Frequently I’ll be talking with a friend or neighbor and they’ll have to leave because they have to run to the grocery store before dinner. They declare that unless they go to the store they won’t have anything to cook for dinner. This puzzles me greatly. Particularly when the person I’m talking to is a fellow mormon and theoretically has a year’s supply of food stashed away. I can only assume that what they actually lack is a few key ingredients for their planned menu. I’ve made that kind of run myself in the days when cash flowed more freely. These days I don’t run to the store on a whim. Each trip to the store costs me time, money, and the risk of being tempted to buy something impulsively. If I am lacking a key ingredient I either substitute or fix something else. This means we eat a fair number of experimental meals, but mostly they turn out pretty good. Practice has given me a basic sense of which substitutions will work and which will result in disposal fodder. Using what I have rather than running to the store is a basic tenet of my frugal budget.
Another thing that puzzles me is the assertion that I hear from many people that eating healthy is more expensive than other eating. One of the first things I did when trimming my food budget was to eliminate pre-processed foods. I started buying only ingredients and fixing the food myself. This completely eliminated most of the junk food that my family was consuming. Candy, chips, twinkies, fruit punch, and chicken nuggets all became things of the past. Instead we eat cheese macaroni, ramen, rice based dishes, potato based dishes, soups, and lots of canned fruits and vegetables. Howard eats lots more meats than the rest of us, especially when on an Atkins style diet. We are spending far less money than we used to do and we are eating far healthier. The biggest food budget expenses are for meats and fresh fruits/veggies. We have more of the latter in the summer when we can grow them ourselves. In the winter we stick to canned. Meat we buy on sale and freeze it until we’re ready to use it. I guess the difference is in how you define “healthy.” I believe it is possible to have a healthy diet without eating fish twice a week. I tend to watch fads in healthy eating come and go while I stick to basics. I also don’t believe that there is a magical balanced diet that will prevent all ills. Pretty good is good enough.
It is more expensive to eat healthier, I think, especially in the late fall – through early spring, when eating seasonally means the last few winter squashes and not much else. I also try to eat organic, to keep pesticide free foods in my home. I *try* but when organic lettuce is 2 – 3 times the cost of regular lettuce, I fail.
I think the thing with most larger families is that fish and veggies do not stretch as far as cheap ground beef. Those of us who do eat some meats during the week have a choice – I go with the 3% fat cuts. They cost a lot more than 27% fat bits.
I’d love to learn how to can, though. My mother in law promises to teach me when she comes east or I go west 😉 She raised her family on the mission field and is amazing when it comes to making fresh foods go a long way.
And on that note, I do have to make a grocery run 😉 My husband is craving a fish stew and I try not to keep any kind of fish in the freezer for too long, not with the power outages our area has!
It is more expensive to eat healthier, I think, especially in the late fall – through early spring, when eating seasonally means the last few winter squashes and not much else. I also try to eat organic, to keep pesticide free foods in my home. I *try* but when organic lettuce is 2 – 3 times the cost of regular lettuce, I fail.
I think the thing with most larger families is that fish and veggies do not stretch as far as cheap ground beef. Those of us who do eat some meats during the week have a choice – I go with the 3% fat cuts. They cost a lot more than 27% fat bits.
I’d love to learn how to can, though. My mother in law promises to teach me when she comes east or I go west 😉 She raised her family on the mission field and is amazing when it comes to making fresh foods go a long way.
And on that note, I do have to make a grocery run 😉 My husband is craving a fish stew and I try not to keep any kind of fish in the freezer for too long, not with the power outages our area has!
How much time does it take you to prepare a meal?
How much advance planning do you need to do?
How much time does it take you to prepare a meal?
How much advance planning do you need to do?
In my neck of the woods, frozen fish is competative with all but the 75/25 ground beef and the dark meat chicken. (Price wise around here nothing beats chicken leg quarters. Even assuming that they are 50% by weight skin and bones, that’s on the order of 80 cents a pound. On rare occasions whole chickens will hit 60 cents a pound but you still have skin and bones to deal with.)
Looking at the only circular I have on hand, we have pork roast for 1.19/lb, 75/25 ground beef for 1.39/lb, centercut pork steaks for 1.59/lbBeef Round Steak and Sirloin Tip for 1.99/lb. This store doesn’t actually carry fish outside of the mrs.paul’s type, but the store that does carry fish has permanent 1.40ish/lb catfish, 4 dollar 2-3 lb frozen salmon, 2-3 dollar/lb frozen tilapia and perch, and the 35-50 cents a pound bags of chicken leg quarters.
In my neck of the woods, frozen fish is competative with all but the 75/25 ground beef and the dark meat chicken. (Price wise around here nothing beats chicken leg quarters. Even assuming that they are 50% by weight skin and bones, that’s on the order of 80 cents a pound. On rare occasions whole chickens will hit 60 cents a pound but you still have skin and bones to deal with.)
Looking at the only circular I have on hand, we have pork roast for 1.19/lb, 75/25 ground beef for 1.39/lb, centercut pork steaks for 1.59/lbBeef Round Steak and Sirloin Tip for 1.99/lb. This store doesn’t actually carry fish outside of the mrs.paul’s type, but the store that does carry fish has permanent 1.40ish/lb catfish, 4 dollar 2-3 lb frozen salmon, 2-3 dollar/lb frozen tilapia and perch, and the 35-50 cents a pound bags of chicken leg quarters.
After both wife and I were laid off last year, we found it cheaper to buy the large box of bisquik, 10 lbs of flour, 10 lbs of rice, 10 lbs of potatoes and fresh veggies and meat. With these basic ingredients and internet access to just about any recipe, we’re set. We’ve saved money, started losing weight and generally seem to be doing well.
One thing we try to avoid is anything with corn syrup in it. And it’s scary just how many things have it. Stuff like spaghetti sauce and ketchup. Weird.
After both wife and I were laid off last year, we found it cheaper to buy the large box of bisquik, 10 lbs of flour, 10 lbs of rice, 10 lbs of potatoes and fresh veggies and meat. With these basic ingredients and internet access to just about any recipe, we’re set. We’ve saved money, started losing weight and generally seem to be doing well.
One thing we try to avoid is anything with corn syrup in it. And it’s scary just how many things have it. Stuff like spaghetti sauce and ketchup. Weird.
I have a hard time with “eating healthy is more expensive”, too. Depends what you mean – buying a lot of snack-ready foods is generally more pricy than buying ingredients and cooking, and the latter at least gives you control over what you get…
But I do agree that organic foods are generally more pricy, as are (fresh) out-of-season foods. A lot of foods freeze well, though there’s always exceptions to that.
For whatever reason we don’t seem to eat canned veggies or fruits nearly at all. Canned soup sometimes. Frozen veggies a fair bit, fresh veggies a lot. I expect we are paying more for that, though the cost differential doesn’t seem much compared to seafood prices.
Also oddly (in retrospect) we don’t eat potatoes. Not sure why. We both like them. We just never buy them.
I have a hard time with “eating healthy is more expensive”, too. Depends what you mean – buying a lot of snack-ready foods is generally more pricy than buying ingredients and cooking, and the latter at least gives you control over what you get…
But I do agree that organic foods are generally more pricy, as are (fresh) out-of-season foods. A lot of foods freeze well, though there’s always exceptions to that.
For whatever reason we don’t seem to eat canned veggies or fruits nearly at all. Canned soup sometimes. Frozen veggies a fair bit, fresh veggies a lot. I expect we are paying more for that, though the cost differential doesn’t seem much compared to seafood prices.
Also oddly (in retrospect) we don’t eat potatoes. Not sure why. We both like them. We just never buy them.
I mostly avoid canned vegetables with the exception of specialty items like the (very) occasional can of artichoke hearts and the bought in bulk canned olives (My family is full of heritics on that one. We like chemically blackened california olives. On the up side, it is much cheaper than “good” olives.) and the (when they are on sale) water chestnuts and baby corn.
Corn is frozen in a bag or fresh at ten cents a cob, depending on the season, and either way competitive with canned corn and importantly, more likely to be eaten by family members.
I personally buy a lot of broccoli, mostly frozen in bags, though when the fresh stuff goes on sale at 50 cents/lb or so I’ll buy a bunch of it and make dishes that focus on it.
Cauliflower and Asparagus are bought only when they are very on sale, and in the caser of Asparagus, fresh is cheaper and eaten by more family memebers than the same drained weight of canned.
Onions are bought maybe twice a month fresh, but none of us use a lot of onion in our cooking.
I buy fresh and powdered garlic since my store carries fresh by the pound instead of the clove and powered garlic incredibly cheap.
We do spend more on potatos than we should, mostly buying the red ones.
Carrots are usually the baby carrots and usually when they are on a big sale.(I will go buy fresh normal carrots, but then I will end up being the only one who eats them and they end up going bad before I can finish them.)
One thing I’ve found is that loose fresh snow peas and bean sprouts are generally much better deals than they appear initially. They are both fairly expensive by mass, but at 4 bucks a pound, I can cook a meal for four with snow peas as the main vegetable for about a dollar and a half of them (and I usually actually make something for 2 with snow peas since only some of us like them.) And Bean Sprouts will fill a bag full before you hit a pound.
I mostly avoid canned vegetables with the exception of specialty items like the (very) occasional can of artichoke hearts and the bought in bulk canned olives (My family is full of heritics on that one. We like chemically blackened california olives. On the up side, it is much cheaper than “good” olives.) and the (when they are on sale) water chestnuts and baby corn.
Corn is frozen in a bag or fresh at ten cents a cob, depending on the season, and either way competitive with canned corn and importantly, more likely to be eaten by family members.
I personally buy a lot of broccoli, mostly frozen in bags, though when the fresh stuff goes on sale at 50 cents/lb or so I’ll buy a bunch of it and make dishes that focus on it.
Cauliflower and Asparagus are bought only when they are very on sale, and in the caser of Asparagus, fresh is cheaper and eaten by more family memebers than the same drained weight of canned.
Onions are bought maybe twice a month fresh, but none of us use a lot of onion in our cooking.
I buy fresh and powdered garlic since my store carries fresh by the pound instead of the clove and powered garlic incredibly cheap.
We do spend more on potatos than we should, mostly buying the red ones.
Carrots are usually the baby carrots and usually when they are on a big sale.(I will go buy fresh normal carrots, but then I will end up being the only one who eats them and they end up going bad before I can finish them.)
One thing I’ve found is that loose fresh snow peas and bean sprouts are generally much better deals than they appear initially. They are both fairly expensive by mass, but at 4 bucks a pound, I can cook a meal for four with snow peas as the main vegetable for about a dollar and a half of them (and I usually actually make something for 2 with snow peas since only some of us like them.) And Bean Sprouts will fill a bag full before you hit a pound.
I think the key to those sorts of statements is that it’s more expensive to eat healthy than not when one is unable/unwilling to prepare one’s own food, at least to the extent of the effort required to purchase individual healthy ingredients and cook with them. Frequently what people mean when they say “eating healthy is more expensive” is that healthy versions of prepackaged meals, processed snacks, fast food, etc. are more expensive.
I think the key to those sorts of statements is that it’s more expensive to eat healthy than not when one is unable/unwilling to prepare one’s own food, at least to the extent of the effort required to purchase individual healthy ingredients and cook with them. Frequently what people mean when they say “eating healthy is more expensive” is that healthy versions of prepackaged meals, processed snacks, fast food, etc. are more expensive.
I do admit that my grocery cart costs a lot when full – but it’s ususally full of whole grain bread and fresh produce (my husband and I have black thumbs >.< We tried the garden thing for years, with no luck.)...
But even so, we still spend less on food than I did when I was living by myself and buying Lunchables and other crud. And if I had to, I can go a month or more without going to the grocery store (though, thanks to a tomato binge, we’d probably have spaghetti every night for weeks!).
Though admittedly, I need to stock up on our food supply – over the last few months we’ve been shopping less and eating into it. But we still have 4 cans of wheat and a grinder, as well as tons of sugar and salt and noodles and powdered milk.
The biggest problem is getting a tricky toddler to drink powdered milk. But at least I can cook with it, and save money (as a kid I never knew how expensive milk really was!).
I do admit that my grocery cart costs a lot when full – but it’s ususally full of whole grain bread and fresh produce (my husband and I have black thumbs >.< We tried the garden thing for years, with no luck.)...
But even so, we still spend less on food than I did when I was living by myself and buying Lunchables and other crud. And if I had to, I can go a month or more without going to the grocery store (though, thanks to a tomato binge, we’d probably have spaghetti every night for weeks!).
Though admittedly, I need to stock up on our food supply – over the last few months we’ve been shopping less and eating into it. But we still have 4 cans of wheat and a grinder, as well as tons of sugar and salt and noodles and powdered milk.
The biggest problem is getting a tricky toddler to drink powdered milk. But at least I can cook with it, and save money (as a kid I never knew how expensive milk really was!).
Precisely. What you’re paying for in cases like that are the time spent in preparing things. Admittedly, there are things I will buy because I prefer them, such as baby carrots rather than the bull-sized, but I still tend to price shop and I’m certainly not afraid to cook and experiment.
Now I just have to get the *will* to cook more, and I think stock up on standard cooking supplies. I really should use potatoes more, and get used to peeling them. Stews are fun, I think, and I’m getting used to them.
Precisely. What you’re paying for in cases like that are the time spent in preparing things. Admittedly, there are things I will buy because I prefer them, such as baby carrots rather than the bull-sized, but I still tend to price shop and I’m certainly not afraid to cook and experiment.
Now I just have to get the *will* to cook more, and I think stock up on standard cooking supplies. I really should use potatoes more, and get used to peeling them. Stews are fun, I think, and I’m getting used to them.
I have a comic strip on my fridge. It’s the difference between the husband and wife going to the store because they are out of bread.
The husband leaves the store with 1 grocery bag with A loaf of bread in it. The wife leaves with an overflowing grocery cart full of food.
(Although, every time I look at the strip I’m suprised the husband doesn’t have contraband icecream in his bag too. 🙂
That’s my problem at the grocery store, I HAVE a grocery list, BUT, my mind looks at everything and remembers what else we are running out of and also sees sales of things to stock up on and VIOLA! we have a $100. grocery trip with a 10 item grocery list. And that’s how my trips become expensive. We stopped the oops we forgot run to the store syndrome. (except for the occasional French bread 🙂
I think these are the biggest complaints about eating healthy:
1. “organic” anything costs 3 – 4 times as much as the “regular” stuff.
2. “diet” foods like less sugar jams (which are half as big as other jams, but, 2-3 times more expensive)or healthy peanutbutter with less fat (again smaller yet more expensive) or REALLY good cuts of meat are REALLY
expensive.
I mean, just take a gander at Dr. Phil’s diet’s recipe book (borrow it from the library for a laugh) and you will see him suggest swordfish and superexpensive lean cuts of beef for every dinner! Turkey Sausage is pretty good with cooked Oat Bran (look for oat bran in bins but, get the recipe for cooking it off the expensive tiny packages) but, it’s also expensive if you have it every morning.
Also, Oprah told everyone to have more pomegranate juice… sure it might be super HEALTHY but, it’s REALLY expensive. In general the general public is getting eating healthy food tips from rich (healthy) people on t.v. who don’t seem to have a food budget…
See what I mean? … and perhaps that’s what other people mean by “it’s expensive to eat healthy”.
On shopping day, we found a good sale price on grilling steaks. We BBQed it all and had leftovers enough for 3 lunches and another dinner.
Last night we ate leftover steak sliced on top of Spinach with a dressing over the top of it all made of a couple of mandarin oranges, it’s liquid, some olive oil, a dash of balsamic vinegar and lemon juice, some brown sugar and dashes of salt and pepper. It was really good, Soccergirl ate mostly the meat and the mandarin oranges (we kept the bulk of the oranges out of the dressing because I KNEW she wouldn’t eat them if we did), and LightningBoy ate mostly the meat and spinach. WE loved it!
Healthy and summery cool. yay! You are right though, Sandra, it’s often a big experiment.
I have a comic strip on my fridge. It’s the difference between the husband and wife going to the store because they are out of bread.
The husband leaves the store with 1 grocery bag with A loaf of bread in it. The wife leaves with an overflowing grocery cart full of food.
(Although, every time I look at the strip I’m suprised the husband doesn’t have contraband icecream in his bag too. 🙂
That’s my problem at the grocery store, I HAVE a grocery list, BUT, my mind looks at everything and remembers what else we are running out of and also sees sales of things to stock up on and VIOLA! we have a $100. grocery trip with a 10 item grocery list. And that’s how my trips become expensive. We stopped the oops we forgot run to the store syndrome. (except for the occasional French bread 🙂
I think these are the biggest complaints about eating healthy:
1. “organic” anything costs 3 – 4 times as much as the “regular” stuff.
2. “diet” foods like less sugar jams (which are half as big as other jams, but, 2-3 times more expensive)or healthy peanutbutter with less fat (again smaller yet more expensive) or REALLY good cuts of meat are REALLY
expensive.
I mean, just take a gander at Dr. Phil’s diet’s recipe book (borrow it from the library for a laugh) and you will see him suggest swordfish and superexpensive lean cuts of beef for every dinner! Turkey Sausage is pretty good with cooked Oat Bran (look for oat bran in bins but, get the recipe for cooking it off the expensive tiny packages) but, it’s also expensive if you have it every morning.
Also, Oprah told everyone to have more pomegranate juice… sure it might be super HEALTHY but, it’s REALLY expensive. In general the general public is getting eating healthy food tips from rich (healthy) people on t.v. who don’t seem to have a food budget…
See what I mean? … and perhaps that’s what other people mean by “it’s expensive to eat healthy”.
On shopping day, we found a good sale price on grilling steaks. We BBQed it all and had leftovers enough for 3 lunches and another dinner.
Last night we ate leftover steak sliced on top of Spinach with a dressing over the top of it all made of a couple of mandarin oranges, it’s liquid, some olive oil, a dash of balsamic vinegar and lemon juice, some brown sugar and dashes of salt and pepper. It was really good, Soccergirl ate mostly the meat and the mandarin oranges (we kept the bulk of the oranges out of the dressing because I KNEW she wouldn’t eat them if we did), and LightningBoy ate mostly the meat and spinach. WE loved it!
Healthy and summery cool. yay! You are right though, Sandra, it’s often a big experiment.
Most people don’t know how to cook either.
Unless it comes in a box or can with instructions, they don’t know what to with it. If you showed a group of people: 1 lb of steak, 1 lb of ground beef, sour cream, mushrooms, bell peppers, rice, milk, cheese, eggs and snow peas they might come up with 2 dishes. Someone who know how to cook can come with: Stroganoff, Stir-fry, Stuffed peppers, Frittata, Steak w/sides, Beef & Rice casserole and Creamed Beef. I’m sure that other people could come up with other ideas.
It is a lot easier to run to the store than try to think and use what you have on hand.
As for being too expensive: well that’s just spending time shopping and most people don’t have or don’t make the time to that.
Most people don’t know how to cook either.
Unless it comes in a box or can with instructions, they don’t know what to with it. If you showed a group of people: 1 lb of steak, 1 lb of ground beef, sour cream, mushrooms, bell peppers, rice, milk, cheese, eggs and snow peas they might come up with 2 dishes. Someone who know how to cook can come with: Stroganoff, Stir-fry, Stuffed peppers, Frittata, Steak w/sides, Beef & Rice casserole and Creamed Beef. I’m sure that other people could come up with other ideas.
It is a lot easier to run to the store than try to think and use what you have on hand.
As for being too expensive: well that’s just spending time shopping and most people don’t have or don’t make the time to that.
P.S.
I forgot to mention cereal and bread.
If you eat a lot of cereal (like I do) it can be pretty expensive.
Most healthy cereals cost $4.+ and come in smaller boxes.
Healthy cereal with some label reading and good sales can be as low as $2.
(I mean, Lucky Charms claims to be healthy with it’s “whole grains”.)
I’ve switched my daugther from cheap and not so healthy Honeycombs to more healthy Kix and multigrain cheerios… not bad.
“healthy bread” costs 3 or 4 dollars a loaf, but, with some label reading (some wheat breads have 5+sources of sugar!) we found a wheat bread that is whole wheat (not enriched) and good enough for $1.39, and on good days it goes on sale for .99 cents.
Oh and I’ll agree with the comment that people just don’t know how to cook these days… why do you think more than half the store is full of prepared foods (the box of Fruit Crisp just add fruit, Kills me!) and why we have the Food Network and it’s so popular?
Oh yeah, on Oprah’s Debt Diet program, part of helping people get out of debt involves no more or less eating out and learning how to cook at home.
Okay, I’ll stop now.
P.S.
I forgot to mention cereal and bread.
If you eat a lot of cereal (like I do) it can be pretty expensive.
Most healthy cereals cost $4.+ and come in smaller boxes.
Healthy cereal with some label reading and good sales can be as low as $2.
(I mean, Lucky Charms claims to be healthy with it’s “whole grains”.)
I’ve switched my daugther from cheap and not so healthy Honeycombs to more healthy Kix and multigrain cheerios… not bad.
“healthy bread” costs 3 or 4 dollars a loaf, but, with some label reading (some wheat breads have 5+sources of sugar!) we found a wheat bread that is whole wheat (not enriched) and good enough for $1.39, and on good days it goes on sale for .99 cents.
Oh and I’ll agree with the comment that people just don’t know how to cook these days… why do you think more than half the store is full of prepared foods (the box of Fruit Crisp just add fruit, Kills me!) and why we have the Food Network and it’s so popular?
Oh yeah, on Oprah’s Debt Diet program, part of helping people get out of debt involves no more or less eating out and learning how to cook at home.
Okay, I’ll stop now.