Trader Joe's in the only happy medium. If you buy smart and take the time to split your groceries between Whole Foods and Joe's, you can usually come out on top.

Unfortunately, not all cities have a Trader Joe's! We JUST got one in my neck of the woods...

Yes! I get so much flack from my husband on the higher grocery bills. To me there's no question it's worth it, but it is such a source of stress if you don't have lots of money but want to eat healthy.

yea same thing here, organic food is so freakin expensive!

You are definitely not alone.

I've maintained it's a sign of how screwed up our priorities are that the worst food for you is the least expensive and most easily accessible.

When I read the other post about the fat tax, my immediate thought was that there shouldn't be a fat tax, there should be a healthy break. My husband and I spend too much a month to be able to eat healthy, and we're just two people who barely eat out (and when we do eat out, since we are very picky about where we eat due to food quality, it's always expensive).

I know that we could save more for our condo down payment, I know that we could save up for a vacation, but to be honest I couldn't enjoy these things if I didn't feel physically healthy. It's a shame that we have to choose between health and a much-deserved vacation or our first home.

I totally agree - and there is NOTHING harder than trying to buy healthy, organic groceries when you are a poor college student.

It's even harder when there aren't that many organic choices! The ONLY place to shop in my town is HEB or Wal*Mart - if I want fresh organic fruit or vegetables, I have to drive to Austin (45 minutes!!) to get to Whole Foods or Central Market.

It's become easier though, as more and more brand names start creating organic lines for their products. Hopefully this is the trend of the future!

Eating healthy is definitely more expenisive

I agree with everyone here It's so expensive to be healthy these days I can hardly afford anything else I can't afford going to the gym if I keep a nutritious diet

I really enjoy gardening! I've been super poor (so far, but I do believe in miracles), and I work all the time, & don't have a car so it also takes a long time for me to commute everyday, but everywhere I live I always find some way & some time to put in at least a little garden! This significantly reduces my grocery bill during the growing season! Even during the years when I can only grow greens (those are the easiest & most abundant to grow), I save so much money.

It really only takes a few hours a week, maybe just a little tiny bit more time in the spring to get things going, but really not much time or money at all overall. And the payback has always been awesome.

I've always been a renter too. But I always work out a place to grow food wherever I live.

I also go around my neighborhood & collect wild foods! I've had times when I have lived exclusively off of wild foods for weeks. There is such an abundance of free food out there & it's the healthiest stuff! Mostly greens (where I live there is also edible cactus/prickly pears & mulberry & other fruit tress), but they are the best tasting greens ever!! This is a really helpful website for that kind of thing:
http://www.prodigalgardens.info/weblog.htm

But otherwise I am crazy about organic. I mostly eat fresh produce somehow or other. Doing what I explained above I can usually save extra money during the spring, summer & fall to be able to buy clean produce during the winter. I also buy conventional produce, to save money, but only the stuff that is on the least pesticide contaminated list.

Gardening & collecting wild foods also helps me lead a very active lifestyle which is very important for me.

LOL my husband is actually on my case right now to go get some of the wild greens that grow conveniently in our current garden (some would call them weeds hehe) for lunch.

Actually to eat the absolute healthiest food is really cheep if not free & pretty easy!

No, you aren't! I totally agree with you. Being a college student, it's very hard to eat healthy and have money left over.

I agree; I love whole foods but it is up there in terms of cost; good food but the cool stuff like the exotic fruits and veggies are too expensive!

Oh this is SO VERY TRUE. It's much cheaper to live on fatty fast foods.

It shouldn't cost me what it does to buy healthy food for myself. But it does. Esp if I go as frequently as i would like for veggies and fruit as often as I would like.

THANK YOU for someone finally saying it! i find it ridiculous that anything fresh and/or organic (produce, meat, seafood...etc.) is wildly expensive. i cringe everytime my husband and i go to the grocery store. i'm lucky that my gym membership isn't so bad, but with the gas prices the way they are, it's costing me an arm and a leg to get there!!

This is so true!

Try shopping for produce at farmer's markets. I live in San Francisco, and even the super gourmet farmer's market is often cheaper than Safeway, the big local chain of grocery stores. Not only is the produce fresher and tastier, but you can also talk to the people who actually grow your food, and you can rest easy knowing that your organic lettuce didn't come to your local Whole Foods from 1000 miles away. (Cause honestly, it sort of defeats the purpose if you're buying organic food that comes from far away!) I also shop at ethnic markets on occasion, as they also tend to carry fresh local produce at rates far cheaper than WF or the supermarket.

Healthy processed foods, however, are more expensive, which is just further reason to avoid them as much as possible anyway.

I completely agree. There are times when I simply cannot afford the healthier alternatives. I try very hard to always make sure I buy healthier versions of things for my daughter b/c I want her to have the best chance and sometimes I think, "Well, I'm already a lost cause!"

It can seem like being healthy and fit is a mark of the privileged elite – almost a status symbol. Chips, cookies, and other cheap carbohydrate-based packaged products have become modern-day peasant food.
That doesn’t necessarily mean only the working-class poor must suffer the most obesity. A person can still eat cheap food and be relatively healthy– it’s just a matter of what type and how much cheap food is consumed. And, a person doesn’t need a posh fitness club or private pilates sessions to stay fit – just sneakers and a willingness to walk or move the body in some way. Any individual, regardless of income level, can choose to take responsibility for his or her own dietary intake and fitness. Having more money just makes it easier, but it makes many things easier, no?

I couldn't agree more. Injustice..

I agree. We need to campaign for organic subsidies or something! But you cannot put a cost on health -- I don't have health insurance, and it turns out I don't need it because I eat fresh organic foods (including lots of local grass fed red meat!) exclusively. When you look at it from the perspective of health being your number one priority, it doesn't seem so expensive after all.

That irritates me more about leading a healthy lifestyle more than anything. We all have one life to live, and does the quality and quantity of it have to come with a pricetag?

this enrages me!! this is another reason why it's hard for people to eat healthier: it's too expensive. for example, it's way easier to order the $1.00 cheeseburger from the fast food place than spend $4.00+ for the healthier salad. wtf? and once at my job, a customer asked me this once: if organic food has nothing added to it (pesticides, whatever), then why is is more expensive than regular food?

at my job, i'm known as the girl who knows everything about dieting. i was taken aback. but it makes sense, right? they add nothing but charge more. and how else is healthy taxing? gym clothes, equipment, like Fit said, memberships, buying a bike...why must it be so expensive to just be healthy? it's cheaper to live an unhealthy lifestyle! you pay less for food and don't spend much of anything when you sit on the couch!

yes it isn't fair at all and needs to be changed.

This is a good link as to why organic costs more.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/costsmore082405.cfm

First of all, I completely agree with icepop. Second, I'm not convinced everything has to be organic for it to be healthy. There can be a minimal difference between an organic fruit vs. a "non-organic". This isn't the case with all produce but some-I believe MSN had an article about this awhile ago. I think there's a huge middle ground being ignored between McDonald's hamburger and organic apple.

And as far as the cost, I often think people have forgotten about the industrial revolution and how it allowed us to produce all kind of goods in mass-including the production of bigger and better produce that we can eat out of season, like tomatoes in January.

i'm going to check out the link posted by cs, but i think that as organic "healthy" food grows in popularity, the prices will hopefully go down. Laws of supply and demand I guess. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to start my own garden next summer!

you are not alone! i am living mostly off of loans in law school and i hate how much stuff costs i tried the local farmers market for fruit but it closed for the summer (too hot in FL). it trickles down to my dog too...i want to feed her the healthy innova and california natural but i cant afford it anymore

Ok I just saw Sicko last night so I am on a whole, "the man is out to keep us unhealthy for profit" rampage, so I 100% agree that it is frustrating to pay more to be healthy. But aside from that I have always found this to be true. Even more frustrating is that it is not always coincidence. Granted, some healthy foods must be expensive because of the way they are made, planted, grown, whatever. But our country should make more of an effort to keep healthy foods affordable to the general public ie all economic groups not just those that can afford it. I hate to bring up other countries but in many other places in the world this is a concern (such as London). If we are not going to have adequate preventive health care we should have healthy, delicious foods to afford!!!

As a poor college student, this drives me CRAZY. I can eat the food provided and gain the Freshman 15 and then some, or buy my own cheese, salad dressing, bread, etc. and be broke. And a gym membership isn't cheap either! It's so frustrating.

I totally agree and I hate when diet books and websites tell you it's just an excuse when you say healthy food is too expensive. For instance, I attend school full-time and my fiance` works late and sometimes we don't have time to cook, so we'll grab something on our way home. It costs us about $10 to eat at Wendy's (where we eat large french fries and chicken sandwiches), but it costs us almost $20 to eat at Subway (where we eat healthy veggie or turkey subs).

I am right there with you! When you are on a budget it can be really hard to reason w/ yourself that it is okay to spend $2 a pound for tomatoes or $3 a pound for peppers. And berries - forget about it - a pint can be $4

I completely agree. this has been my greatest struggle in sticking to a diet or healthy eating lifestyle. i cant afford it. sigh. it is so frustrating.

I totally agree with this! Another difficulty is that in my effort to eat healthy, I find that I need to visit the grocery store ALL THE TIME to pick up fresh produce, and it's so difficult to find the time every other day!

Whole Foods is SO EXPENSIVE!
Trader Joe's can get expensive as well... They really should do something about it, like offer discounts or coupons at the gym. I bet more people would work out and eat better!!!

I think it's a shame that foods that have been totally adulterated are much cheaper than foods that are all natural and haven't had anything done to them. With the exception of farmers' markets, organics are ridiuclously expensive! I think government subsidies are in part to blame along with the supply/demand factor. But really, people can only take so much high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils before there's a problem!

"Being healthy should not be so taxing on our finances, it really shouldn't. Am I alone here?"

Not at all. I absolutely agree.