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Eating Organic on a Budget: 10 Tips to Save & Savor
With this challenging economy, many of us have become more budget-conscious. What’s a guy / gal to do if your health objective is to eat organic, but your budget’s objective is to stay as small as possible?
While it’s not always true that organics are more expensive (check out this comparison chart I’ve provided), it is true that food consumption makes up a large percentage of most peoples’ monthly budget – including ours!
I’ve compiled ten easy tips for you to maximize your food dollars so that you can stay true to your health and prioritize eating organic, without feeling budgetary guilt.
I’d love to post any additional ideas you have, so let me know if you have tips and tricks of your own.
- Prioritize what you buy organic and what you don’t. Check out the Environmental Working Group’s list ranking the foods with the worst levels of pesticides. Buy the top 12 worst ones as organic. Also buy as organic the foods you eat most frequently. Always aim to get animal foods (dairy, eggs, all meats and poultry) as organic.
- Buy in bulk. Get comfortable with bulk bins in grocery stores that offer them. You’ll save a lot of moolah here alone, and you can buy as much as you need, no more. Some stores have lots of bulk bin options, like food co-ops, including teabags, spices, and jams, even. Some have fewer. Take a field trip and have fun exploring.
- Compare prices at 2-3 sources before assuming anything. You could do this comparison between, say, your neighborhood grocer, Trader Joe’s, and your local farmer’s market, plus maybe Whole Foods. See if there are types of foods you can get cheaper at one of those places, then pick your top 1-2 to shop at each week.
- Look for house/generic brands. You may be able to get a house brand of the same product for a lot cheaper. Make sure to read the detailed ingredient label to confirm quality and that they aren’t using cheap, filler ingredients like added sugars, added gluten, or food additives or colorings (if it’s organic, they’re probably not – but check anyway).
- Make it / chop it / freeze it / can it yourself. If you buy frozen, canned, pre-chopped, pre-washed or in any way pre-prepared foods, you’re very likely paying a steep premium for convenience. Make your own stock and soups, chop your own veggies, bake your own cookies. You’ll cut your bill by about 10-20%+ with this alone.
- Make a shopping list and stick to it. Get real with yourself. Identify how your usual grocery bill adds up – what do you really spend on? Cut down on junk foods (also a type of convenience food), make a weekly menu, make a list, and stick to the plan. Don’t forget healthy, unprocessed snacks like fruits and nuts.
- Eat seasonally. Seasonal produce and meats will almost always be cheaper. Or, get frozen organic, again being mindful that there are no added, unnecessary ingredients. For example, if you love blueberries in your smoothie in the winter, it’s definitely cheaper and almost just as good to get frozen organic berries for a fraction of the price.
- Buy locally. Lower transportation costs mean lower prices. And you’re supporting your local economy and local farmers.
- Ask your farmer. It’s expensive for farms to become certified as organic, and many smaller / family farms cannot afford this certification. When you go to a farmer’s market, ask the farmers directly about their farming practices: do they use pesticides / herbicides / fungicides? Do they rotate crops? Do they use genetically modified seeds? Do their animals get fed antibiotics? Other animals, or just vegetarian feed? Is the beef grass fed from birth all the way through? Do their chickens get sunlight and get to roam on the range? For how long? You may even find out that their products are better in quality than the baseline organic certification as defined by the USDA.
- Join an organic Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) Service or Food Buying Group – This is the best. If you only take me up on one of these ten recommendations, make it this one. Live alone? Share with a friend or a neighbor. Why? You’re saving MEGAbucks, eating locally, eating seasonally, you know exactly where your food is coming from and what its quality level is. You can get your veggies OR your meats this way. Cha-ching. That’s your savings account going back up. And you think you’ve got it tough? You’ll be supporting your local farmers, who really, really need it. And lest you think there’s no such service near you, I urge you to first check out this fantastic resource: Local Harvest, which will point you to CSAs, food buying groups, and all kinds of online resources if indeed there are no resources close to where you live (which is rare in the U.S., given how fortunate we are with our farm-able land and resources): http://www.localharvest.org/
If you are building your healthy pantry from scratch, know that your first couple of food shopping excursions will likely be the most expensive you’ll encounter, as you’ll be stocking up on dry goods like spices, rice, and legumes that you’ll be using for a long time, so don’t get discouraged. You pay for these upfront, but they pay you back in the long run.
And don’t forget: if you’re like I used to be, or like my clients tend to be now, you probably eat out or order in more than you’d like to admit, maybe even 90-100% of the time (yep, that was me in my earlier management consulting life). Even if you buy 100% organic, chances are that you’ll still end up saving money as you shift towards cooking more at home.
A mini case study:
This is a really rough sketch of an example, but it may ring quite true to you. Let’s say you have a job downtown and a somewhat active social life. The likelihood is that you eat out or order in 6 days a week, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Conservatively, that calculates out to the following in a city like San Francisco:
$6 breakfast + $12 lunch + $25 dinner = $43/day = $258/week = $1034/mo including 15% tips, not including delivery charges ~ and I’m not counting trips to Starbucks or snacks, or high quality organic foods – just your run-of-the-mill pastry/oatmeal/sandwich/salad/pad thai at decent restaurants – not McD’s.
At the other extreme, if you were to shop and cook exclusively at home for those six days a week, you’d probably spend about $180-250 a week in groceries shopping exclusively organics, exclusively at Whole Foods (been there). So, you could be saving about $8-78 a week, eating all organic.
Then if you go a step further and follow the steps above, especially taking the CSA route, you’ll be saving lots more! I’ve paid $25 for a large boxful ~ about 20 lbs ~ of organic, local, seasonal veggies from a local CSA before, and it comfortably lasted the two of us two weeks. $25!!! 20 pounds!!! TWO weeks!!! I probably shaved off another $80-100 off my grocery bill PER WEEK doing that. Try to achieve THAT at your conventional grocery.
As a bonus, I’ve also provided this price comparison chart for a selection of both organic and non-organic products across Whole Foods and another supermarket chain. This chart was compiled by a client of mine in 2009.
Try it out for a couple of weeks. Write what you spend on food. Practice cooking at home using the tips I mention above, and compare it to your usual routine – whether you eat out or in, and see how it compares.
Happy organic eating!
***
© 2009-2010 Delicious Health, Inc.
WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE?
You may, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:
“Authored by Simla Somturk Wickless, MBA, CHC, NE, an integrative health, nutrition, and lifestyle coach whose mission is to transform busy bodies into healthy, balanced beings (TM). To learn how to zing your energy, tame your stress, and take back control of your health, register for her free monthly eZine at www.enjoydelicioushealth.com or read more on her blog at www.delicioushealthblog.com.”
Organic & Conventional Pricing Comparison from 2009
Here is a 2009 pricing comparison from one of my clients for the following categories of foods, both organic and non-organic. She actually went around and documented these price points. I wanted to post this to show that it’s not true that organic is always more expensive. It (literally) pays to shop around and do your research. I don’t mean to tout Whole Foods here, but you can see where they come out ahead (cheaper) in pricing compared to another chain supermarket.
Item Giant Giant (Non-organic) Whole Foods
1lb organic strawberries 5.99 4.99 (3.99 on sale) 4.99
4 oz carton organic blueberries 4.99 3.99 4.99
organic vine tomato 3.99/lb 2.99/lb 1.99/lb
organic Brauburn apples 2.99/lb 1.99/lb 2.49/lb
organic cauliflower 3.99 ea 2.49 ea 4.99 ea
organic bananas 0.79/lb 0.59/lb 0.79/lb
organic steel cut oatmeal not available 3.99 for 1lb box 3.39 for 1 lb box
organic salsa not available 2.99 2.69
Tilapia 7.99/lb —- 9.99/lb
Halibut not available yet —- 13.99/lb
Kettle Potato chips 2 for $5.00 (on sale) 2 for $4 (on sale)
Evian water (1 liter) 2 for $4 (on sale) 1.89 ea (no sale)
Whole wheat pasta 1.99 2.39
Pasta sauce (organic) 5.99 3.99 2.39
Organic chicken (3 breasts) $8-10 — $8-11
Organic beef (2 NY strips 1/2lb ea) $11.00 $10.00 $10-12
Organic grass fed beef not available —- $15-18
Seeds of Change 7 grains pocket 3.99 3.99
Organic milk 3.99 3.29
Organic cage free eggs 3.99 3.49
Breyers ice cream 5.99 (sale:3.99) 4.99 (sale:3.99)
Monday, March 1, 2010: The Food-Mood Connection, a Live Free Workshop
Delicious Health invites you to:
“The Food-Mood Connection:
How to Manage Your Mood Through Food“
A complimentary workshop in downtown San Francisco
presented by Simla Somturk Wickless, MBA, CHC, CNE, founder of Delicious Health
DATE: Monday, March 1, 2010
TIME: 6 – 7:30 PM Pacific
LOCATION: 169 Steuart Street (between Mission & Howard), San Francisco, CA 94105
FEE: FREE! Nada. Zip. Courtesy of the YMCA.
RSVP REQUIRED: Click here to RSVP. Our previous event sold out, so don’t wait.
Join me, Simla Somturk Wickless, health, nutrition & lifestyle expert and founder of Delicious Health, at the beautiful YMCA Embarcadero, for a brand new workshop!
Ever grapple with unpleasant emotions and wish you could just feel better already? How about the winter blues? You may have more control over your emotions and moods than you think. And it could be through something you already do every day, all day long: Eat.
Emotions and moods are generated mostly by your brain and a collection of chemicals, including neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) and hormones. What you eat affects your body’s ability to regulate your emotions in two ways: (1) the right foods supply the raw materials needed to build these chemicals and hormones; and, (2) the wrong foods actively deplete these same raw materials because your body also uses these chemicals to protect your body against the harmful effects of poor quality foods and other toxins.
At this workshop, you’ll discover:
- Which moods are part of a healthy range of emotions and which are “false” moods
- Which foods and daily habits contribute to “false” moods
- What’s really happening inside your body to produce “false” moods
- Which foods to avoid so that you can banish “false” moods and take back control of your emotions
- The “happy” foods and habits that can help restore your emotional reserves and make you more resilient and even-tempered
We hope to see you at this free event.
Space is limited and our last event sold out, so you may want to…
RSVP HERE to reserve your spot today.
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