Is a healthy diet more expensive?

maisie_cat

I believe it's cheaper to eat healthily but it takes more organisation. When our household income fell by 2/3rds I needed to rethink food. I did lots of nutrient research and we eat lots of legumes, grains and veg. I buy frozen veg & fruit and batch cook so we have our own ready meals. We do eat meat but have 2-3 meat free days as well as reduced portions. One chicken breast does 2 people or whole chicken makes 6 meals for 2. I do have pantry stores, spices and a mix of dried, frozen and tinned so lots of flexibility. Aubergines and sweet potatoes are cheaper in Lidl this week so I'm making a vat of curry.

Nelliegrace

It has taken a lot of searching to find a reasonable guide to healthy food proportions. It shows no dairy produce unfortunately.
I found one Health Authority which had fizzy pop, juice, and crisps on their Eat Well photograph.

Longwalker

@MattMattMattUK, I only made the bread because I had made yoghurt and had the whey to use 

I have a Ninja 15 in ! and that even proofs the bread - and makes yoghurt  The difficulty for me at the moment is not being able to lift the Kenwood from its home and not being able to put any welly in with the hand kneading so the loaf was pretty interesting to say the least  

trailingspouse

maisie_cat said:

I believe it's cheaper to eat healthily but it takes more organisation.

I totally agree.

Many years ago we did a 'Live Below the Line' charity challenge, where we had to feed the family on £1 per person per day for 5 days. I did it, with 9p to spare (very proud) - but, we had to be organised (to the level of counting how many slices in a loaf of bread, and how many biscuits in a packet). And it wouldn't have been possible without a certain level of equipment (oven, fridge) and skill set. And it was VERY boring.

I tried to make it as healthy as possible - the cheapest wholemeal sliced loaf, for example, rather than white. I bought veg (potatoes, carrots, onions) but couldn't stretch to fruit. I used 1/2 a dozen eggs, but had to get the battery ones not the organic free range that I would normally buy. And we had to be strict - two biscuits per person per day. It was only two adults - would have been very difficult to do with children, unless they happened to really like liver and onions...

trailingspouse

Nelliegrace said:

It has taken a lot of searching to find a reasonable guide to healthy food proportions. It shows no dairy produce unfortunately.
I found one Health Authority which had fizzy pop, juice, and crisps on their Eat Well photograph.

As well as not including any dairy, this doesn't include any fruit either!!

newlywed

Quotes I have read that stayed in my brain:

“Just eat real food”

“real food doesn’t need an ingredients list because it is an ingredient”

“If you need to look up what an ingredient is, then it’s probably not real food”


but yes it can take time to change your habits and routines so that it doesn’t feel like extra work and it does take some time to plan.

but steamed fish fillet with steamed frozen veg doesn’t take too much planning or extra work.

theoretica

Interesting to me the discussion about bread - because it was one of the things which historically very many ordinary people bought, rather than home baked, and I understand that was in a large part because of the cost of heating/owning ovens, as well as the time needed. 

bouicca21

Typo in my post about bread - not autopsy! Autolysing.

YoungBlueEyes

theoretica said:

Interesting to me the discussion about bread - because it was one of the things which historically very many ordinary people bought, rather than home baked, and I understand that was in a large part because of the cost of heating/owning ovens, as well as the time needed. 

I was thinking very similar. Don't ask me to quote a year, but didn't people take their bread to a village oven type thing...?

Reminds me of fish+chips. Used to be a poor man's meal and have you seen the cost of them now?!

jackieblack

As someone who reversed my T2 diabetes and reduced my BMI from 32 to 21 by removing as many carbs as possible from my diet, my ‘healthy diet’ is definitely more expensive but when balanced against my long term health I’m happy to sacrifice spending  in other areas to make it work.  

Prior to my diagnosis I would typically have cereal/wholemeal toast for breakfast, a baked potato with baked beans or a sandwich (with a bag of crisps) for lunch and pasta or potatoes as a significant proportion of my evening meal.  I was ‘flexitarian’ but reducing my meat/fish consumption mainly due to cost. This cost me around half my current grocery spend as I was filling up on carbs.  My diet now is predominantly limited to meat, fish, veg grown above ground, a limited amount of fruit (mainly berries and a small apple), butter, cheese, natural/greek yogurt (full fat version) and a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter a day. I try to stock up when things are on offer, but it is still significantly more expensive.