Balancing ethical shopping with price

[AnnaQuayRules]

I'm going to start this thread by saying I know how privileged we are to even be able to think about this. But I am in a bit of a quandary.

Ever since our DC were born almost 30 years ago I have tried to buy higher welfare, organic food wherever possible. We don't eat a lot of meat or fish, but when we do we have always paid a premium to ensure it is high quality.

All the milk, eggs and most of the veg we buy is organic. I also tend to buy an organic chicken every fortnight which feeds DH and I for a main meal then is used cold for salads and sandwiches for the next few days.

I went to the butcher yesterday to buy the chicken and it came to over £29. It will feed the equivalent of 4 adults with enough left on the carcass to make soup. It is not the legendary MN chicken! Our food bill is becoming ridiculously high.

I'm starting to think that maybe we should re evaluate our commitment to organic fruit and veg. It would save quite a bit of money. I refuse to compromise on the meat standards.

Is anyone else in this dilemma? And what have you compromised/cut down on?

Wow that is a lot. Maybe you could shop around for a bulk buy mixed meat delivery if you've got the freezer space. There is an organic farm near to me that does this sort of thing.

Is your driver the ethics, health or environmental?

If you're doing this for environmental reasons, I'm afraid it's less meat and dairy all round you should be following. Food miles make minimal difference to carbon impact in comparison.

A mixture of all three. We've really minimised our meat and fish intake, but DH doesn't eat cheese or nuts and neither of us likes tofu. So we struggle a bit with protein intake.

I'd rather compromise on the organic veg that the organic meat.

Have a look at the clean 15 / dirty dozen to see if that's any help in prioritising? https://www.pan-uk.org/dirty-dozen/

I agree. We've cut it down hugely but we still include it in our diets. I hardly eat any milk - I only drink black coffee or herbal tea, I don't eat cereal, but I do like cheese. However DH doesn't eat cheese and so I eat very little as I try not to buy it.

I don't have any issue with eating meat and fish, but I do want the animals to have been treated well. So we eat a small amount of organic meat/sustainable wild fish each week. We live on the coast so the fish is local, and we have an organic chicken farm nearby which is where our butcher gets his chickens.

When the DC were small I always bought organic fruit and veg if possible as I was worried about pesticides etc. They have now left home and I'm less worried about the pesticide issue for DH and I. So that's probably where we can save a bit of money.

Thanks @Monvelo I haven't seen that before - very useful.