. If we had to buy everything we eat, we just couldn't do it. There is not enough money available. We have to drive a 50 mile round trip to get groceries too. I go once a month. Now that DS has the job at the dental office, he can pick up stuff for us on his way home which is nice.
 
#20 ·
How many are in your family? I would love to see some of your meal plans and also how big are your gardens. I think what you do is awesome and I am in awe and would love to learn from you.

From the numbers you gave you roughly spend $240 per month on grocery including the extra household stuff.
Also do you eat vegetarian?
 
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#19 ·
One thing I have found lately as I have been trying to get rid of this weight I have gained.( I am 45 and hubby 54.) We have both been thin all our lives but now have a little bit extra that is not wanted! Anyways, I have found that portion control is not only good for the waistline but for the wallet also. We had gotten in the habit ( well me, I dish up the plates ) of putting big restaurant size portions on plates. He would tell me many times that it was to much for him so I finally started listening and start small. We can always get more but only once in a while do we actually want more. I always use a smaller salad size plate for me, sometimes for him too. We have started having leftovers the 2nd day which has taken some getting used to for me. He has always like leftovers. Saves a lot on grocerys though.
 
#22 ·
Tami, we quit using dinner platters plates about twenty years ago. It's amazing how much less the same amount of food looks like when it's on a giant dinner plate instead of a normal plate. The oversize dishes the manufacturers offer for sale these days are more of a reason why people gain weight in this country than anything else, IMO. People judge portions by eye, and if it doesn't look like enough, they'll add more food till it does, so if it's on a bigger plate, of course it won't look like enough. Or to put it another way, if the same amount of food is on a smaller plate, it looks like enough and people don't add more. Naturally, the more you eat, the more likely you are to be overweight.

It's interesting to look at vintage dinner plates these days. They're far smaller than the new ones. Why did they get bigger? We use the Melmac set in our camper that belonged to my ILs which they used every day from the late 1950's till they died. The whole set is small. The plates are normal size, the cups which we did not keep held a cup, the soup bowls hold maybe a cup and a half, the ice cream dishes hold about a half cup, etc. Perfect. I wish it was possible to get smaller dishes in contemporary styles now, but I can't seem to find any.

I often use a pie plate for my food and it holds plenty.

I know the capacity of most of the dishes I use on a daily basis. It helps a lot not to have to haul out measuring cups every time I want something.

I used to hate leftovers too, but I've learned to appreciate them. A lot!
 
#24 ·
Portion size is key for us. We eat extremely well but spend only $150/week on average (for 3 very active adults.) We eat far, far less than anyone else I know IRL.

The price I pay per pound for things like cheese and butter and meats would shock most people, but when you eat reasonable amounts of food, it just doesn't add up to all that much (relatively speaking.)

For us, the slightly higher grocery bills are more than offset by decreased medical expenses. Dh and I both used to have chronic health problems, all treated with medications....now, we have none, and the only thing that changed was our diet.
 
#25 ·
I finally found this thread again! I have a few minutes to post.

For breakfast DH and I each eat: 1 1/2 cups cooked rye and barley flakes, with one or two fresh fruits such as apple, banana, seedless grapes, cantaloupe, pear, tangerine, etc. Whatever we have, what is in season. We might split a large apple or each eat a small one. He takes 3/4 of a banana and I take 1/4. Then we put in the cereal a couple tablespoons each of home- canned nectarines and blueberries and/or pears. Instead of milk, he uses home-canned apple juice. I use a little apple juice and some almond milk. sometimes I use home-canned pear or nectarine juice. He doesn't like the pear juice but will use the nectarine if we run out of apple juice. I also put 1 Tbsp of sesame tahini in my cereal. I like the rich, creamy flavor/texture it adds to it. We have eaten this for years and never get tired of it. I actually look forward to my breakfast each morning.

DS fixes his own breakfast usually consisting of beans, cooked vegetables and brown rice or other gluten-free grain or GF bread, home-ground corn grits or other complex carb. He has many, many allergies including gluten, dairy, egg, soy, and many others.

DD fixes her own breakfast too. It can either be leftovers, oatmeal with raisins, fruit and juice or sometimes just whole wheat toast and fresh apples.

Lunch depends on whether we are home or not. If DH is going to be out, I will pack him a lunch of home-made vegeburgers on home-made whole grain bread with Vegenaise, fresh veggies such as celery or carrot sticks, shredded raw cabbage, lettuce, turnip or diakon sticks, sometimes olives if we have them, a piece of fruit (usually an apple unless is berry or melon season), some nuts and raisins or dates.

If we're home, we'll almost always have some kind of beans (plain usually with only salt which we love), home-made from scratch cornbread, and maybe mustard greens or broccoli, winter squash or sweet potatoes, maybe another cooked (from frozen, canned or dried and rehydrated) vegetable, one or two raw vegetables, usually in winter celery or cabbage or daikon. Many options in garden season-tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, zucchini, various greens, corn, etc.

Supper is our lightest meal of the day. Sometimes we'll have a salad with a few beans & nuts added. Sometimes it will be whole wheat bread with nut butter and applesauce or sliced fresh fruit. Sometimes we'll use home-canned fruits, thickened with a little starch and a bit almond extract added, on the bread instead of applesauce. Sometimes we'll have a sandwich made from tofu, mashed, salted and herbs and Vegenaise added. Sometimes we have leftovers from lunch. DS will have pretty much the same things he had for lunch.

So that's our basic meal plan. DD is the only one who sometimes gets tired of beans but even then, not for long.

We don't eat between meals. Our high-fiber, hearty meals keep us from getting hungry for 5-6 hours between meals. Sometimes in winter, we even switch to two meals per day because we like to have stomachs pretty empty when we go to bed so our digestive systems can rest. We tend to go to bed earlier in winter. If a person eats constantly all day and before bed, the stomach never gets to rest! It deserves a break too!
 
#27 ·
I think I could eat your lunch of beans, cornbread and veggies every day too. Sounds absolutely yummy. Unfourtanetly hubby would not be pleased. You have inspired me to start working on him though.....planning to do one meal a week this way. I am vegetarian so he is used to meatless meals though I do cook meat for him probably half the time.

I am just wondering if your family keeps a healthy weight eating this way? It seems like you would all be slim and if you don't want to answer I fully understand it is none of my buisness.

Thank you for the inspiration!
 
#26 ·
We eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables which gets expensive. Even eating in season it adds up. I live in a condo, so I do not have a garden.

I think the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables varies a lot with where you live. The part of the country I live in is pretty urbanized without a lot of nearby farms. The farmers markets are actually more expensive than buying from the grocery store.

We also are on a low carb high protein diet which is expensive. We do not eat huge quantities of meat. Usually we have a meat and a bean side dish with lots of veggies, a fruit and a small carb.

Cutting carbs can be expensive because so many cheap foods are carbs.
On the other hand, we do not eat much in the way of convenience foods and we make most of our own foods so that evens out some of the cost.

Convenience foods for specialty diets can be really pricey.
 
#29 ·
I eat 90% organic and do not eat processed food. I know I spend way more than if I were to go an easier route, but I'm not willing to compromise my health by buying cheap, unhealthy food. That said, you can buy a lot of organic beans and organic rice and other grains if you're willing to take the time to cook everything.
 
#34 ·
Wow ... um ... Kant was NOT a Libertarian although I understand your confusion. A clarification is simply too complex to discuss here. Feel free to start another thread if you wish.

Secondly, yes even the Tea Party happily entertains the notion of eliminating Social Security.

Again, the flaw in your thinking is you assume one incorrect position then expand that to justify further assumption. Specifically, as a society we haven't decided as a society to take care of children and seniors. While there are multiple examples of rampant financial support of children and seniors, the practice is far from universal in the USA.

In short, we don't have to swing one way or another. We simply don't. We can honor individual freedoms and inalienable rights while also providing specific safety nets in extreme cases. Providing a safety net doesn't mean we can then force people to become slaves to a faceless, domineering givernment.
 
#36 ·
Wow ... um ... Kant was NOT a Libertarian although I understand your confusion. A clarification is simply too complex to discuss here. Feel free to start another thread if you wish.
I'll let you take the lead. Read Kantian Individualism and Political Libertarianism by James Otteson, and see if you're as 'confused' about it as you think I am. Maybe I am confused by his concepts of autonomous will or absolute worth. I guess Kant's mistake was that (ultimately) said all freedoms are granted, not inalienable, and that they are given by the state. Pragmatically he's correct, as we have seen plenty of examples of States that take away human freedoms. Also, there is an argument to be made that that any freedom a person has, infringes on the freedom of another person in some way - as he writes

"The highest purpose of nature—i.e. the development of all natural capacities—can be fulfilled for mankind only in society, and nature intends that man should accomplish this, and indeed all his appointed ends, by his own efforts. This purpose can be fulfilled only in a society which has not only the greatest freedom, and therefore a continual antagonism among its members, but also the most precise specification and preservation of the limits of this freedom in order that it can co-exist with the freedom of others."

Now, was he a Libertarian in the way the word has been stolen recently, to just mean big business can do whatever they like, and people can own automatic rifles, and hospitals can refuse contraceptives etc? No... then you're right.

Again, the flaw in your thinking is you assume one incorrect position then expand that to justify further assumption. Specifically, as a society we haven't decided as a society to take care of children and seniors. While there are multiple examples of rampant financial support of children and seniors, the practice is far from universal in the USA.
I didn't make any assumptions, I made two assertions and acknowledged neither exist or are likely to exist, but both are logical conclusions to extreme positions on the subject. There is nothing 'flawed' about my thinking, and your comments are mildly condescending.

In short, we don't have to swing one way or another. We simply don't. We can honor individual freedoms and inalienable rights while also providing specific safety nets in extreme cases. Providing a safety net doesn't mean we can then force people to become slaves to a faceless, domineering givernment.
Two things. Firstly providing ONLY safety nets is grossly inefficient, because they usually only kick in when a problem is irreversible. The best argument for universal healthcare is that we provide it anyway (emergency rooms cannot turn people away to die) but it's more expensive to wait until a person is acutely ill - especially if it's from a preventative disease.

The second thing is that government is far from faceless. It's elected - and believe me, I am not a fan of big government AT ALL - but I'd rather something that is elected every few years was telling me how to live, than some factory down the street pumping garbage into my drinking water and forcing me to live with it, without even telling me.

More than happy to bat this back and forth, but please drop the disrespectful tone.
 
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