Do you think you would eat more healthily if it was affordable?!
Question: For example, in my local shop a loaf of white bread is 37p, but wholemeal is 55p a loaf, thats quite a jump, so just a samll change to my diet like switching to wholemeal makes small change difference but if i changed to low fat low salt low everything i would spend twice as much on food than i do now! Do you think this is why we eat so badly becasue its affordable?
Answers: For example, in my local shop a loaf of white bread is 37p, but wholemeal is 55p a loaf, thats quite a jump, so just a samll change to my diet like switching to wholemeal makes small change difference but if i changed to low fat low salt low everything i would spend twice as much on food than i do now! Do you think this is why we eat so badly becasue its affordable?
I think we eat so badlybecause we cant cook. So called healthy options in a supermarket are no substitute for freshly prepared food. It is much cheaper to cook from scratch too, and you put no sugar or salt in if you like. Get some recipes, a stereo in the kitchen and cook some meals of your own.
No, I've lost 100lbs eating healthy while on a budget
Absolutely! I can't afford the fresh fruits and veggies I wish I could eat more of nor can I afford the white-wheat bread I prefer.
Yes that is the reason, especially low income families,but even people who earn a fairly good wage still go for the cheaper crap stuff like white bread, its a friggin rip off really.
I completely agree with you.
Absolutely! It drives my husband and I crazy how all the "good for you foods" are way more expensive than everything else. Just do the best you can.
Its the same here in the UK as you can buy fruit and veg in the south of England at about a quarter of what you pay in Scotland!
I definitely think that has a lot to do with why lower income families are heavier. It's obviously not necessarily lower income families but anyone who tries to stick to a budget has difficulty buying healthier items and spending the extra money to do it. Fresh fruit and veggies has to be bought once or twice a week instead of not necessarily having to visit the store for two weeks if you're stretching your budget. I eat healthy but it's very difficult to keep up considering the cost of things recently going up and my budget going down.
I'm not saying this applies to you but it gave me something to think about. I saw that 'You are what you eat' program once and there was this family that thought the healthy foods in the supermarket were more expensive so that was an excuse not to buy them. But when the presenter worked out what they ate in a week she realised they were eating high quantities of 'low quality food' plus spending $60 every weekend on takeaways!
I think you need to work out how much food your body actually needs and then buy as much healthy food as you can afford. So you might end up eating less in total but eating much more healthily.
After I saw that program I changed the way I looked at food in the supermarket.
I agree with you. I am trying to eat healthy and have noticed that we are getting less food for our money now.
It can be hard on people with a strict budget.
Yes I would I agree with you that in many cases fattening food is the cheapest to buy. Gee whiz a freakin tomato costs as much as cocaine per pound in MI during the winter!
I eat healthy food, but that's because I can afford it, I have time to prepare quality meals, and it's a priority for me. It also helps that I have transportation to shop wherever I want and the area I live has literally hundreds of choices for quality food. It's sad that healthy food is a luxury, but basically that's what it has become.
Most people like and would prefer to eat high quality food, but processed garbage is cheap and easy. When both parents are working, spending hours driving around and caring for the kids, and still barely making ends meet, it's hard to take the time to cook good meals using good ingredients. Not to mention that an awful lot of people are limited to what they can take home in one trip on the bus and can't shop for good deals.
I also think advertising plays a big part in what people eat. The healthy foods generally aren't marketed as extensively as the unhealthy foods, and people are very susceptable to marketing. Especially kids.
I think for most people it would make no difference. I work on a mine site in outback Australia. The mess (or dining room) has a huge range of food, from salads to chips. So there healthy food is not only cheap, but it is free, as is crappy food. There are many people who still eat the crappy food. I still do, but I guess I do eat more fruits and vegetables so overall there is an improvement.
One of the cheapest and healthiest foods you can eat is beans and rice. Buy dry bulk beans and you will get get protein, vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants. (Pinto beans are especially high in antioxidants).
I understand what you're saying, though this isn't really the case with ' ready meals', as if you worked it out, it costs a whole lot less when you cook everything yourself, and you wouldn't add half the salt, sugar, fats & preservatives that go into making up a ready meal. We buy into the industry marketing campaigns because we're pressed for time, so buying a 'ready meal' is a solution to a problem but it's not a healthy solution.
Another example is yoghurt - if you went for the average 'low fat' version, it'll have far more sugars and sugar substitutes added to make it taste better, as taking out the fat changes the taste. Obviously there are brands out there that are healthy and good for you, but there are many that aren't.
I think a lot of it comes down to education, as not everyone knows what is/ isn't healthy for you. It doesn't help that food labeling isn't always accurate either. And some supermarkets that sell 'healthier' ranges confuse the issue, as the so-called 'healthy' options have more 'bad' fats and chemicals in them to replace the salt and sugar and 'good' fats they've taken out.
Doing things on a budget is tough, but it is do-able - the less refined food you eat the better. Good luck ;-)
It simply takes a bit of organization, that's all. I have cut $100.00 {or 200p} off of my food bill as a result of organizing myself so l can eat healthy organic foods. I use a breadmaker, and a crockpot. I make home-made bread with organic ingredients and organized myself so that all the dry mixture is pre-packaged, l just add milk of water and the yeast and in 45 minutes l have fresh healthy bread!
I go to only two places,every two weeks, read the advertisements and carry them with me, i have a pre-planned two week grocery list of everything, right down to the milk l need. I make the grocery stores be honest, because usually they have mysteriously run out of something even if it is the first day, so l make the butcher cut the advertised special for me. I freeze meat, and finished foods in portions.
With my crockpot l just lean-down the recipe and go to a calorie counting website to get the calories and grading.
I found that l had to change due to health, and l am so glad l did, now l have better health and more money. But it takes time to read labels, make better decisions, avoid the commercial "healthy" products, and get back to real ingredients. The funny thing is that in the 35 minutes it took to pop in a commercial diner, it now takes me about 10 minutes to heat up the pre-packed home-made incredibly tasty and cheap meals now. An example is chicken fingers...the chicken fingers on sale is full of fat and preservative, the chickens are unhappily caged, beak-less, and eat steriod enhnced garbage...l buy my chicken from a free range farm where they are fed organic meal. We only need the amount that equals the palm of our hand per meal {approx.} any more and you are over loading your system, so l get this meat, slice it up and use my own breadcrumb/spice mixture and make a whopping batch...then throw the cooked chicken fingers in portioned baggies in the freezer. It is less than the big boxes of crap on sale. Try it.
That may have a small factor in it but in my opinion it's convenience. We are always in a hurry so we do whats quick and easy.
this is such a big issue.
my opinion is that this is not true. It is true that some foods are expensive, but there are a lot of other healthy food that we can buy. It's just that we have to cook them, thing that we don't put it usually in our schedule.
So it's the comfort we look for what makes us not so healthy.
I sure do think we would eat better if we did not have to spend as much.
For apples and orange here in the US its about $3.00 a lb. (about 5 apples or oranges) but for a 3lb. box of cookies it's only a buck. I can spend less money and buy more food, yes unhealthy food, but more that can last for a week. If I buy healthy I am spending most of that money for only about 3 days worth of food. It's just to much sometimes and I can't afford to pay to live a healthy life. I would love to change a unhealthy live style.
I suppose the rich only deserve a healthy life.