Healthy food is only more expensive if we are not selective in our purchases and/or we maintain current typical eating habits! On the other hand, if we stick to a budget and eat/buy only what we need, we can realize both healthy and tasty eating.
I buy the fruit and vegetables I like to eat, with 4-6 oz of meat (beef, buffalo, lamb, salmon, pork, etc.) per meal. Add in milk and OJ, and that's it. Back when I was briefly unemployed, I made do with $40 / week for months, and still only average $70 / week now if I reasonably indulge in salmon, etc. My latest round of cooking -- broiled ginger tilapia and asparagus with quinoa, sauteed bell peppers and onions, averaged $2.77 per meal.
Lean ground free-range buffalo chili with no beans in, plus fresh green beans, costs about $2.40 per meal.
My workaday meals aren't nearly so fancy, still taste great, and cost about $1.50 each.
Bulk whole oats (available at most higher end grocery stores for $1.50 / lb) with soy milk, a touch of honey, and a handful of fresh or frozen berries for breakfast, $1.
Bear in mind the following cost analyses are all for approx 300-cal meals, meant for consumption 6-7 times a day. If your schedule doesn't suit, then double the size for 3 meals a day: still only approx $3-$5.50 a meal.
Couple this with getting rid of drinking anything you pay for (other than milk and a little juice), and the total food budget starts looking pretty good. Picking up a breakfast egg and sausage biscuit with coffee, getting a burger and soda for lunch, then rounding it out with a casual dinner at Chili's = $25 / day or $175 / week ($9100 / yr if you eat out 100%) -- precisely 2.5 times my "healthy" and generous weekly budget of $70.
If you don't like these numbers, my online research indicates that American males typically spend $3.63 / home-cooked meal, and spend +$20.82 more when going out to eat (counting lunch and dinner), or roughly $7250 a year.
What about time costs? I average 4 mins / meal to prep, plus avg 4 mins to cook (I cook 4-8 meals at a time), for .5 hr / day. That's 1.5 hrs / wk of actual work, plus 1.5 hrs / wk of waiting for food. Grocery shopping takes about an hour if I know what I want, or up to 2 hrs in a week if I'm casual about multiple trips or aisle-browsing.
Going out takes 1.5 hrs a day, or 6 hrs / wk of roundtrip driving to food and 4 hrs of waiting for food.
Weekly 4-5 hrs at home vs. 10 hrs going out -- it's a personal choice in trade-offs. Going out is fun and social, with a change of atmosphere and setting that we can't get sitting at home. But hey, potluck / family dinner parties are fun and social too. :)
Think my numbers are too good to be true? Am I leaving something out? Let's do a little research and drill down further.
Some counterpoint articles that I don't agree with:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-healthy-food/
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/IsEatingOutCheaperThanCooking.aspx
The most egregious error the MSN article commits lies in comparing solid gold apples to slightly bruised bananas. Not everyone is an Atlanta-based multimedia director with no spare time and lots of disposable cash. Spending $30 on organic local produce and cooking one meal at a time is absurd and flies in the face of what I and plenty of other writers out there have figured out about eating in. And no, MSN, eating in doesn't mean buying commercially prepared frozen chicken wings. If it comes in a box and with reheating instructions, you have lost the point of cooking at home.
To be fair, there are a number of Houston restaurants that narrow the gap for healthy, affordable eating out. Check out Mandy's trainer blog at:
http://modyourbody.wordpress.com/
In addition to her luscious salad listings, she's also found that Thai Spice (green curry lunch special), El Rey (tacos, etc. in addition to her aforementioned killer chicken salad with fish substitution), and Les Givrals (Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches (yes, redundant, I know), sushi) are all healthy and affordable. You'll still pay $8-10 for 500-600 calories, but it sure ain't $32.60 per dinner.
And one that I do agree with:
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/01/13/trimming-the-average-budget-eating-out/
Eggs illustrate a typical shopping decision we may find ourselves making between normal and potentially healthier organic choices. They cost about $1.30 / $2.60 / $3.90 for regular / cage free / free range organic. Production costs are about $.60 / dozen regular, or $.90 / dozen free range organic; for the latter, you are paying a premium above and beyond a mere 2.17 retail multiplier. With the given multiplier, free range organic eggs should only cost about $1.95. As things stand, I would be paying 4.33 times production cost for free range organic.
source: http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2010/09/08/study-cage-free-eggs-cost-40-percent-more/
Does this mean we should vilify the evil egg industry for bilking us of our hard-earned scratch? Or commend them for a production and cost structure that rewards producers for making healthier, arguably more sustainable choices at price points that different consumer segments can and will tolerate?
I digress for a moment to point out that while I choose only cage free, even the $4 eggs are not overly burdensome on my lifestyle as an average American. At a healthy maximum of 6 eggs weekly, that's $2 / wk, vs. $.65 for normal production eggs.
source: http://preventdisease.com/news/articles/eggs_good_for_health.shtml
Whether or not you believe in the marginal health benefits, and whether they're worth the extra $1.35 / wk, we can probably all agree that we are talking about pocket change, literally.
Most other normal versus organic purchases are similarly priced, with a 25% price premium being typical. Given a typical basket of goods, all that organic pocket change can add up. But how much does it really cost?
Taking current USDA grocery costs into account for me as a 19-50 male, that's a liberal weekly cost of $76.30 for regular groceries vs. estimated $106.82 (+$30.52) for full organic switch or $91.56 (+$15.26) for half organic switch.
(I feel pretty good that my actual spending is around $70 / wk even with my 50% organic switch, or estimated $3640-$4680 (high end for a worst case $90 / wk, for a generous margin of error).)
Annually, the typical numbers work out to $3966 / *$5552 (+$1586) / $4759 (+$793) for regular / full organic / half organic.
Americans are estimated to eat out 2.8 to (extrapolated) 2.9 times a week at $32.60 for dinner only. I'm estimating half that ($16.30) for lunch, also 2.8-2.9 times / wk (or half that cost for twice the lunches at fast food chains, which can be reasonably expected for some people). Both $ numbers seem high to me, but perhaps I'm just cheap. :P
So for 5.6-5.8 meals / week, we may spend ~$139.37, or $7246.98 / yr. That still leaves 15.3 meals to be paid for in groceries. If the USDA's grocery estimate is for 21 meals / wk, that's an average meal cost of $3.63 / $5.07 / $4.36 in 0% / 100% / 50% organic groceries. If that's only for 15.3 meals / wk, grocery per-meal costs are $4.99 / $6.95 / $5.97.
Bear in mind the average American weighs 17 lbs more than "ideal". Given that 3500 calories roughly equal 1 lb of fat, this is equivalent to consuming daily 163 calories more than you need for a solid year (or an excess 82 cal / day for 2 years, etc.). Also mind that one 12-oz soda has 155 calories.
sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food#Cost
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/usdafoodcost-home.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14715218
http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/22/pf/meals_averagecost/
http://www.gallup.com/poll/102919/average-american-weighs-pounds-more-than-ideal.aspx
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/calories/WT00011
http://www.calorie-counter.net/calories-in-soda.htm
http://www.weightlossforall.com/food-calories-list.htm
Whichever of my restaurant dining estimates you use, I think it's clear that sensible home cooking beats the pants off eating out in terms of both money and time.
Notice that even the full-bore organic shopping only costs $1586 more than base groceries yearly; meals cost $5.07 each, or +$1.44 / meal over the base cost of $3.63 / meal. By comparison, the additional marginal cost of going out to eat is +$20.82 over the $ cost of a home-cooked meal.
If you're looking to cut costs, start with the most material, big-ticket categories. The only categories comparable in size to food budget are rent/mortgage, car loan, and utility bills. None of them are nearly as discretionary or easy to change in the short term as your going-out food expense. Average apt rent + utils in Houston is $820 / mo; you could probably save $500-$1000 / yr without compromising too much on your lifestyle. Average 2005 housing costs were $1264 / mo + $223 / mo in property taxes + $210 utilities (estimated); changing this would be much more difficult than shopping for apartments, plus you might have to make significant location sacrifices in order to find a cheaper place. Car payments are about on par with apt relocation for difficulty. The average American pays $378 over 63 months (as of 2005) for a car. Median household income in the US is $52,029 (for a household of 2.59 people). If you're considerably out of line with these numbers (too much spending, too little income), think on whether your spending is worth it.
In short, eating out is probably going to be your biggest, easiest budget fix, if you're looking to save a little money for new purchases, vacations, or savings.
sources:
http://www.rent.com/rentals/texas/
http://www.citytowninfo.com/places/texas/houston/mortgage
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_2267.shtml
You could do other things to save money. Setting your A/C at 80 instead of 76 in Houston's summertime (and a corresponding lowering during the winter) could save you about $200 / yr. You could also cut down on movies ($7.95 x 5 movies = $40 / yr), Starbucks mocha frappucinos ($4 x 2 drinks / wk x 50 wks = $400 / yr), or music CDs ($12 x 5.6 albums / yr = $67 / yr). Even Bank of America used to charge me more per week in maintenance fees! ($6 / mo, or $1.40 / wk)
But again, all these ancillary cost-cutting measures won't get you as much in savings as not eating out.
sources:
http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-movies-does-the-average-person-watch-in-a-year
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/05/business/la-fi-ct-tickets-20100505
http://www.marketingcharts.com/topics/demographics/us-cd-purchases-down-as-downloads-up-but-favorite-artist-cds-do-well-312/
I'm not saying we all need to run out and live in a cave, eating sticks and leaves. My purpose is to put our massive (or not) food expenditures in context with the rest of our lifestyle.
My disclaimer is that there is no wrong way to eat -- if you eat and you're still alive and functional the next day, you ate "right" (successfully avoided bad meat, drinking clorox, and other obvious "wrong" eating patterns). There're only different levels of eating well. :D Just take out bad stuff and add good stuff one item per week, until we find what we personally enjoy eating. Then we think about doing a bit better next week and next month.
If we overeat, yes, it's pricey.
If we buy organic stuff with wild abandon -- like asparagus and wild-caught king salmon out of season, with shiitake mushrooms -- then yes, it's pricey.
If we continue to pay exhorbitant amounts for excessive quantities of coffee-flavored cream and sugar (e.g. 300-600 calories in the misnamed "venti" (20) 24-oz cup -- as many as one should have in a medium-sized meal, or 15-30% of your daily calories!), or $2.50 restaurant fountain sodas, then yes, it's pricey.
But there's no cause for griping about the cost of food. There are many (cheap) ways to eat well! |