Has the price of food made you eat healthier or the reverse?

[RudsyFarmer]

I was thinking about this today. I’m genuinely so shocked at the price of food it’s made me restrict my own food massively. I have the money to pay the prices but I just keep walking out of shops kind of she’ll shocked. Tonight I had a bag of crisps for dinner.

I understand for many it’s had the opposite effect. Lots of cooking from scratch with beans and lentils etc. I wish I could be that person
but I absolutely loathe cooking which is unhelpful.

But vegetables are not expensive are they? Huge cabbages are £1.20 cauliflower and broccoli similar.Bags of carrots even aubergines were 75p each yesterday in Lidl.Use frozen even cheaper. Crisps are a total waste of money.I make lots of soup include red lentils again cheap .Yes you need to cook it but it lasts days and fills you up.Decent meat is not cheap nor should it be.We eat meat a couple of times a week and eat more vegetables with it.You have to value the food you put into your body if you want to have some chance of remaining healthy.

Eating cheaper versions. I love prepared mango but it's too expensive
So more on apples, bananas for fruit
Veg the same as usual

Where are you shopping? I cook almost everything from scratch and prices have gone up massively. Over the last year or so a pack of tomatoes has risen by 50%. Meat by a similar amount. Butter. Eggs. All the basics have increased dramatically. I used to do a weekly shop for £60. It’s now £85+, with all the luxuries stripped out.

@Helenahandkart same
I would shop at Sainsburys and it was £40 or £60 for a "pay day luxury" shop
Now I shop at Aldi and it's £50-60 weekly

Our household changed to eating a vegan diet in Jan 2021 so I can’t say I have noticed much difference re home cooking. I buy a lot of dried pulses and fresh ( and frozen) veggies. Rarely eat cakes or sweets anyway so no change there .
i have noticed that dining out is more pricey - probably due to increases in fuel prices?
It does take a lot more effort to make plant based meals from scratch but I don’t mind as it is saving our health, money and the planet

Better. I now prefer to buy fruit than crisps.
I bake more and buy less processed stuff.
Less take aways as well.

We have dropped down in quality slightly. We used to bulk buy chicken from the butchers and freeze, now we buy pre frozen. Cheese is cheapest own brand, quality is reduced but you can only tell in some meals. Crisps and other bits for lunchboxes we now buy own brand as others are ££.

We haven't bought oven chips since we got an air fryer, we do home made in the fryer if other things are cooked that way or cheap spiced frozen wedges in the oven if that's how I'm cooking the rest of the meal.

A slice of toast would be more filling and cheaper than crisps.

heathier. I cant see how pasta and sauce would be more expensive than crisps and that has some nutritional value.

Healthier, less takeaway, wine and processed snacks, a bit less meat. More of our most basic meals, a tomato veggie pasta sauce. Baked potatoes and canned tuna and corn, chuck it all in soup.

We are definitely healthier - no more takeaways/ready meals/pre-packaged snacks. Actually I do still buy a few packaged snacks for the DC but will more likely take a peanut butter sandwich as an after school snack rather than a cereal/nut bar.

I have also started budgeting for groceries which we've really never needed to do before. I've got a pre-paid debit card (the Tesco+ one) and I am loading on £100 per week and have started meal planning to fit within that budget, which invariably leads to healthier meals as well.

We do most of our shopping at Lidl, but instead of popping to M&S or Waitrose for a top up shop, we've moved to Sainsburys or Tescos. Also no more Ocado deliveries. I know we are in a very fortunate position that we can tighten our belts and still pay our bills (at least for now), but it is insane how much more expensive life is now.

Healthier.
We aren’t in Uk, and food was already double/ treble uk prices, but it’s gone up again. There’s less processed items here anyway, but if I was to buy something like cake ready made it’s really expensive ( I think €6.50 today for 2 small lemon drizzle like slices).

So we make almost everything from scratch. Now it’s colder I make soups for lunches most days. Minestrone today was basically made up of last bits of various bits in fridge, that will do us for lunch today and tomorrow. Healthy, full of veg, and warm. Not very expensive per portion.

I bake at least once a week so we have muffins, loaf cake or cookies. Depending on what we have in. Banana muffins last weekend as had brown bananas to use up, and I have made rhubarb crumble today from last in garden ( and strawberries I froze in July from large strawberry farm pick your own batch).

Fresh stuffed pasta we have just started making own. Now Ds is bigger we need two packs from shop which is pricey. Its literally two eggs and flour for pasta dough, then add ricotta and spinach filling (frozen spinach)

We still spend a small fortune weekly though.

Better, we’re vegetarian anyway which helps but I find cooking healthy food from scratch much cheaper than convenience foods.

Neither really. We've cut down on red meat for health reasons, not for cost, but it does work out a bit cheaper. We cook almost entirely from scratch anyway. I certainly try not to shop anywhere but Aldi these days though - even Tesco and Asda are eye-wateringly expensive now.

Why didn't you have scrambled egg on toast for dinner? Or a fried egg? Better than a bag of crisps for dinner plus pretty cheap.

Just poorer. I have always cooked from scratch (other than jarred pesto, I just can't make it as nicely from fresh!) and I refuse to stop doing that, or to cut down on quality, so my food shop has just rocketed. Easily by 40%.

Healthier.

Eating healthier has not increased how much I spend on food. If anything, it has decreased my budget.

What it did do is to make me more savvy. I still buy nuts but not in supermarkets. I buy more pulses but again from an internet shop where the quality is better so it’s more appetising iyswim.
I buy less red meat so I can ‘afford’ the slightly more expensive pulses.

We batch cook a lot to buy stuff in bigger portions (cheaper)

But yes it does mean you need to put a bit more effort in. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

We've cut back massively on takeaways. Gone from weekly to monthly. Also rarely eat chocolate and crisps as too expensive. We rarely go out for dinner and drinks now and even drinking alcohol in the house has been massively reduced but that was as much about health benefits as money.

I work in a food shop so take a look at what's in the reduced section and plan meals around that as we get a pretty good staff discount ontop.

I've cut my portion size, and as a side benefit am on course to lose hopefully 2.5stone this year. Batch cooking means I just cook a bit less, so I guess that offsets any 6.7% or whatever price rise.
We grew all our own veg esp peppers and tomatoes which are pricey all summer, and have frozen supplies,
I've made all our own jam/chutney/pickles/marmalade it's all in a cupboard looking great. I've done food swaps with the entire neighbourhood, meaning I had masses of apples & plums (squirrels get ours) in return for onions, potatoes etc
The only thing I have cut is packets of biscuits - used to pop one a week in the basket. Instead make biscuits but less frequently.

Perhaps because food poverty can lead to depression, which makes it harder to make healthy decisions. Or cost of energy is an issue too.

I think you've missed the OP's point - she is saying that she's less healthy now.

Definitely worse.

Worse.
I'm rural & the only supermarket for 10miles is a Co-op which is notoriously expensive (more than M&S, more than Waitrose). It also has few fresh fruit & veg. The freezer 'meal deals' for £5 are the cheapest most processed muck - 'chicken' nuggets, garlic bread, alphabet potato shapes etc. Sometimes I'll buy this & spread it out with healthier stuff but the fish & meat we used to eat is SO expensive now, even yellow stickered stuff is more than full price used to be.

If anyone likes red onion chutney for Christmas, I recommend making a batch load at home. Super easy, cheap and makes loads ( we will give some to neighbours also)

Well yes and no, healthier as eating less snacks etc but unhealthier because the COL crisis has caused a relapse in my anorexia, so that’s not healthy the other way. So I guess I’ll just say I’m thinner.