Is a healthy diet more expensive?

-taff

I am of the opinion we never find out what processing or 'new' things do until it's too late. I doubt the person who invented plastic thought in a 100 years time the whole world would be full of microbeads. Tobacco for lung cancer. Cocaine in drinks. Laudanum for babies. Artemesia in drinks.

I know we think we're way too sophisticated to make those kinds of booboos now, but we aren't and we have and we will.

MattMattMattUK

Bluegreen143 said:

I’ve just finished reading Ultra Processed People too. 

I thought it was interesting (and relevant to this thread) that he says the very poorest households in the U.K. would need to spend up to 75% of their disposable income (I looked up the definition of this and it’s income after taxes but before bills etc have come off) to eat a diet meeting nutritional guidelines but with no UPF. For the average family it was 30% of income. Atm in the U.K. we apparently currently spend 6-8% of our income on food (compared to 11-14% in European countries) so if these figures are right it seems to suggest it IS much more expensive to eat healthily. 6-8% of income spent on food seems so low though that I wonder if it’s an accurate figure, we have a good income and I could never stick to that. I’m sure even when I was a SAHM and much more thrifty I spent more than that. I mean if your family bring in £2,000 that’s only about £150 a month spent on food. 

It is based on averages so it is going to vary significantly across different people in the real world. You are a family of four with two incomes, so two non-earners to factor in. I am a single man with no dependents, so the proportion of household income going on food is likely to be lower. Two high earning older people where their children have left home are going to need to spend proportionately even less. 

Bluegreen143 said:

Out of interest I calculated and we are spending around 10-12% of our after tax income on food for our family of four - £450-500 a month. We both have good jobs and a budget surplus so we can afford that but I appreciate not everyone can. 

Even with current pricing one can feed an adult healthily and with no ultra processed food on around £130 pcm, even less if fish and meat are avoided. A family of four would require £600 pcm to likely be comfortable and have flexibility, but that would only require two people on £50k pa to hit that 8% level and in some parts of the country that is far from uncommon. 

Bluegreen143 said:

For the last three weeks I’ve almost cut out UPF (in my own diet - kids & husband eat some). There is the odd thing I’ve not cut out totally - shop bought mayo for example - but I’ve spent more to buy the kind with the least additives. Yesterday I bought the ONLY flatbread/wrap brand in Tesco with zero additives (it contains flour, salt, oil) and it was £1.20 for six small wraps versus about £1 for eight large wraps. Means I need to buy two packs for feeding a family of four. But they were nice. 

All of these kind of things make a difference, but so does a lot of self cooking. If you had made the wraps from scratch they would have cost around 20p, if you had the time free (it takes about half an hour) then those kind of savings stack up. The same with bread, I make my own, it costs about £1 for a 500g loaf to make and I could buy bread for that price in the supermarket, but the bread I bake is equivilant to the bread that is around the £3-5 a loaf price in the supermarket. 

Bluegreen143 said:

We made pulled pork enchiladas with the wraps. The pork cost £10, plus there is the cost of all the other ingredients - tinned tomatoes, sweetcorn, peppers, black beans, garlic, spices, cheese. 

The pork did make two meals (we’d had tacos last week), two leftover lunches and I made soup with the stock from cooking it and a handful of meat. Is this cheaper than it would have been to eat nuggets and frozen chips instead? Hard to work it all out. But I know which diet I feel better on. 

A rough calculation shows that cheap chicken nuggets and chips bought frozen works out at around £1.30 per adult portion. You probably find that the self-made food is cheaper even accounting for all the other ingredients, much healthier, but it does require a small time investment which some will not be prepared to make. 

tooldle

We are a two income household and budget for £200 per month to feed two adults. We are an older couple both on high incomes so the food spend is a tiny percentage of our income, We have little in the way of UHP foods and subsequently often come in under budget. We eat largely plant based meals, with very occasional white meat and some fish. Most of our meals are vegan. 

I suspect habit plays a large part in food choices for many, that and convenience, available time, willingness to try new tastes and textures, ability to cook (assuming no impediment) and preconceived ideas of what makes a meal. 

Bluegreen143

Good thoughts @MattMattMattUK. I did previously make all my own bread and wraps when I was an at home mum. It’s not so much not having 30 mins to spare but having the energy to do it as between school runs, work, taking the kids to the park, homework, dinner, housework, putting them to bed it ends up that the only free time is the evening when they’re in bed, and sometimes I’m tired by then - or if I have the energy I might want to knit or sew or do some gardening or spend time with DH or go out to meet a friend instead. 

However I do have a Friday off with my little girl so I really ought to make it a weekly habit to bake then and freeze the bread/wraps for future use. 

I used to do sourdough which worked brilliantly when I didn’t work but I killed my starter so many times by not attending to it once I was back at work 😆

One thing which definitely does decrease the grocery spend AND is healthier is not buying packaged kid snacks. 

I don’t buy cereal bars, fruit roll ups, lentil puffs or any of the other packaged things you can buy for kids that sell themselves as being healthy. We minimise snacks and don’t allow grazing here. 

My eldest takes a small square of HM flapjack to school every day for his break (I cut it into 16, not 12 as the recipe suggests, and also cut the sugar and add seeds then freeze in individual squares). If they are very hungry they might get some toast or oatcakes or a glass of milk after school but not as the norm, usually it’s just fruit offered. 

The only “kids’ food” I still buy is flavoured fromage frais but after this pack is done I’m going to try to wean them onto Greek yoghurt (by starting with lots of enticing syrup and toppings til they are used to it). They both used to love plain unsweetened Greek yoghurt as babies/toddlers until exposed to the ultra processed kind at preschool 🙄

I obviously have plenty of friends with children similar ages to mine, and almost without exception they are buying a lot of packaged “healthy” snacks each week which must add a lot to the shopping bill. Almost every child I know is allowed several snacks a day which are generally all from packets except the fruit/veg. I appreciate everyone has different hunger levels but even when I was a child it wasn’t normal for us to have lots of snacks, and I’m only 34. 

Now I’m not a monster, the children don’t get treats during the week but at the weekends they sometimes eat sweets, crisps and ice cream, and in full disclosure my husband eats rather a lot of crisps and drinks cola (the children generally drink water, squash is for parties & playdates only) - so these things are on my shopping bill too. But I do think that reducing packaged snacks and how many snacks you offer could save most families a fortune and is an easy health win. 

The other benefit of minimising snacks is the children do come to the dinner table rather hungry which helps reduce pickiness 😆

Longwalker

@Bluegreen143, I think you have a pretty good balance going on, working mother, you need time for you so of course you need some convenience  and lee way

If you have an instant pot or slow cooker, HM yoghurt, greek/skyr style costs pennies, takes no prep, just milk, starter, stir, leave to ferment overnight, strain if needed ( I like mine thick enough to stand a spoon in ) and voila - I use UHT skimmed - 3 litres at 65p per litre and end up with between 1.5 to 2kg yoghurt 

I have very little income, 3 seniors, 2 working part time, so I do have the time to make what I can. My eating clean is coming along well, I do need to kick the Diet Coke addiction, I guzzle it. Ive all but cut bread from my diet, the odd wholemeal pitta. Mr L is benefitting , he used to do his own lunch box - a sandwich, crisps and chocolate. Ive taken over, he now gets roast chicken ( drumsticks ) hard boiled egg, salad , pasta, quinoa , couscous, fruit, yoghurt , and if I do resort to bread like me its wholemeal  pitta.Or he gets left overs if theres enough. Im now buying  very little in pre cooked meat, a six pack of crisps is now fortnightly and chocolate biscuits - rare. Found a lovely recipe for granola which uses soaked liquidised dates and cinnamon for sweetening, along with the oats I just chucked in what I had - sunflower seed, flax etc - makes a lovely topper to the yoghurt

I have noticed that eating cleaner we are actually eating less. Im cooking as normal but there always seems to be left over and its silly things I notice. Like the other day we had burgers, Mr L would always have had his in a bun where as we and mum would just have it on the plate, Mr L didnt manage the bun. Grilled mushrooms and roasted peppers, a bit of salad and we were all totally stuffed yet put Mr L in Mcdonalds and it would be a Big Mac meal and a side of nuggets, and then he would be looking dinner later 

Im not going to go as far as making mayo and sauces,  we eat so little of those it would be wasteful and expensive 

For me it really is all about thinking and prepping ahead. Im looking at new ways for vegetables to make them more of a focus of the meal so those staunch meat eaters arent missing the meat so much, we still have meat but portions are getting smaller

bouicca21

I can cook, I can clean, I can sew.  I resent time spent cleaning, and I can’t be arsed to sew, but I enjoy cooking and experimenting with new recipes.  That doesn’t mean that I judge people who don’t enjoy cooking and so stick to a limited repertoire. After all even a limited repertoire doesn’t necessarily mean eating ultra processed foods, though I think a limited repertoire probably probably ends up costing more.

I think I save money by making my own bread - but as @MattMattMattUK says that’s because I compare the cost to upmarket bread rather than the cheap supermarket offerings.  We should enjoy what we do - and sometimes that means trading time against cost.

Bluegreen143

@Longwalker your DH’s new lunchbox fillers sound amazing! That’s the thing - this fresher way of eating is generally much tastier. 

I really relate to the bit in the book where he talks about being unable to stop eating junk despite realising you aren’t even enjoying it. The first couple of crisps are nice yet I’ll inhale the bowl compulsively despite not even really enjoying the rest.

My BMI was 33 a few weeks ago so I did need to make a change. I’ve lost 9lb in three weeks so I’m pleased with that. My BMI is still in the “obese” category but moving closer to merely “overweight”! My DH has lost 12lb despite the fact he’s still eating some UPF - but much less than before. 

I always maintained a healthy weight til I had my 4yo. Struggled to lose the last 10lb of baby weight with her - she was a horrible sleeper (much worse than my son had been), fully breastfed and wouldn’t take a bottle/dummy so I was up every hour with no respite and I did eat sugary junk to cope. Still, it wasn’t that big a problem til the pandemic started. I put on 2st in 2020 and can recognise now that I was anxiety comfort eating. Until now it’s been such a struggle to turn around my eating habits even though I know I need to - I do relate to some UPF feeling almost addictive. I can totally empathise that for many people it feels like an impossible hurdle to make changes. I do feel the government should step in at least to ban marketing of UPF to children to try to stop these habits forming so young. 

Since almost cutting out UPF I haven’t missed it once - it’s taken no willpower so far at least though I’m only 3 weeks in. I’m enjoying my food more now. But it does take more time and money. 

Pixie_Cosmo

Really interesting thread! I'm wading my way through it all. The cheapest and healthiest way I ever ate was batch cooking. Before I worked from home, I wanted food that was easy to defrost and heat up after work. So I'd cook a load of veggie chilli, curry, pasta bakes/lasagne, soup, tagines etc. And freeze. I also needed to keep to a budget! As many folk do.

As you can imagine, I used a lot of tinned tomatoes, tinned beans, onions, peppers, aubergines, sweet potatoes and veg...

Now I live with my partner, we moved in together over Covid. He doesn't eat anything like the same food as me and now I eat a lot more processed food. I definitely reckon it's more expensive and I certainly put weight on eating it.

I'm trying to get back to my 'healthy' weight and gone back to batch cooking and lower carb meals. It does mean cooking two different meals, and costs more. But I can't keep eating his way and expect to stay healthy. He's a skinny git as well 🤣. His diet suits him, mine suits me 🤷‍♀️. 

MattMattMattUK

Bluegreen143 said:

Good thoughts @ MattMattMattUK. I did previously make all my own bread and wraps when I was an at home mum. It’s not so much not having 30 mins to spare but having the energy to do it as between school runs, work, taking the kids to the park, homework, dinner, housework, putting them to bed it ends up that the only free time is the evening when they’re in bed, and sometimes I’m tired by then - or if I have the energy I might want to knit or sew or do some gardening or spend time with DH or go out to meet a friend instead. 

I only make one loaf a week otherwise I eat too much bread (and butter/olive oil) but I do not really find it an energy thing as I find it almost therapeutic. At work I have to think a lot so I enjoy doing things that do not involve thinking sometimes, the same with cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, though admittedly I am only cleaning from my own usage, not having to clear up after children. 

bouicca21 said:

I think I save money by making my own bread - but as @ MattMattMattUK says that’s because I compare the cost to upmarket bread rather than the cheap supermarket offerings.  We should enjoy what we do - and sometimes that means trading time against cost.

That's the major point, supermarket bread for a pound barely qualifies as bread, where as the stuff I bake is as good as or better than the premium stuff. I have experimented and made lots of different styles, but generally just a nice white boule or granary loaf, using yeast not sourdough, but a slow rise in the fridge overnight. Sometimes different seeds, I have used beer instead of water etc. and it always seems to work well. 

Bluegreen143 said:

My BMI was 33 a few weeks ago so I did need to make a change. I’ve lost 9lb in three weeks so I’m pleased with that. My BMI is still in the “obese” category but moving closer to merely “overweight”! My DH has lost 12lb despite the fact he’s still eating some UPF - but much less than before. 

One thing that I have found when I went through a health kick, including losing over five stone, was that reducing the amount of carbs I ate made a huge difference, it also meant I hardly ever felt hungry even when eating significantly lower amount of calories. 

matty_bram

As everyone is saying, it all depends. 

The cheapest diet in the world probably isn't very healthy (because it will lack nutrients)...then anything above that is give/take. 

For me, I try and lower the price of healthy/quality foods in order to eat well for about the same I would eat junk food. 

So I grow my own, buy reduced, buy in bulk etc.