It Costs Too Much to Eat Healthy?
It often comes up that a celebrity or Congressman raises an issue that the poor can't afford food. Globally, this is true and this latest announcement by Bridget Moynahan is an example. Living on $1.50 a day using US prices is not something that you can do for more than a week without suffering nutritional consequences. That's $10.50 a week, so it is less than 1/3 of what the rest this post considers.
If we look at the US and SNAP benefits, the question is whether that is sufficient money for a person or family? Snap benefits start out at about $45 for a single person and then start sliding downward somewhat as the number of people in the household rise. Presumably they are recognizing it is easier to buy things in bulk as a family, and that generally reduces the price of food. For a family of 4, SNAP benefits are about $40.
For this post, I wanted to look at whether you can have a healthy diet on $40 dollars a week. I originally started with $30 a week, and I think my conclusion is that most people would be in calorie deficit or nutritional deficiency at that level.
Caveats: I am accepting of the fact that Food Deserts exist and that you could have people without access to the food that you'll see later in this post. At the same time, in a city like Atlanta, there are places like DeKalb Farmers Market or Buford Highway market where the food is cheaper than what I'll be listing, and also it is easier to buy in bulk at those places. I'm also not trying to exhaustively illustrate the point with the numerical part of this post. If you don't like Kale, then substitute with some other healthy vegetable.
Basic rules: No processed food. No empty calories. No "prepared" meals. You have to cook it all yourself. Get a slow cooker!
The Numbers / Diet Model
Most of these number for cost and types of food came from my shopping at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods today. These are places not known for super low prices, and if I shopped at the places listed above, I could have easily saved 10 - 20% on the overall total.The diet / model isn't intended to list every possible food item that you might want to eat. It does show that if you buy certain items in bulk one week, you'll have leftovers or unused food that makes it cheaper the next week. Week 1 costs $31.59 and Week 2 costs $27.20. That means if you're planning ahead, you can easily keep your food costs per person under $40 per week. For example, you could buy a 5 lb bag of potatoes with the excess $12.80 in week 2, and then eat them over the next 3 weeks (the highlighted rows show the 'carryover' items). The same would apply to things like spices, garlic, butter, etc. Anything that you use a small amount per day or week could easily fit within the budget allocation.
The initial calorie count appears a bit low, although 1800 calories might be fine for some people. Note, however that this is based on not spending the entire $40.
For more details on the exact calorie counts and nutrition data that you'll see below, please see this link. Nutrition Data is a great resource for analyzing your own diet.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/recipe/3590259/2
Calories vs Cost
Since I quit before spending the full $40, this table shows that you can actually get to calorie counts of between 2300 and 2700 if you continue buying things using the same basic principles. Of course, if you're full, then don't eat more than you want!
What Can I Eat?
The basic rules are that you only eat fresh foods, canned foods, or frozen foods. Like Michael Pollan says, shop the perimeter of the grocery store. "If it comes in a bag or a box, don't eat it" (e.g. potato chips). Also avoid any processed foods. They are generally much more expensive and don't have the nutrition. For example, Trader Joe's has 2 breakfast burritos for $2.99. I guarantee that is a waste of money for someone on a low budget and also not something that is nutritionally dense. |
| Don't Do It!!! |
Meat
I put a simple set of grass fed beef, ground turkey, and albacore tuna into the mix. I also added eggs. Eggs are a nutritional powerhouse and would be a key staple in a low budget diet. There's a lot of rotational options here. Also, it would be possible to buy larger, lower cost cuts of meat like a beef shoulder roast that you could put in a slow cooker and eat all week - like this one:http://connectitecture.blogspot.com/2013/01/massive-pot-roast.html
Vegetables
Sorry about the pictures coming out sideways, but for some reason Blogspot is "too smart" about the pictures I took with my cell phone and refuses to render them in the proper orientation.Here are a couple of rules for buying vegetables. In general, we're looking at buying canned or frozen (see next part) foods because they are much cheaper. Another important factor to consider is that both canned and frozen foods are much more nutritious that what you buy "fresh" in most grocery stores. For more on this topic, I highly recommend Jo Robinson's book Eat Wild that breaks down the often multi-week journey that food takes on the way from the farm to the grocery store - losing nutrients all the way. In contrast, canned foods and frozen are picked at the peak of ripeness and retain 3 - 5 times more of the key nutrients like anti-oxidants.
As noted above, frozen foods are often more nutritious than fresh and are also cheaper. You can get 1 lb of numerous types of vegetables for $1.99 or less. Load up!
Grains and Legumes
Rice, lentils, and beans make up a large part of this model diet. I used "raw" versions of rice and lentils in the Nutrition Data section, so that makes a big difference in the calorie count. (A cup of dry rice is much different than a cup of cooked rice). I'm not sure the model diet is realistic in terms of the amount of rice that you'd be eating, but you can add rice to almost any meal, so it might work out. I'd probably lean more toward the beans and lentils just because they are more nutritionally dense than rice - more vitamins and minerals than rice.
Fruit
Hey, who doesn't love a banana? Well, if you don't then I'd try to get used to eating them anyway. They are probably the cheapest fruit on the market, much cheaper than apples, for example. (there's probably a trade subsidy lurking in the banana market). I also added some strawberries in the model diet - again frozen because they're usually much cheaper than fresh. But, if you find things on sale, by all means go with fresh for better texture and taste.
Fats
I am a huge fan of TJ's Olive Oil. This one is probably one of the best tasting oils that you'll find and it is "unfiltered". Without going into a lot of details, unfiltered is the way to go. If you want to know why, buy Paul Pitchford's book Healing with Whole Foods and dig into Chapter 10.
A Treat
Yes, look! Chocolate. Don't go crazy on sweets, but you could break this bar into 1/4ths and then enjoy it once a week. (Okay, I know most women would eat the whole thing at once - that's your choice).
Is It Nutritionally Balanced?
The bottom line on this model diet is that it is possible to eat a nutritious diet on a budget of between 30 and 40 dollars per week. There are a few areas where it could be a challenge, so a bottle of multivitamins might be in order just to make sure.Overall, the nutrient balance works out to a "high carb" diet - 59 Carbs / 23 Fats / 18 Protein. I'm a Paleo Diet type of person, so this would not be something that I think is healthy, but it is broadly in line with official guidance such as from the USDA or AHA. If I had to adjust to this level of spending, I would lean towards more fatty types of meats, less rice/more beans or lentils, and get the carbs below 50% of the mix.
Let's look at a few more factors (On all of these, for any percentage figures, you need to divide by 7 to get the daily numbers. On the Nutritiondata.com page, I added the entire week's food together in one "recipe")
Nutrient Balance
Looking pretty good on vitamin coverage, but maybe maybe a few adjustments are in order to rotate more foods into the mix than my model diet. We're doing very good on protein, getting close to 100g a day as well, which is plenty for almost anyone.
Vitamins Detail
On vitamins we get most of what we need. For vitamin D, get out in the sun for 15 minutes a day and you're all set.
Minerals
Even dividing all these number by 7, you can see this does very well with the exception of Calcium. Adding more leafy greens would help.
Fats
Note here that the Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio is actually pretty good - only 7 to 1. Most Americans are in the range of 12 or 15 to 1, and that is considered a pro-inflammatory diet. Look up Chris Kresser on this topic if you're interested in understanding why the ratio matters. Adding more fish and less poultry would help considerably.
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