Eating healthy is too expensive

[ByLoudSeal]

Big shop just cost £150. I don’t buy organic, and I will go for own brand if the taste/quality is fine. Includes fresh veg, tinned fruit, meat, eggs, milk, bread, a box of cereal, tinned meals, healthy snacks, toilet roll, fabric softener, disinfectant spray and washing up sponges, It won’t even last the full week and is unsustainable

Where are you shopping?

Shredded chicken fried rice sounds lovely!
One of my favourite meals is lentil dal. Best lentils imo for that are moong dal, and you can buy a big bag cheaply at an Asian supermarket. So simple to make with tumeric and then top with fried cumin seeds, garlic and chilli (I freeze chillies and cook from frozen so no waste). That would go very well with the shredded chicken dish.

I noticed you mentioned 6 apples are £2.50... That's really expensive.

I know you said you wouldn't save enough going to Aldi to make it worth it, but looking at your list you really, really would. Your apples would be at least £1 cheaper a pack - and there would be savings on nearly every item.

I never spend more than £80 max in Aldi, and whilst I don't buy tinned fruit, I do buy similar things to you. DP works from home, I take lunch to work, and DD has packed lunch.

I buy the following every week:

Kale
Carrots
Onions
Ginger
Broccoli
Cucumber
Tomatoes
Celery
Mushrooms
Coriander
Potatoes
Apples
Bananas
Limes
Strawberries
At least one more fruit - plums/peaches/blueberries etc - depends what's in the Super 6.
Wraps
Seedy bread
Blue and green milk
Big tub of yoghurt
Chicken - either whole or leg quarters or both
Beef or lamb
A gammon joint for ham
Flavoured water for dd
Crisps
Fake Rocky bars
Deodorant for at least one of us
Four pack loo roll (the 6 rolls into 4 quilted type)
Bleach
Whichever cleaning spray I might need
Shower gel
Coffee beans
Pain au chocolate
Bottle of red
Tinned tomatoes
Eggs

Every few weeks as and when required and included in the max £80 a week as some weeks are £65ish:

Washing liquid
Fabric softener
Laundry sanitiser
Cat food
Bin liners
Frozen sweetcorn
Cold pressed rapeseed oil
Condiments
Tinned tuna
Kitchen roll
Rice
Pasta
Cheese
Butter

The only things I don't buy at Aldi are dishwasher tablets (Fairy Platinum Plus), beans and pulses - we buy dried in bulk at the Asian shop - the same goes for spices.

We eat a lot of chickpeas - a tin in Aldi is currently 55p. I was once laughed at for saying dried are much cheaper, so I did the maths. Using a pressure cooker, including the fuel (I was bored and I'm stubborn!) makes the same amount of chickpeas cost 27p. And they can be frozen once cooked.

We cook from scratch every day, we make soups, we make stock, I add fruit to yoghurt rather than buying fruit yoghurts which is much cheaper. Pizzas are homemade and cost far less - the list goes on.

I think it really helps that we like to cook, hate waste, and love bargains.

We eat a dal of some description most weeks, DP is Indian.

So cheap, nutritious, and makes great leftover lunches for work.

2 adults, 2 children. £150-£180 every 10 days or so. This includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, packed lunches, snacks, household items, toiletries and cleaning products.

It's horrendous, I used to be able to buy the same amount of stuff for less than £100 a couple of yrs ago (always cooked plenty with leftovers, so not like I'm buying extra food for DS2).

I buy mostly supermarket brand but will buy the odd branded item. I buy the best meat I can reasonably afford for that shop, eg I buy the mid range ham because the cheapest stuff is too slimy. Can't bulk buy food for the freezer or household products due to no storage.

I don't understand when people say cut the snacks. My DC eat plenty of fruit, veg sticks, yogurts, etc as snacks, but I'm not going to deny them a bag of crisps, a pack of biscuits or ice lolly, which would probably last almost a week.

I prefer the taste/texture of fresh fruit over tinned or frozen.

I don't know how to make it cheaper without compromising on quality. I appreciate that I'm lucky enough to just be able to afford to be a bit picky. I don't have time to be going to 3+ shops to get a weeks worth of food so I get it delivered. This also helps me to stick with my list/meal plan.

However, why is eating healthy so expensive? A struggling family can buy, let's say mega bag of frozen chicken nuggets for the same price of a small punnet of strawberries. I know.which one I would pick if I had to.

I don't buy fruit and veg in my big shop anymore unless I need it. Instead only buy it when I've run out. Somehow, it works out £15 cheaper down from £115/20. I'm not wasting as much either.

Did you click on the photo?

However, why is eating healthy so expensive? A struggling family can buy, let's say mega bag of frozen chicken nuggets for the same price of a small punnet of strawberries. I know.which one I would pick if I had to.

Those aren't comparable. £4.25 for a kilo of tesco chicken nuggets (58% chicken) or £3 for 500g Tesco boneless chicken thighs.

I still can't read the receipt

Buy Aldi chicken leg quarters less than £2.65 a kilo, and make your own nuggets, cheaper than frozen.

It is possible to eat healthily and cheaply but you need to be able to cook and to actually do it. I think a big part of the problem is that Home Economics was removed from a lot of schools and people don't necessarily have the knowledge and skills to be able to cook economically from scratch.

I’m assuming you’re buying branded tinned fruit at £1.20. You can buy common tinned fruit, peaches, pears, fruit cocktail for as little as 34p.

Rather than buying soup I highly recommend making it - I can make 6 tins worth for £2, last 3 days in fridge and freeze in batches.

Frozen fruit is very economical, cheaper than tinned and better for you.
Lamb is a rare treat here and only beef is mince.

Rather than buying cans of ravioli make a huge lasagna, portion up and freeze, costs around £1 for a really substantial portion, for than a tin.

I spend £80 a week for 3 people and we eat really well from scratch. Eg today I did a bean cassoulet with celery, carrot, onion, garlic and can of mixed beans served with duck legs, (2 gives 4 portions of meat mixed in) made bread to accompany it

We definitely spend too much on grocery shopping, but I make a lot of soup and would highly recommend the bags from Lakeland (Amazon or other places will do them, that’s just where ours are) to freeze it in. That way they take up minimal space.

This week I picked up a “whoops” bag of sweet potatoes in Tesco which was 60p, added in a couple of sad red peppers from the fridge, two sticks of celery (fridge), seasoning and veg stock, blitzed it all down, and that made six portions of soup. Last week I had carrots leftover from doing a bolognese and did those with some frozen coriander (plus an onion and stock). Soup is such a good way of using up bits of things!

I agree with op. It is cheaper to eat 'crap' ie some processed bar containing not much nutritional goodness, but lots of additives, rather than whole foods, fresh fruit etc. plus the price of .... say olive oil is shocking!

@bugsybugsy You nailed it. I’m in your Professionals group (do you have a camera in my house?!)

@ByLoudSeal I agree - healthy can be very expensive.if you shop Tesco, consider their club where you get a 10% discount twice a month. It requires you to have lots of storage space, unfortunately- but that’s when I stock up on toilet rolls, laundry products, dry and tinned foods. The 10% off does help. I buy fresh stuff in Lidl in the in between weeks and it’s definitely cheaper.

That's a fair point.

However, I did just Google how many chicken nuggets you get (pedantic I know). There's 72 in a pack. That would make 18-24 servings if each person had 3-4 nuggets each.

The chicken thighs would make at 10 servings maximum if you bulked a meal out with veg? So it's still cheaper to buy the nuggets as they would last longer.

I'm talking about people who are on the breadline and probably have to also watch how much they serve at mealtimes. I've heard of plenty of parents who have 1 meal a day or rely on eating their children's leftovers.

Time is a huge barrier as well. Making your own chicken nuggets relies on having that knowledge, and the time to not only make them but to clear up. Its a lot more mess compared to shoving food on a tray and whacking it straight in the oven.

I'm with you OP, spend about the same as we just keep eating! And for all the posters saying 'meal plan' - I do. The meals aren't expensive, it's the fruit snacks and stuff for lunchboxes that will actually get eaten and not just wasted. Plus the gluten free stuff for one of them!. To be fair, sometimes I end up freezing meats etc as opt for an unhealthy dinner after work instead of cooking properly, so will end up with a cheaper week somewhere. And yes, I could.shop elsewhere like we have in the past....but then lots gets wasted as the quality isn't the same in some fruits and veg or meat. And quite frankly, don't have the time or inclination to drag the children around two supermarkets

This ,wake up people,many just don’t have the time or storage space for batch meals!!

4 nuggets is about 30g of chicken. You aren't comparing like for like with servings. Chicken with rice and veggies is very cheap. No need to make nuggets.

I spend around £100 a week for 3, plus 7 guineas (who get the majority of the veg) and a rabbit. Cat food and dry food for the others not included.

We buy a heap of fresh fruit (Tesco, it lasts a week fine).

Fresh goes off very quickly and theres only so much space in a freezer, how big are peoples freezers with all these suggestions about batch cooking this and that, and then frozen fruit on top

Personally I dont eat fruit but can understand why OP wants to buy it tinned, if you buy a whole pineapple, its expensive, lots of waste, storage of the bits you dont eat that night, same with something like mangoes which wont keep long.

Personally I would cut out the snacks, theres a lot of that, much of the veg I would buy frozen if it fits in the freezer

Given what I spend for 1 person, I'm not suprised at you spending £150 for a family of 4 including household products and you don't really have that much fruit and veg on the list. I find that people who claim they only spend a tiny amount on food either don't eat very much or forget that they also spend money on school dinners, takeaway lunches for work etc. Someone upthread mentions a large chicken doing a family Sunday dinner, Monday lunch and pickings left over.....in my house that does 2 adults for dinner and 2 lunches, we exercise a lot and eat a lot!

That seems like quite a lot of food for one week.

Do you plan out your meals and snacks for the week? Do you end up throwing some stuff away?

Are you just buying too much?

There have been a study recently in the uk ( sorry about to go to work not google ) that show that a healthy calorie is about three times the cost of an unhealthy one

And I am having a week away from my normal healthy food and I am feeling increasingly bad / down

I eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables but do a smaller shop twice a week so nothing goes off or is wasted.

£150 isn’t that much for 4 of you given the price of food but you can still make healthier choices.