How to go organic on a budget?

Reevsey

I've just been advised by my doctor that I should try to eat organic food especially meat and milk due to some hormone related health problems I've got. My initial reaction was eeek that will cost an absolute fortune - any suggestions where I should go to to get sensibly priced organic food, the main supermarkets seem scarily expensive? I do grow a small amount of veggies/fruit but nowhere near near enough to sustain me through the year. Any suggestions welcomed.

chesky369

Get an allotment.

crystaltipps

Change your Doctor.

TUS

Farm shops - depending on where you live. Local butchers, grocers, etc.

galileo74

try comparing prices - at the very least, you will find the cheapest organic basket
use mysupermarket.co.uk - it helps (although i never tried organic there)

Reevsey

Thanks good idea to use comparison sites - had wondered if there was an on-line site that is known for more reasonable prices. Never looked at organic meat and milk before but it'll help sort my health probs then its got to be worth a try.

Rebelle

If you don't already, check out the reduced section in your supermarket (and find out what times they do reductions, to give yourself the best advantage!) - because organic produce tends to be dearer it also tends not to sell quite as well and is often yellow-stickered in my local Asda/Tesco - got 6 organic eggs last week with a week left on the use by date for 35p and have had organic fillet steak in the past reduced to half price, also organic veg and milk - obviously you can't rely on getting 'whoopsies' all the time but every little helps!

Can you get an organic fruit & veg box delivered in your area? That might be an idea, my mum got one for a while when I still lived at home and it was always fun to see what we'd been brought this week and working out what to cook based around it. If you use everything in the box it's not bad value - think some of them also do milk, meat and eggs etc now so definitely worth looking into.

Edited to add - if you find organic meat is just too expensive in comparison, how about eating more veggie meals instead? Lots of non-veggies do this to save money/for health reasons and it will cut down the amount of non-organic meat you're eating. I'm not a lover of veg on its own, but love veggie versions of chilli, curry, lasagne, spag bol etc made with either Quorn or just loads of different veg.

On a similar note, you could cut down on non-organic milk by using soya milk in tea/coffee - I used it in tea when on the Atkins diet (no milk allowed!) and it was fine, probably not as nice on cereal etc but if you don't mind the taste that could be a good moneysaver compared to buying organic.