hi:
Yes is true I buy fresh food imagine 1 broccoli $3.00 I need every day for make my extracts juices 1 broccoli, 1 carrot, 1 apple, half of cucumber, some grapes that is only for 1 glass of juice. I need work hard just for buy good food.

See and this is the EXACT thing I'm talking about. Those things that I've highlighted in red are luxury items - they're not necessary for healthy eating.

Why do you have to have GREEK salad - why not just a regular salad with low-fat shredded cheese? That's also healthy. Healthy does NOT = gourmet.

Why do you have to put expensive dijon mustard on your chicken breasts and veggies. Why not a sprinkle of red wine vinegar instead? Or regular mustard with some spices on hand mixed in? For that matter, why do you have to buy skinless chicken breasts. You can save money by buying a whole chicken or even by buying a package of already cut up chicken and removing the skin yourself.

You can't compare a plain jane macaroni and beef casserole with a boneless/skinless chicken breast dish with gourmet mustard and then claim that eating healthy is too expensive.

And no-one I know in Greece bothers with capers or sardines in their Greek salad (horiatiki). Come to that they grow the olives themselves so they pay nothing for the olives or olive oil...

And personally, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the aforementioned pasta and sauce or beef casserole meals. There was nothing pre-packaged or processed in there.
If you make your pasta sauce by starting with plain tomato sauce instead of a premade pasta sauce, then adding some spices and vegetables to taste, then you are even better off, as premade sauces generally have a lot of additives.

Pasta is not inherently evil or bad for you, particularly if you cook it al dente, which gives it a lower GI. The main problem with pasta is what people put on it, which is often unhealthy fat.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I cook ground beef I strain the fat off as it cooks. It may still have some fat, but it doesn't have added sodium, preservatives or whatever. I don't see where people think ground beef is a horrible unhealthy choice.
(Mind you, I also buy organic, non-medicated grassfed ground beef, which costs $3.50 - $4.00 per pound, but that's still not too bad, considering that 1 pound feeds my family of 3 for 2 days.)

I'll throw in a pasta suggestion that my family often enjoys, is very healthy, and is dirt cheap.
Toss the cooked pasta with some chopped (and possibly steamed, depending) vegetables in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and wine vinegar, add some crumbled feta (or even just some shredded cheddar or whatever), and there you go. Cheap, nutritious, healthy.

Skinless chicken is generally much more expensive than buying chicken with skin and removing the skin yourself, as Kara says. Do a little of the work yourself and save money. Buy a whole chicken and save a lot more.

Random tidbit - a friend of mine, curious, bought regular ground beef and lean ground beef to see which was more cost-effective. After cooking both and straining off the fat, the regular ground beef actually gave more meat for the money than the lean did.

:-) I don't put sardines in my salad, I just eat them in addition because they taste good.

Capers, they add a lot of flavor. I spend a lot of time in Greece and at least in the remote area I am in, there are always capers. Could be a local thing, who knows. In any case, they pack a lot of flavor.

I appreciate that capers add flavor (I love them and put them in a lot of things) but my point is that they're not NECESSARY for healthy eating - so you can't say that a salad with capers is more expensive, therefore healthy eating is more expensive.

And I didn't say it because I didn't want to muddy my point, but I agree with Cord that I didn't see anything *unhealthy* about the first recipes listed.

I also buy the less expensive ground beef, cook it, and rinse it to remove the fat. The only time I buy the more expensive ground beef is if I'm making burgers of some kind.

You can MAKE eating healthy be expensive ... but it isn't inherently expensive.

I find eating healthier much cheaper.

For "E", "N" and myself we have a weekly shopping bill of £40 (about $60), we buy in fresh veg, meats and the occasional tin, bread and milk, and I cook from fresh every day (also to rebute another argument this does not take long on the whole).

If we were to buy sandwiches at the office it would make lunch alone cost £5pp/pd £25pp/pw So that would be £50 just for work lunches before food for dinner and any food for "N".

It just takes a little planning.

We spend about $70-$150 every two weeks depending on what we're low on. That feeds 2 and a half people for 2 weeks.

I havent noticed much change in the money we spend on groceries. We cut out some bad things and replace them with good things so the price seems to even out.
Also, since our portions have gotten smaller we're not buying as much chicken or turkey. Instead of eating 3 or 4 boneless skinless fillets each, we're only eating one or two each.
Instead of making half pound turkey burgers its more like a quarter pound or less.

The turkey and chicken we buy is cheaper than beef a pork too. I found turkey 'pork chops' and danced a jig in the store. I still havent found any good looking turkey sausage.
Instead of cooking a whole box of mac and cheese I will only cook half or a quarter.

Salad nights cost us $8.54. We get two Caesar salads from texas roadhouse and I give my daughter some of mine. They give huge portions so I usually have some left over.

Now I do have friends that are trying to lose weight as well who buy a ton of expensive food because they have it in their heads that to lose weight you have to spend a lot of money.

My lunch

2 slices flax bread
couple leaves of iceberg lettuce
5 thin slices real cheddar
3 slices of turkey breast
one tomato
reg mustard and some bbq sauce

have it with a glass of milk

whole thing costs me probably 2.50 and it has everything you need in a meal.

So I started looking at this in light of a challenge to myself. I said that comparing a plain-jane mac-n-beef casserole with a gourmet chicken dish was an unfair comparison. So I started figuring out how I could even this up. Here's what I came up with, which I think is a more accurate comparison (I converted to US $ just to keep my numbers straight):

Original dish:
Macaroni and ground beef casserole (dinner)
----------------------------------
8oz bag of macaroni - 1.75
1lb ground beef (15% fat) - 3.00
1 large onion - 0.50
3 eggs - 0.80
3oz milk - 1.00
(some spices on hand)
--
$7.05 feeds 4-5 people
Nutritional info (based on 4 servings): Calories 494, Total Fat 11.6g, Carb 47.1g, Fiber 2.5g, Protein 47.1g

So for a full meal, I think that's pretty healthy already. You could drop the fat and some of the calories by draining and rinsing the meat.

But an alternative version:
Chicken and Brown Rice Casserole (dinner)
----------------------------------
1 cup brown rice - 0.75
2 large can (9 oz ea) chicken breast meat - 5.00 (or less on sale or bought in bulk)
1 large onion - 0.50
1 clove garlic - 0.05
1 can diced tomatoes - 0.65
(olive oil and spices on hand)
---
$6.95 feeds 4-5 people
Nutritional info (based on 4 servings): Calories 308, Total Fat 6.2g, Carb 43.1g, Fiber 3.0g, Protein 32.1g

Now that, to me, is a much more equal comparison ... and the costs come out virtually the same.

I think everyone made seriously valid points, but Id like to put my 2 cents in (no pun intended) as a poor college student.

I personally think its a little more expensive to eat healthily just because of what a regular college-person survives off of. Ramen (.20 cents/pack) mac and cheese (.78 cents) per pack, Banquet frozen dinners ($1.00 per dinner), Pringles ($1.00/can), chef boyardee (~$1.00/can) 6 pack of Miller Highlife ($4.50) etc. I defintely know a lot of my friends, especially my male counterparts who survive off of foods like these.

But For me when I go shopping I defintely try to look for convienence and healthy. My budget for food is pretty cheap about $40/2 weeks. So I try to get as much bang for my buck. I also tend to think eating more fresh fruits and veggies require a little more flavor additions when actually cooking them, and items such as garlic, olive oil, certain spices, and especially meat (ground turkey, Boneless skinless chicken breasts, and lean ground beef) are a rare commodity that I do work into my budget as often as possible.

Im not the type of person that eats crap, because then I feel like crap. So I defintely do buy plain pasta and try and jazz it up with fresh fruits and veggies, etc. I also live off of canned beans and lentils and things like tuna.

But If you have friends like I do that live off of foods mentioned above. I can defintely see how paying $4.50 for 1lb of boneless skinless chicken breast can be a sticker shock. So really I can see both sides of the debate. I think being creative with your food defintely helps in saving money as well...

M4C - I definitely agree with your perspective. For me the hardest people to give advice to are college students who want to lose - both because they are on much more limited budgets and because often college students don't have the facilities to cook if they live in a dorm or co-op situation.

Even so ... with some time and planning, you can eat things like beans, rice, canned meats, etc. - which is what you said you do.

But I do agree that there are other perspectives. And, like I mentioned in my first post, this doesn't even touch on inner-city families or people who are truly living below the poverty level. There are all kinds of other issues there that gets into political and socio-economic discussions.

I'm thinking about starting a thread in the recipe area for healthy and CHEAP meals, though. Something that I might start echoing to my blog as well. If I were to start a thread, what dollar figure do you think we should aim to work with? I can see a $20 a week grocery thread (for college students and the like) and maybe a $60 a week thread for families? This is the kind of challenge I love - it really pushes me to stretch my cooking skills.

When I was in University (yes, we had Universities back in the Bronze Age), students lived off lentils - packed with nutrients, and dirt dirt dirt cheap. Lentil soup, lentil stew, lentils in the pasta sauce. Lentils with the ramen noodles.

And then spent the rest of their money on beer, of course.

Kara, I'd love the thread with the cheap and healthy meals, both because I'm a horrible cook (but would like to learn), and because I'm on a really stretched budget.

Of course I'm also a really picky eater unfortunately, so I find it really difficult to find anything I like, can make, and can afford. So there would be one happy, regular visitor to the food idea thread guaranteed!

I also think it would be a good idea - I'm sure many people on the forum would find it useful.