Healthy Food on a Budget? It's Not a Myth

“I can’t afford to eat healthy.”

Have you ever heard someone say this? Maybe you’ve even felt the same way at times. Or perhaps this is what you believe right now.

My advice: Keep reading; you’re in for a surprise.

Michele Hiatt, a registered dietitian at , recently tackled this myth as part of a free community presentation entitled “Healthy Shopping on a Budget.”

Hiatt, who handles outpatient medical nutrition therapy for the Westlake hospital and also works with patients in cardiac rehab and with those managing diabetes, started her talk at with a powerful message.

“The least-processed foods are the least expensive and many of them are the healthiest,” she said. She also explained how to find the best deals, money-saving tips and meal planning ideas.

As a mother of four, Hiatt understands the importance of a food budget that brings healthy ingredients, snacks and meals into her Avon home.

She didn’t rely on anecdotal information. She used dollars and cents to illustrate how one can make healthy food choices on a budget.

Take her fruit, vegetable and protein comparisons: with each category, she compared prices per ounce, prepared and ready to eat. Here’s how it shook out.

Fruits per ounce: bananas, in-season melons and oranges 3 cents; apples, 5 cents; canned with sugar, 16 cents; frozen with sugar, 33 cents; and pie with fruit, 22 cents.

Vegetables per ounce: cabbage and potatoes 3 cents; corn and carrots 8 cents; green beans, 11 cents; frozen potatoes, 17 cents; instant mashed potatoes, 21 cents; and potato chips, 33 cents.

Proteins per ounce: beans and eggs 6 cents; whole turkey/chicken, 8 cents; peanut butter, 9 cents; ground turkey/lean beef, 12 cents; egg whites, 17 cents; canned tuna, 20 cents; roast beef, 28 cents; deli ham, 61 cents; and steak, 68 cents.

And I loved Hiatt's look at processed foods that really cost you big in the checkout. Consider these figures: soda at $4.99 for a 12-pack; cookies at $3.50 for a 15-ounce pack; crackers at $3.99 for 7 ounces; cereal at $3.59 for a 14-ounce box; frozen meals at $3.29 per 10-ounce box; boxed meals at $1.67 for a 6-ounce portion; meat at $4.99 a pound; cheese at $8.49 a pound; and sweetened drinks at $3.29 per liter. All together, these treats add up to $38, lots of empty calories and not much nutrition.

Some of her suggestions for healthy eating include lentils and rice, pasta and stir fry using meat/poultry as a condiment. Keep chicken and fish to three ounce portions, she siad. Rice dishes, tacos, burritos and baked potatoes were some of Hiatt's best bets for quick, healthy dinners.

A healthful budget shopping list – critical for saving time and money – targets fruits and veggies in season, dried beans/legumes, frozen produce on sale, potatoes, lean protein on sale, skim milk and yogurt, and store brand rice, pasta, oatmeal, barley and grits.

Her “Top 5 Food Savers” include: eat out less often, buy fewer processed foods, stock up on sale items, clip coupons and shop at discount stores.

“The more we eat whole foods, the better,” Hiatt said. “Having the right ingredients on hand means less eating out.”

Hiatt's other tips:

Buy in bulk and bag yourself. “Those 100-calorie packs are nice for portion control,” Hiatt said. “But they are over double what it costs to buy in the regular size package.”

A bag of tortilla chips cost 22 cents per ounce and pre-bagged chips cost 46 cents an ounce. Boxed rice is 26 cents an ounce and bulk rice is 4 cents an ounce.

“It sometimes may mean more time in meal prep but you are saving a lot,” she said.

Another money saving tip: grow it yourself. It doesn’t get much cheaper than to plant your own herbs and veggies. Plus, it’s easy to freeze extras that you can’t eat right away and then you have garden-fresh produce throughout the year.