The Cost of Eating Healthy

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I find if you don't buy processed foods and only buy veges/fruits/healthy foods and cook from scratch the cost evens out to about the same as if you only bought the junk stuff, and if you cut out takeaways, and 'ready meals', and make big meals at a time, you save a lot.

I buy mostly fruit and veges, and make massive meals at once, then either freeze them in small portions or put them in the fridge. If you do it on a weekend you just need to take a portion out in the morning, and it's thawed by the time you get home for a home-made, healthy, tasty 'ready meal' - just put it in the oven or on the stove depending on what it is and eat!

If you haven't got a garden, you can easily grow tomatoes and peppers/capsicums in a pot, even indoors. Herbs also grow well indoors in window sills in pots, just make sure it's big enough for the root structure.

Things like vegetarian lasagne, stuffed marrow, filo pastry pockets with spinach/feta/etc, quiche, stuffed capsicum/pepper, salads, soups, casseroles, fish pie, chicken pie etc are all fairly cheap and very tasty.

Ok, I did this up having forgotten about the egg yolk allergy. I'd suggest making the items that use egg without the yolks - not sure how well it'd work, but it's worth a try. Since the rest can eat the yolks, sub scrambled for poached on the one meal, and just spoon out scrambled onto the biscuits (make the one meal a "whites only" scramble). This is just a sort of a "how to", not necessarily the cheapest or the most nutritionally sound.... I just got too fuddled trying to figure out what to do with a kiwi fruit. (I think I had one once and that it seemed to taste like a green strawberry. No other way to describe it!) So I went back to my own local online grocery store to see what's on sale. This week it's eggs, oranges, bananas, and milk.

The idea is, you buy larger quantities and use the same items in several meals throughout the week. You’ll want to think of the meals to be served in the week (the number of people to eat each item), and then list out the ingredients you’ll need for each preparation. Add them up for the week (or fortnight, or month) and that tells you how much to buy.

http://members.cox.net/momzillasd/FoodStorageTime.pdf <---temp link to list of storage times

You need to pay mind to how long items will keep. Bananas will not keep fresh long in warm weather. However, you can slice them and put them in the freezer for later use. Fish stays fresh only a few days - it can also be frozen, etc. I’m putting up a link to a chapter on food storage times from my favorite old cookbook. Hope this helps! Let me know if something’s not clear or if I can clarify anything. If you’re having to shop frugally, you have to work this all out backwards - you look at what’s on sale and see what you can make out of it. Please don’t send the nutrition police after me - I know this is not balanced, it was just an “off the top of my head” suggestion for a hypothetical meal plan...


Grocery List for Breakfast meals for one week for 3 people

[am assuming you already have coffee, teabags, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, honey, oil, salt & pepper, etc., at the house]

1 425 gram box corn flakes (will last slightly longer than a week - has 12 one-cup servings per box, so you get an extra day’s servings out of one box if you serve corn flakes for three of your 7 breakfasts) - if you want variety, buy a second box of some other type of cereal, and switch out some days. it'll last twice as long. just make sure it's vitamin enriched and not one of those "sugar bomb" cereals that have little nutrition it them. compare boxes - in the USA the nutrition label has to be on all foods. it shows how much of a typical day's requirements are met. choose the cereal that has the highest percentages that you know your people will actually eat. (it doesn't do any good to have a highly nutritious cereal that tastes like cardboard and nobody eating it)

3 bananas (for Thursday’s meal)

5 seasonal fruits, say, 3 grapefruit and 2 or 3 of something else - 1.5 total consumption of a fruit for Monday, 1.5 for Wednesday, and 1.5 for Friday = 4.5 fruits (you can’t buy 4.5 fruits at a time, so you’ll have to buy 5). Each person gets ½ fruit per serving. You can use the leftovers from Monday for garnish on Tuesday and save the leftovers from Wednesday to serve on Friday.

3 litres fruit juice (4 eight-ounce servings per litre =12 servings in 3 litres, or 4 servings per person this week) I chose orange juice because that’s our normal juice. If something’s cheaper there, use that.

flour (roughly 4 cups per pound, buy in the cheapest per pound quantity - you’ll use 1 pound this week for breakfast)

5 litres milk (1.5 x 3 on Monday, plus a little for coffee, say 5 servings Monday; Tuesday, about 1 serving, Wednesday 4 servings, Thursday fractionally more than1 serving, say 2; Friday 4 servings, Saturday, more than 1 serving - say 2; Sunday 0 servings. If you add them all up, you get about 18 one-cup servings. Since litres are 4 servings per litre, you need to get 5 litres (20 servings) for the week. You’ll have a bit left over for use in coffee and tea that way, and it’s better to have a little extra than not enough.

1 dozen eggs - six for serving with the biscuits on Tuesday, 2 in the waffles on Thursday, 1 in the pancakes on Saturday = 9 eggs. Save the last 3 for next week.

1 box (four ½ cup sticks) margarine or butter (you’ll use ½ stick in the biscuits, and probably more on them and on the waffles and pancakes. Assume about half the box this week, with half left for next week)

3 oz cheddar cheese (assuming 1oz per slice) hard to buy in that small a quantity, so you’ll need to get probably 1/2 pound (8 ounces) and save the rest for future meals.

1/2 lb ground pork sausage (assuming each serving is a little over 1/8th of a pound, it leaves a little extra to make them larger. Hard to buy in smaller quantities.)



Monday - Breakfast Day 1 -about 275 - 300 calories or 1/6th of your daily needs (you'll want to eat light breakfast on a day when you have a heavier meal planned for later)
no prep time

1 cup corn flakes (about 100 calories)
½ cup milk on the cereal (about 50 calories)
½ grapefruit (about 40 - 60 calories) or other seasonal fruit
1 cup milk in glass (about 80 calories)
coffee or tea

Note: - with three people eating, this meal uses a total of 3 cups of cornflakes, 4.5 cups milk, 1.5 grapefruit and coffee or tea.


Tuesday - Breakfast Day 2 - about 800-850 calories: just under ½ of your daily needs
takes about ½ hour to make

Baking Powder Biscuits (makes 18, - you’ll use 6 for this meal, save the others for later) 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder;1 teaspoon salt;1/4 cup shortening (this is around ½ stick of butter or margarine);3/4 cup milk

1) set oven to 450F
2) mix in large bowl flour, baking powder, salt.
3) cut in shortening until mixture looks like big crumbs
4) add milk
5) with fork quickly mix just until the mixture forms a soft dough that leaves the side of the bowl (do not overmix)
6) turn dough onto lightly floured surface, knead 6 to 8 strokes to thoroughly mix
7) use floured rolling pin (or a glass) to roll out to about ½ inch thick
use 2" biscuit cutter (floured), cut down through dough (do not twist cutter) (you can also use the mouth of a glass, cup, or jar for this)
9) use pancake turner or spatula to move biscuits to an ungreased baking sheet-place them close together if you prefer soft-sided biscuits, or 1 inch apart for crustier biscuits
10) bake about 12 to 15 minutes until golden brown

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Egg & Cheese Topping -for each individual, poach two eggs (scrambled* or fried work) while the biscuits are baking. the eggs should only take a few minutes, and can be set aside when done if the biscuits aren’t ready. When the biscuits are done, for each serving on a broiler-proof plate, place two biscuits, sliced and spread open. Top each biscuit with one of the eggs (if poached, make sure they’re well drained). Add a slice of cheese of your preference (½ on each egg). Give it a good twist or two of black pepper (some folks like a little mustard) on top and place under broiler until the cheese bubbles. Garnish the side of the plate with the leftover fruit from yesterday’s breakfast

* if making scrambled, you might throw in small quantities of leftover diced tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, etc., if it's around in the fridge.

Serve with hot tea or coffee and glass of juice

Calories per serving: about 835
each biscuit - around 225x2= 450
each egg - around 80 calories x 2=160
slice cheddar cheese - about 115
fruit garnish, negligible
one cup orange juice = about 110
hot beverage, negligible

Note: - with three people eating, this meal uses a total of 6 biscuits, 6 eggs, 3 slices of cheese, ½ of a fruit split among the three plates as garnish, and 3 cups of orange juice.


Wednesday - Breakfast Day 3 280 - 300 calories - 1/6th of your daily needs
(repeat Day 1 breakfast with different fruit)

Note: - with three people eating, this meal uses a total of 3 cups of cornflakes, 4.5 cups milk, 1.5 fruits, and coffee or tea.


Thursday - Breakfast Day 4, about 550-600 calories - about 1/3 of your daily needs
prep time about 30 minutes

Waffles with Sliced Bananas- Same basic recipe as for pancakes, (see Saturday) except use 2 eggs, increase milk and oil slightly. Makes about 6 waffles, so 2 waffles per person. Top waffles with sliced banana (½ per waffle), dust with powdered sugar and cinnamon (or top with, honey, whatever you have in the house).

8 oz Fruit Juice, coffee/tea

Calories per serving: about 550-600 (very rough guesses here, as I haven’t had time to break it down)
waffles @160x2=320
sliced banana = 100 calories
sugar or honey = ?
8 oz fruit juice =110 calories
coffee/tea, negligible

Note: - with three people eating, this meal uses a total of 3 bananas, 3 cups of fruit juice, all of the waffles.

Friday - Breakfast Day 5 - 280 - 300 calories - about 1/6th of your daily needs
Repeat Day 1, vary fruit -

Note: - with three people eating, this meal uses a total of 3 cups of cornflakes, 4.5 cups milk, 1.5 fruits, and coffee or tea.


Saturday - Breakfast Day 5 - calories per person 580 about 1/3rd of your daily need
prep time about 30 minutes

Sausage - 2 sausage patties (pork) - assuming about 1/8th cup (raw) per patty, and that a pound of ground sausage is about 2 cups, so each serving is about 1/4 cup or 1/8 pound, so to feed 3 people you need 1/2 lb of ground sausage for this meal.

Pancakes (makes 12 total, or 4 per person)
1.25 cups flour; 2tablespoons sugar;2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder; 3/4 teaspoon salt,3 tablespoons salad oil, 1.25 cup milk; 1 egg;
mix first four ingredients in large bowl. Then add oil, milk, and egg. Stir until just thoroughly moistened. Drop 1/4th cup at a time on hot skillet. Cook until bubbles burst, flip over. Cook until golden. Remove to warm plate, place towel over the stack until all are done. Serve with butter or syrup, or fruit topping (jam, compote, etc.)

8 oz fruit juice and coffee or tea

Calories per serving: about 580 (very rough guesses here, as I haven’t had time to break it down)
pancake @80x4=320
sausage patties =150
8 oz fruit juice =110 calories
coffee/tea, negligible

Note: - with three eating, this meal uses a total of 3 cups of fruit juice, all the pancakes, 3/4th pound of sausage.

Sunday Day 7- sleep late, no work day -1,000 - 1100 calories, about ½ of what you need today.
No prep time - big healthy meal later in the day

Leftover biscuits & jam (4 biscuits per person)
cup of juice, tea/coffee

each biscuit - around 225x4= 900
juice about 100 calories
honey or jam?
coffee/tea - negligible

Note: - with three people eating, this meal uses a total of 3 cups of fruit juice, remaining 12 biscuits from Tuesday. If you bought an extra fruit, you could divide it up among the people at this meal. Maybe see if there is leftover sausage or cheese and scramble it with the leftover eggs. Otherwise, this one is a carb-bomb meal!

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The PDF of the cookbook - that's a 50 year old cookbook and so well-used that it's falling apart. My grandmother had one in the 1930s from the same company, so I was brought up with a lot of the recipes. I have a number of cookbooks, none of them (other than the diabetes ones) newer than 30 years old - so they don't take into consideration modern preservatives in food, etc., so you might have a little leeway on the "keeps fresh" times. Let me know if there's some specific food you need recipes for, I probably have a few. If you have the spare change, I recommend purchasing an old (not the new version) edition of the Good Housekeeping Cookbook. It's basic, and it's incredibly helpful - has sections on storage, selection, preparation, etc., of foods. I think they redid the book in the late '80s, so any version prior should be good. I see them on Amazon, used, for $3. by Zoe Coulson.

As far as SERVING sizes, I'd check any of the online sources, like the American Diabetes Association website. People here, at least, in the USA, tend to overeat badly. For example, the appropriate average caloric/nutritional size for a piece of steak for a meal is basically the size of a deck of cards, but people would think they're badly underfed if served that....

This might help for purchasing quantities - estimators -
http://www.barryfarm.com/How_tos/how_ma ... und_of.htm

Propaganda from the US govmt about how much grains to eat in a day -
http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/food/grain/train.htm

Same regarding fruits and veggies -
http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/food ... _five.html

Hope this helps? Let me know?

Food prices have really gone up. Because of that and gas prices, people can't afford to pay their utilities anymore so their electricity is being shut off. This is happening to families who have income of $33,000-$55,000 and have two cars and two kids. I am assuming they probably don't have assistance or they have no families to help support them by paying for their utilities so they won't have to suffer without electricity. I read this in USA Today.


If this keeps up, pretty soon people won't be able to afford to eat three meals a day and then pretty soon they won't be able to afford to eat every day. This is just my theory. My other theory is, people will stopping eating everyday or three meals a day just so they can feed their kids. I would do the same thing too if I were in that situation but luckily I am not. Why? My job provides us meals. So I only have to worry about evenings and my days off but I usually eat two meals a day so it's basically days off I have to worry about. I would just go to the Dollar Tree if my job didn't provide food and we had to pay for it. I would also sign up for food stamps too. That is what I am going to do when I have a kid.

Hi Spokane Girl. It can be tough. I can't imagine making $55,000 and not being able to support 4 people on it, but we don't know their circumstances - someone might be seriously ill or have special needs that are very expensive to meet (medicines, special diet, living situation, etc.).

Be careful about relying on foodstamps. You can only earn up to a certain limit, and after that you do not qualify for them. The limit is very low. When my daughter was young I had an income, total, of $509 a month. Out of that I paid our rent ($350 for a one-room apartment in a not-nice part of town), $9 to the bank to cash my check, & I bought diapers, paid the coin laundry, bought soap, paid for electricity, water & sewer service, the kid's medicine, and anything else we needed out of what was left. The State of California was kind enough to give us $79 a month in food stamps and I was thrilled to get it.

Now, this was in 1989-90, and I know that food has gotten a lot more expensive - housing certainly has! I don't think people in my situation back then (that is, $500 a month for two people) are going to be receiving a whole lot more than $80 a month in foodstamps today. They certainly won't get enough to do anything more than get by and are going to have to pinch every penny they can at the grocery store.

The big catch with Food Stamps is that if you take a second or third job and earn more money - enough to pay the bills - you disqualify yourself from the foodstamps. They take it away dollar-for dollar. You earn $5 over the limit, they take $5 away in foodstamps. Pretty soon they just say you make too much and to go away. Then you have to hope the Red Cross has money left and is handing out emergency supplies. Sometimes they can help, and sometimes they cannot.

It's really very scary. People are going to have to re-prioritize what's important, what they have to have vs what they think they have to have. A lot of people are going to be in for some very rude surprises soon, I think. I was raised in a poor family and I don't have any great desire to ever go to that again. I rather pity those who've never gone to bed hungry - the first couple of times they have to do so is going to be a really tough time for them. Especially when they have to watch their kids cry themselves to sleep because they're hungry. It is not something I'd ever wish on anyone.

I heard when you have kids, it might make you qualify for food stamps because kids need to eat. I knew someone in Montana who was raising two kids, one was grown and moved out, and she got over $300 dollars in food stamps she told me but she uses them all up every month she has to pay what comes out of her pocket. Why so many, because she worked minimum wage and she had kids. She had to work on her days off if she got called in because she needed money. She didn't have to work on her days off, she chose to because she needed money and luckily for her, her sons understood. They knew she needed it so they all have a roof over their head. She was single.


How on earth did you afford everything on $500 a month after cashing your check? Did you get other assistance too besides food stamps?


I am asking this because I want to have a kid myself and I read an infant costs $1,000 a month to take care of. Makes me wonder how low income people afford to have them. I figure families help or they get assistance.


PS I think we are in another depression but it's not another Great Depression. Anyone agree?

I wish something would be done to help all these people. Are the oil companies to blame? Do they chose to raise those prices so they can earn more money? But luckily the barrels are going down and it is back to $129 a barrel I least heard. So the gas prices should be dropping down too. Then maybe the families will stop suffering but it depends on how far down the gas prices will drop.

I also blame programs being dropped. Another reason why I hate Bush. Why did people even vote for him in the first place if they knew he was going to cut programs such as food, education, health? I guess they were rich enough they didn't care so they voted for him anyway but didn't care for the low income. Luckily my parents are rich enough, rich enough they can afford food still and gas and be able to pay for their utilities despite my dad not making much money like he used to. But they don't have to feed five people, only three since my brother and I don't live there anymore. Actually four people because my other brother's friend is living with them for the summer.

My diet and spending sucks big time compared to some of you guys. I spend typically £6 a meal except breakfast, which sometimes I avoid. For example, I normally go to sainsburys and buy from the hot food selection - for example, pasties, sausages or some indian food. Healthiest food i get is ready-made salad which costs £1.70 and those fruit drinks at £2. I know it's a lot but I'm lazy and the store is just 10min walk from where I live.

One last thing - I just went through my "stash" of old cookbooks. There's one there that's vintage WWII. It's brilliant - if you need a way to stretch food, they have a dozen for each item you could possibly find. Due to the shortages and rationing of food back then, people had to be tremendously creative. Perhaps you can pick one up at your local used-book store and give it a read.

Nan, thanks a lot for the help again (and for the storage times and cook book tips). I'm going to try it out this week coming up to see how we go, and I've written down the more general information for reading before I go shopping other times. I never really thought about all the things you've written can be done for breakfast, I eat just cereal every day or juice so far. Good cooking seems to be very based on a good imagination!

Credit crunch, fuel crisis and all that - fruit is getting extremely expensive. £2.00 for 8 strawberries...!