Healthy Food Doesn’t Have To Be Expensive!

Eating healthy has a reputation for being very expensive and I can see why.

When you walk into your local health food store and start looking at prices for grass fed steak, raw dairy, pasture raised eggs, fermented veggies, bone broth, and other nutritious foods, your jaw probably drops (I know mine does)!

If you were to buy all these, your grocery bill would be outrageous! I mean is it even possible to afford healthy groceries without being a millionaire? I’m here to tell you that it is. Money is not the problem, healthy groceries can actually be very affordable. The secret lies in how you approach grocery shopping and meal planning.

You need to be willing to:

1) Make more stuff from scratch and do more work in the kitchen-

Buy a large hunk of meat (like top sirloin) and butcher it yourself; make your own mayo, salad dressings, and sauces; and make your own bone broth, liver pâté, and fermented veggies. If you do the work, then you don’t have to pay someone else to. If you go the extra mile and hunt, fish, garden, forage, or raise animals, you can save even more.

2) Be content with simpler meals and foods-

Is ground beef the most exciting food on the planet, no. But is 1 lb of local grass fed ground beef around $7 per lb, yes! Opt for cheaper yet still equally as healthy foods, don’t use an excessive amount of different ingredients, give up or limit eating out, alcohol, and extravagant expensive foods.

3) Eat with the seasons-

Seasonal produce is more plentiful locally and therefore since supply is high, prices are lower. Out of season foods like strawberries in winter have to be shipped from far away (since the local supply is often nonexistent) driving costs up.

4) Eat nose to tail-

Most people don’t want liver, shank, heart, chicken feet and other odd parts, therefore they’re typically pretty cheap! You can often get grass fed local beef liver for $7 per lb! Also if you eat these regularly you don’t need any supplements so you can cut costs there too!

5) Bargain hunt-

You don’t have to go to the fancy health food store (at least not for everything)! I go to Sprouts (a grocery store in some US states, there’s a lot here in CA) for most of my groceries because it sells a lot of the exact same things the local health food stores sell, but for about 3/4 of the price!

Other helpful tips are to go to multiple grocery stores, take advantage of discount days (student, senior, and veterans discounts are common), take advantage of discounts, and go to farmers markets or farms.

6) Find a good price quality balance-

Everyone’s balance is gonna be a bit different, it mostly depends on your financial state and your desire for fancier foods. Mess around with this to figure out what’s best for you.

I for example don’t buy everything at absolute top quality (not all my meat is grass fed, not all my dairy is raw, though a good chunk of it is). I also have a few treats that I know are more expensive and am willing to spend that money (certain fruits, my raw butter, and the occasional fancier cut of meat). You don’t have to be absolutely perfect, just do the best you can and figure out what works for you!

7) Plan ahead and don’t waste food-

If you don’t want to waste money on food, don’t throw away food! I’ve found the best way to do this is to plan ahead. Figure out what you’re gonna eat first and then buy the right amount of food for these meals. Also if you have extra of certain foods, try to make a meal around that so you can use the extra.

If you implement these 7 tips into your grocery shopping routine, I think you’ll find that eating healthy can actually be very affordable!