Eating “Greener” Is Cheaper
The myth that fresh food, which is healthier food, is more expensive than canned and processed foods seems to be very much alive. Enviro Girl is not disputing the fact that there is poverty and that food expenses take a huge chunk out of a monthly budget. She gets it–but she also has learned to save a lot on her monthly grocery bill by buying fresh, unprocessed food.
Canned vegetables and fruits are the worst dietary option–besides being laden with extra salt and sugar, the packaging and processing takes a lot of resources and leaves behind a lot of waste. Canned food is also the most expensive–even though it’s cheaper to store than frozen food, Enviro Girl has yet to meet a person who doesn’t have room in their freezer for a few bags of frozen vegetables.
If Enviro Girl had gone shopping with this family, here’s what she’d have suggested:
1. Instead of buying canned vegetables and/or fruits, buy fresh. Fresh is your cheapest option and staples like apples, carrots, onions, potatoes and oranges will last in your refrigerator for up to a month. If you only can make it to the market once a month, stock up on frozen options. Not only are frozen vegetables and fruits less expensive than canned, they are healthier to eat and produce less packaging waste. A 10.5 oz. can of frozen green beans generally costs $1.00. A bag of the same frozen green beans will have 16 oz. of content and cost $1.50.
2. Stop buying products where water is the primary ingredient. Buy frozen juice concentrate and add your own tap water to make juice at home. A quart of juice at the grocery store costs $3.00. Concentrate juice to make a quart of juice costs $1.30. Significant savings. While you’re at it, quit the bottled water if you’re buying it and don’t purchase soda products either. The first is awful for the environment, the second is awful for your health. You can make iced tea using a box of tea bags ($1.30 for 20 tea bags) and tap water. You can add sliced fruit to water to flavor it–a lemon costs less than $1.00. Do NOT buy beverages in individual servings–that is a huge waste of money and a major source of landfill waste.
3. Stop buying breakfast cereal. Buy oatmeal, plain yogurt, pancake mix, and bagels. A large container of oatmeal costs less than $2.00. Pancake mix costs $3.00. A half-dozen bagels and a block of cream cheese costs $3.00. All of these breakfast options are healthier than the sugar-laden boxes of cereal and they cost significantly less. You can make your own granola for less than $3.00 and send your family off to school/work with better fuel in their tanks than anything bought in a box in the cereal aisle.
4. Skip the chips. Skip the packages of cookies and other snack food. A bag of Doritos costs $3.00. A bag of apples costs $3.00. A pound of string cheese costs $4.00. You do the math on that snack. If you’re going to buy snack food, do NOT buy it pre-packaged in individual servings. And in Enviro Girl’s experience, a bag of store brand tortilla chips and a jar of good salsa makes a pretty satisfying and healthy snack for about the same price as those Doritos.
5. Skip the frozen entres. A box of Hamburger Helper or Kraft Macaroni & Cheese costs significantly less than buying prepared food. A pound of hamburger, a can of sloppy joe mix and a bag of buns costs less than $6.00. You can make soup, pizza, spaghetti or tacos from scratch quite affordably.
6. Skip the microwave popcorn. Buying kernels and popping your own popcorn with some vegetable oil and adding butter will cost half as much. It’s also much healthier since it doesn’t involve the chemical coating in those microwavable bags.
7. Go easy on the meat. Your cheapest and healthiest bet would be to skip meat altogether, but Enviro Girl is an omnivore and figures you are, too. She suggests serving meat once a day–never for breakfast, occasionally for lunch but probably for supper. Meat is one of the most expensive products in a grocery store and by limiting your consumption, you’ll save money, benefit your health and benefit the planet.
8. Bake from scratch. A cake mix and the assorted ingredients to make a cake will cost less than buying a frozen cake by Sara Lee or a bakery cake. Ditto for cookies, muffins, quick breads and rolls. Baked good from scratch will also have fewer preservatives and additives.
Reader, do you practice any of these shopping habits? What advice would you have for a family trying to reduce their grocery bill?
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