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I also noticed the high cost of eating right. Those fast-food joints are CHEAP compared to anything healthy. Cooking yourself veggies from the market isn't too expensive, but it takes a lot of time and effort and you have to shop around so you don't get ripped off on prices. The cheapest decent prepared food will run you more than $5 a meal, minimum.
Is it really expensive to eat healthy or cheap to eat bad?
It is all about perspective.
I am a total price watcher and a very thrifty person. I have found cans of vegetables sometimes
3 for $1.00, or tuna fish 5 for $2.50 and here recently bags of salad mix have been 88¢ each.
Even light salad dressing runs regularly 2/$3.00. I wait until certain items go on sale to buy it, then I buy a bunch.
I think chicken might be the cheapest lean meat out there. I don't eat chicken anymore though.
The important thing is to sale watch on the basics then you can justify your reason for splurging on that loaf of
Ezekial that never seems to be on sale, or the Kashi Cereal that I SO love.
It can be done and on a limited budget if you plan ahead.
An FYI on major grocery store sales:
Apparently sales go on a 12 week cycle in stores, so prices are commonly low every three months.
If you see a sale, stock up.
I also noticed the high cost of eating right. Those fast-food joints are CHEAP compared to anything healthy. Cooking yourself veggies from the market isn't too expensive, but it takes a lot of time and effort and you have to shop around so you don't get ripped off on prices. The cheapest decent prepared food will run you more than $5 a meal, minimum.
You are right about it costing more to eat healthy, but I would rather pay a little more up front to eat right and save me the pain of trying to lose weight later and waste money on diet pills, diet books, and diet programs that don't work or tell me to eat healthy in the first place! And just think of all the money you would not have to spend on liposuction or stomach stapling.
Is it really expensive to eat healthy or cheap to eat bad?
It is all about perspective.
I am a total price watcher and a very thrifty person. I have found cans of vegetables sometimes
3 for $1.00, or tuna fish 5 for $2.50 and here recently bags of salad mix have been 88¢ each.
Even light salad dressing runs regularly 2/$3.00. I wait until certain items go on sale to buy it, then I buy a bunch.
I think chicken might be the cheapest lean meat out there. I don't eat chicken anymore though.
The important thing is to sale watch on the basics then you can justify your reason for splurging on that loaf of
Ezekial that never seems to be on sale, or the Kashi Cereal that I SO love.
It can be done and on a limited budget if you plan ahead.
An FYI on major grocery store sales:
Apparently sales go on a 12 week cycle in stores, so prices are commonly low every three months.
If you see a sale, stock up.
Same here, I found it more cost-efficient to eat healthy than not healthy. Personally, I just avoid the dazzle-fabulous mainstream grocery stores (that sell strawberries at 6 dollars a carton--WHAT?!) and go to the smaller, local, perhaps even ethnic grocery stores. They have the same produce at much lower prices.
I do bargain-hunt. My wife and I do all our shopping down on a place they call "The Avenue" and you'd think we were from Mars or something for the looks we get, being the only white and yellow people around. Veggies are half-price compared to the supermarket on the other side of town, and are still 75% of the cost of the weekly farmer's market halfway between the two. Meat, unfortunately, is only a couple of bucks cheaper, but at least the places on the Avenue will butcher it properly for you, if your multi-lingual skills are good enough to communicate with the butcher, rather than having to pay extra for pre-packaged meat that's more than you need.
However, it still is pricy in terms of time, gas (fuel), money, and energy (electricity) to fetch, refridgerate, clean, and cook those groceries, and the fresh stuff doesn't keep long. The canning process adds sugars and preservatives and removes vitamins and nutrients. Plus, I've never seen cans of anything edible anywhere out here for 3-to-a-dollar. Ramen is a different story.
Anyway, my point about cheap junk/expensive health is that when we've both worked dawn-to-dusk, we're tempted to just stop at a resturant once a week or so. Then, we're faced with the choice of $4 a meal for overprocessed junk food or $7 from the healthy grill. (Or $8-12 from the fru-fru "organic" places). On a tight budget, feeding 2 people for $8 looks better than $14.
I can imagine it just gets worse for people less well-off than us with a bigger family and a longer, harder workday.
I'm not saying that $8 is overpriced for a nice meal of tofu, lettuce, sprouts, etc, but...
Well, yes I am. It's not a sirloin steak! C'mon! See, we're spoiled by what we've eaten in other (yes, 1st-world) countries where we can both eat out and get tasty, healthy, meals for $3 or less between the two of us. Things are just handled differently elsewhere. Healthy food isn't a novelty; junk food is. It's just tough to come back and see the symbol of the assembly-line poison of golden arches on every street corner after that.
I agree, Sponger. It DOES cost more, in the plainest sense, to eat healthy. Junk is cheaper. But in the long run, it's worth it - it just takes some getting used to.
Although it appears that eating healthy costs more than the government subsidized cheap crap, over time, the cheap crap costs substantially more when you factor in all of your out-of-pocket expenses to pay for your doctor-hospital-drug bills due to eating the cheap crap. Most people look at the short term rather than seeing the big picture. Granted, those who are financially stressed, have fewer food choices, but they still gotta pay the doctor bills!
This is one of the reasons why diets don't work. It's hard to stay on one when there are so many commercials of food to see. Just eat smaller portions, never get seconds, and exercise more. That works for me.
A few years ago I mentally counted how many fast food restaurants were within a mile of my house, and I got up to over 50! Geez, even Target has some Taco Bell/Pizza Hut thing in it. Who goes out to eat at Target?
I was never a big fast food eater, but gave it up totally about 7 or 8 years ago. It probably helped that I was (am) allergic to beef too. But I started associating the trash associated with fast food (bags, wrappers, cups) that you see littering the entire country with trash in and on my body. If you eat this trash, you end up with excess trash attached to your body in the form of fat. The association of the food with the trash caused me to be sickened by the thought of eating the food.
Maybe if anyone is struggling with fast food, this association could help. Even the commercials are gross to me, but mostly they don't even register when I see them. I also think about the quality of food over the quantity, and fast food is definitely about quantity.
I do bargain-hunt. My wife and I do all our shopping down on a place they call "The Avenue" and you'd think we were from Mars or something for the looks we get, being the only white and yellow people around. Veggies are half-price compared to the supermarket on the other side of town, and are still 75% of the cost of the weekly farmer's market halfway between the two. Meat, unfortunately, is only a couple of bucks cheaper, but at least the places on the Avenue will butcher it properly for you, if your multi-lingual skills are good enough to communicate with the butcher, rather than having to pay extra for pre-packaged meat that's more than you need.
However, it still is pricy in terms of time, gas (fuel), money, and energy (electricity) to fetch, refridgerate, clean, and cook those groceries, and the fresh stuff doesn't keep long. The canning process adds sugars and preservatives and removes vitamins and nutrients. Plus, I've never seen cans of anything edible anywhere out here for 3-to-a-dollar. Ramen is a different story.
Anyway, my point about cheap junk/expensive health is that when we've both worked dawn-to-dusk, we're tempted to just stop at a resturant once a week or so. Then, we're faced with the choice of $4 a meal for overprocessed junk food or $7 from the healthy grill. (Or $8-12 from the fru-fru "organic" places). On a tight budget, feeding 2 people for $8 looks better than $14.
I can imagine it just gets worse for people less well-off than us with a bigger family and a longer, harder workday.
I'm not saying that $8 is overpriced for a nice meal of tofu, lettuce, sprouts, etc, but...
Well, yes I am. It's not a sirloin steak! C'mon! See, we're spoiled by what we've eaten in other (yes, 1st-world) countries where we can both eat out and get tasty, healthy, meals for $3 or less between the two of us. Things are just handled differently elsewhere. Healthy food isn't a novelty; junk food is. It's just tough to come back and see the symbol of the assembly-line poison of golden arches on every street corner after that.
Sorry for the rambling rant.
Do you live anywhere near a Trader Joe's? They have great frozen, healthy meals for two that are like $5 or $6. You literally just toss the whole bag in a skillet, turn it on high, and stir it a couple times. Some of them I'll also dump in some frozen peas or broccoli for added veggies. If you don't have Trader Joes, Super Target has similar types of frozen meals for two, but they're a bit more expensive. Throwing in added veggies makes them even more healthy. And cleanup is minimal.
Location: Lots of sun and palm trees with occasional hurricane :)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NewAgeRedneck
I simply refuse to watch any commercials. I've trained myself to either flip to another channel, get up and attend to a chore, do pushups, crunches, yoga stretches, or some type of exercise during commercials. Channel flipping doesn't always work because commercials tend to run on all the channels at the same time. This must be conspiracy to thwart channels flippers!
blessings...Franco
Ahhhhhhhhhhh the remote control and men!
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Those fast-food joints are CHEAP compared to anything healthy. Cooking yourself veggies from the market isn't too expensive, but it takes a lot of time and effort and you have to shop around so you don't get ripped off on prices. The cheapest decent prepared food will run you more than $5 a meal, minimum.
