What does it cost to eat healthy?
November 28, 2007
Written by: Katie
Can we talk about food for a minute? I knew you would humor me. I never go into a meal *trying* to eat cheaply but it seems that if I make a good meal more often than not it *is* cheap.Â
It bothers me no end when I see women post on message boards and blogs asking how to reduce their grocery budget by yet another $50. And hey, they are feeding a family of 6 on $100/wk. THAT is not acceptable in my mind. I even read of one lady saying that she buys the cheapest boxed pizza dough mix at the grocery store. You know, add water and you have dough…er…sorta…or something that might resemble dough…or more likely paste. But for the uninitiated it’s all the same anyway right? As an aside, when I read the post about the pizza dough to Jeff his reply was “She should just go out back behind the store and get the FREE cardboard boxes. They’re cheaper and probably more nutritious.â€Â Yes, I did post that in reply.Â
Anyway, I post all the time about the meals we eat but I never put how much the meal cost. In reality I usually don’t check. If we need it and it’s good for us and within reason price-wise (no crab legs, sorry) we buy it.Â
But after last night when we went out to eat for the first time in weeks I am rethinking things. As all of you healthy-eaters know, eating out after you haven’t done it in awhile is pretty anti-climatic. And when you look at the bill…$90 (cough, cough) later you really start to evaluate your eating habits and expenditures. It seems that we are enjoying our at home meals so much that we aren’t feeling the desire to go out. And if we are home it is easy to think ahead and soak the beans, make the broth, etc. that keeps the at home meals yummy and makes us want to stay home. Now we have come full circle.
Back to the point of this post. I want to start posting the actual dollar figure break down of the meals we eat. So here goes.
Monday breakfast:
Deviled Eggs - approx 2 eggs per kid: 2 dozen = $4
Celery with Peanut butter or cream cheese: 2 bunch celery = $2
Cream cheese/peanut butter $2
Milk: ¾ gallon = $3.75
Grand total: $11.75
Divided by 12 people since Jeff doesn’t eat breakfast = $.98/meal
I don’t remember what we had for lunch on Monday but dinner was $6.92/meal. YIKES!!
Breakfast - Stir fry with rice:
6 cups dry Wehani rice = $3
1 red onion = $.50
2 cups ham = $3.00 (but it was really free leftovers)
3 celery stalks = $.25
2 carrots = $.25
1 bunch of radishes = $1.00
¾ gallon milk = $3.75
Grand total = $11.50
Divided by 13 = $.88/meal
Lunch - beans, turkey, rice burritos:
Left over rice from breakfast = $0 - $1.00 (If you had to buy it)
Left over beans = $0 - $1.00
Left over turkey = $0 - $1.00
Tomatoes = $2.00
Cheese, 4 cups? = $3.50
Sour cream = $1.00
Tortillas = $1.50
Grand total = $8 - $11 depending on if you have leftovers
Divided by 13 = $.62 - $.85/meal
Dinner -
Left over turkey = $0
Celery bunch = $1
6 carrots = $.50
2 Onion = $.50
Potatoes = free (thanks again Debbie!!)
Divided by 13 = $.15/meal
If I had had wheat berries I would have made bread too which would have added another $.25/loaf and we would have used one or two to bring our total to $.19/meal! Oh and we add cheese on top of our soup. Add another $3.50? Bringing our total per meal to $.54. WOO HOO!!
Tuesday breakfast – oatmeal
8 c steel cut oats = $2
Whey or buttermilk = $.25
Condiments = $1
¾ gal milk = $3.75
Grand total = $7.00
Divided by 13 = $.54
 Who knows what we will do for lunch as today is library day. Probably Pizza Inn. I don’t have anything portable in the house right now. :( I’d like to do this weekly with a menu plan and pictures of the meals. My camera didn’t have a card in it when I took pictures of these meals. BUMMER.
November 28th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Weather or not it is healthy, eating as much as you can from scratch and eating at home is always a good choice. And yes, I’m always thinking when we eat out “wow, I could have eaten for 3 days for what this meal just cost!”. And usually the food is not really all that good. It’s okay, but I just really prefer to eat at home. I enjoy cooking and knowing what is in my food. Well, at least the unproccessed stuff. We’ll get there. Slow and steady.
Enjoy your library day. We just found a book under the couch that we thought we were going to have to pay for this week. Whew!
November 28th, 2007 at 11:54 am
We seem to fall off the healthy-eating wagon frequently. I admit I can be derailed by the slightest bump in the road. I try to make the majority of our meals the Sue Gregg way, but frequent trips into town can play havoc as we live forty-five minutes from anywhere. Like the above poster stated, it is a process of baby steps. Anything we do towards better eating is better than doing nothing, so I am encouraged to keep pressing towards that goal. Thanks for showing that eating healthy doesn’t have to be outrageously expensive.
And speaking of spacey 13 year olds…it seems to be catchy! ;-)
November 28th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I have found that while it might seem that eating healthier would be more expensive it really isn’t if you know where to shop and actually use what you buy. When we eat healthy foods we eat less. We also don’t want to snack as much in between meals because the food is quality food and our bodies are getting what they need. So we don’t crave a lot of sweets and processed snacks. Eating smaller amounts and less often because of the higher quality saves us money.
I have come to enjoy cooking from scratch (although I would enjoy it more if I had a nicer set of cookware :). I do look for ways to cut down on my spending but not by buying cheap, junky, processed stuff. I cut down by buying less of it! Cut the soda habit? Yeah that saves some $$$. No need for 3 different boxes of cookies and 5 different boxes of sugary cereal? That saves lots of $$$. Hurray for oatmeal I say! My kids eat it better anyway and we get a lot more bang for our buck with that as our breakfast.
So, yeah, I agree with you. Thanks for breaking the costs down like that. I find it interesting.
November 28th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I have always been so curious as to your monthly spending amounts, i am so psyched you posted this! can’t wait for more and with pictures!
I agree with you, we don’t need to skimp on food quality. I am on a limited grocery budget and so i can’t do everything i would like, but 99 percent of the time, i cook from scratch, we eats lots of beans and rice and oatmeal also. i choose to spend more to buy real butter than the 50 cent almost plastic margerine. we use lots of fresh veggies and fruit, frozen but hardly ever canned. we might eat boxed cereal once in a blue moon when dh requests it. We just moved into a new house and as soon as we recover from that, i will be able to get a grain mill, i have been wanting one for years…..i can’t hardly wait! i love to bake bread and the possibilities i will have open to me are amazing!
Keep on posting this stuff, i am eating it up!!
November 28th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
You are doing an awesome job both cost wise and health wise. We find that the healthier foods made from scratch are not costly. Right now I am being derailed by appointments and my kids out of the house classes. The classes were great until our OT and Sensory Integration appointments got so carried away. Now when I try to eat out sorta healthy on the road~organic lunch meat, organic bread, bag of carrots and bananas with water bottles~ it is like $15 dollars for 6 people! The next few months will be much calmer and hopefully I will figure out how to eat on the road better. My kids love nuts and fruit, so I am thinking large snack bag kinda thing.
Blessings,
4sweetums
November 28th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Having just been out of town and eaten a couple of meals made by others hands (read about the consequences on my blog), I am appreciating stay home and eating well again this week! I like to scramble up a couple of dozen eggs and slice into a couple of loaves of home-made bread and call it breakfast! Tillamook cheese shredded on top makes the eggs extra special!
Dinner last night was a dozen Costco potatoes, baked and buttered, salt, peppered, cheesed and oh, so good! The children were ready for breakfast, but not starved by the light dinner. We try to eat a large breakfast at about 8:30 AM, a fruit or veggie snack at about 11 AM, dinner at about 4 PM, then a light snack (popcorn, crackers, carrot coins etc.) about 7:30 PM. We digest better that way!
Momma
November 28th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Hi, would you send me the recipe for the stir fry rice? It seems delicious!!!
thanks!!!
November 28th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
We spend WAY too much on groceries each week (about $250) but I am always assured that my spending is “normal” for my family size. But the more I look into what is *truly* nutritious food, the more I realize that we could spend a LOT less. I just need to figure out how to get my husband on board, because he does most of the shopping and some of the cooking - and he ALWAYS buys a lot of processed foods and sodas.
We went out to eat a week or so ago to a pizza buffet and I could barely eat my food - it was just gross to me. Homecooked from scratch is so much better.
Blessings ~ Diane W.
November 28th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I think in our country we don’t value our food enough. There are a lot of “foodies” at our church that we have come to be great friends with, and this has changed our focuses somewhat on food. Some of these families watch Julia Child videos and then recreate it in their own kitchens, they LOVE food. And the foods that are prepared in these kitchens are extremely healthy to boot.
We are out in the country, and grow a lot of our own food. Free range eggs, free. Fresh raw goat’s milk, free. Pumpkins for my pumpkin pie I made on Thankgiving, free. The goose my husband shot out of the sky on Saturday, free (that will be our Christmas goose). Roasted chicken, free (those pesky roosters are getting a bit too big for their britches, time to butcher).
I have been reading a lot of great books about farms, and families in the pre industrial era, and they all ate sooooo well! They ate REAL food, and LOTS of it! Real bread, real butter, real milk, real meat, real veggies! And they did it cheaply because they grew it ALL!
This is what we are working towards in our home, little by little, we will get there.
November 28th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a great book for some inspiration on growing your own food, eating locally, and eating organically. I love the breakdown on cost for your meals. We eat lots of beans, rice, and organic fruits and vegetables. It costs a more, but taste so much better. Now when we eat out my body reacts to all the preservatives in the food (Japanese food is by far the worst).
I wish I had someone to teach me to sew. I took a class and all it did was confuse me more. My MIL is helping me learn to knit/crochet, but she’s in Michigan and I’m in Kansas so it’s slow going.
I love seeing all you do. Thanks for sharing.
~Gretchen
November 28th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Katie,
You’re lucky that you can get your raw milk at such a great price. It cost $6.75 for a half a gallon, here. Drives me nuts!
Diane, we have a family of 10 a spend about 200 per week on food. I almost feel like we’re starving when we don’t. But, I’m pretty sure we could cut that down, too, if we were eating more “prepared” meals.
November 28th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Katie, do you mean to tell me that you’re buying raw milk for $5 a gallon??? I’m jealous!
November 28th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
All I can say is that I just heard we are getting a Golden Corral in the town near us. Like someone else said, I like far from town (an hour). We aren’t there often so we don’t eat out often (and never BK anymore thanks to Katie’s guilt trips) but I *AM* going to try this cause Katie does and she’s my hero.
And the 3 hrs for a 30 minute job…PLEASE don’t tell me that. I keep hoping this will improve.
November 29th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Katie, I’m confused! You said it bothers you when you see a family of six eating on only $100 per week and even worse when they are looking to decrease that amount. You say that is unacceptable to you.
Then you posted some of your recent meals and the cost, and it doesn’t come out to much more per meal than the family who has an unacceptable/too low grocery budget.
For that family of six on $100 per week, it comes out to about $.79 per meal. Your recent meals you posted varied from $.15 per meal up to $.98 per meal, excluding the $6.92 per person lunch.
My point is, there’s not much difference in the cost of that family of 6 on $100/week, and the average cost of your meals you posted.
It is possible to eat cheaply AND healthy at the same time, as your math figures pointed out. I agree that buying cheap, packaged, white flour products is not acceptable. I don’t, however, think you have to spend a huge amount on groceries to eat a healthy diet.
We have a family of 5 and our grocery budget for the month is at the most $250 = $63 per week. Gasp! That comes out to $.59 per serving/meal = not too far off from some of the meals you calculated.
We eat whole grains, beans/legumes, fruit and vegetables, and no processed crap.
Just wanted to take sides with that hypothetical family of six on $50-$100 per week. Not all of us are blessed with a large grocery budget, and it IS possible to feed a family healthy for a small amount of money. It just takes careful planning.
Ok, hope I’m not in trouble now, because I really love your blog! :-)
December 1st, 2007 at 1:05 am
I have 6 kids and have watched our grocery costs rise as we add children and the older ones grow appetites as well as feet… at the same time as rising costs in the stores… and I have often wondered ‘how much do they spend on food?!’
I suppose it’s about twice as much as us, seeing as you have twice as many children… I have been inspired by for posts about meals and have been tired of my children’s chronic illnesses (way too many respiratory issuues) and have been enjoying learning to cook more real meals lately- my sister got a fabulous chicken tortilla soup recipe that actually has me eating green peppers- I’ve never liked green peppers… anyway, thank you for confirming to me that no, it doesn’t have to break the bank, but yes it does cost real money to feed a family real food.
By the way- I ordered a copy of Nourishing Traditions today! I will be eagerly awaiting my book order!
Ooh- question- do you ever mix up bulk mixes of multigrain hot cereals for breakfast? I’ve liked a couple I’ve had from Bob’s Red Mill, but that would get expensive to feed 8 people several days a week, besides they’re not freshly ground that day, or week, or even month, right at home. I’m not a plain oatmeal fan and can’t eat eggs every day due to allergies… Just wondering if you had a favorite recipe as I’ve been thinking of trying out a couple hot ceral mixes on my own…
Enjoy them,
ali