Cheap organic foods? In the face of global economic struggle, the issue of personal finance is at the heart of the average consumer.But do you really have to shed an exorbitant amount of your money to purchase organic foods over conventional?
The answer is no, and there is a surprisingly large amount of high quality organic foods that are quite cheap — even when considering low income families. Even families on foodstamps have been able to live entirely on an organic diet on the foodstamp income alone.
There’s even a documentary about it called Foodstamped, which is hosted free online. The couple in the film eats a 100% organic diet on as little as $40 a week. There are keys to keeping costs down such as buying from farmers markets when possible and always buying whole food options as opposed to pre-made or processed meals, but I am going to give you a list of 10 key items that are really quite cheap. In fact, they purchased many of them in the film to keep their costs down. When you get the opportunity, you can even store up on some of these items in bulk and cut costs even further — not to mention that many of these foods are capable of acting as long-term storeable foods.
1. Brown Rice
Brown rice has a lengthy shelf life when stored properly in a sealed container, and can make for a full meal simply by eating it alone or adding in some of the vegetables in this list. Organic brown rice when purchased in bulk, or at least not from pre-packaged bags, can be extremely cheap while able to be incorporated into many meals.
2. Assorted Seeds
Highly nutritious and beneficial food items like organic flax or organic sunflower seeds are available for a very low price — especially when you bag them yourself. Flax has a great deal of healthy fats and other nutrients, and can compliment a diet lacking in real nutrition while being easy on the pocketbook.
3. Eggs
Certified organic eggs are extremely cheap when you consider how many meals a regular carton of 12 eggs can provide. This is amplified even further when it is locally harvested. At Whole Foods you can find local eggs on sale for around $2 a dozen or even less. If that’s too much, then go straight to the source and buy in bulk. When considering that around 2-3 eggs can make a meal, an entire carton can provide a lot of quality nutrition for a very low price. It also doesn’t hurt that eggs are known as powerful superfoods.
4. Carrots
Chop them up and include them with the brown rice, or juice them for a great morning drink. Carrots can be purchased in bulk size for less than $4 and will last quite a long time.
5. Apples
Great for flavoring up juices or combining with peanut butter (see next down the list), apples are a tasty fruit that literally do keep the doctor away. Plus, they also happen to be really inexpensive.
6. Peanut Butter
High quality organic peanut butter can help keep your taste buds happy while shopping organic on a budget. It can also be combined with other food items like seeds or apples to alter the snack altogether, and is often a favorite among children.
7. Nuts
Nutritionally dense and great to snack on as a meal or inbetween one, nuts like almonds and cashews can be found for close to nothing when packaged yourself or purchased in bulk quantities. Another food item that stores for a very long time.
8. Olive Oil
Long hailed as a key remedy to multiple conditions and used in cleansing activities like oil pulling, you can find organic, extra virgin cold pressed olive oil for less than $5. You may be surprised how much you can get, too. Don’t look for fancy brands, but try your best to ensure that it contains the wording ‘cold pressed’, ‘extra virgin’, and of course USDA certified organic.
9. Grass-Fed Meats
The best bet with grass-fed meats, if you choose to eat meat, is to purchase from a farm directly. You can find meats like bison and buffalo for a low price when dealing with the source. These meats are particularly of high quality as buffalo and bison are not administered the same degree of medical intervention as cows and chickens. In fact, federal law protects buffalo meat from a great deal of antibiotic use and even hormonal injection.
10. Onions
Onions are known to pack a nutritional punch that rivals many superfoods within the fruit and vegetable family. They are also excellent flavor boosters and can be added to your brown rice vegetable mix, topped off with some olive oil, and make for an absolutely delicious meal that is both free of harmful ingredients and nourishing to the body.
It doesn’t have to drain your bank account to avoid toxic additives like high-fructose corn syrup, MSG, aspartame, genetically modified ingredients, and so on. Instead, checkout these top 10 cheap organic food items, shop in season, and find local farms and farmers markets to go straight to the source. Also, please share this article with anyone who thinks that organic simply cannot work for them as it is too expensive. For less than 20 dollars you can purchase a considerable amount of organic food items that are both delicious and contaminant-free.
Source: Natural Society
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cheap meat or nuts?! living in a dream are you?
ReplyDeleteno kidding!
DeleteAll foods are health foods, try living without food and find how healthy you are. It is just the relative amounts of each that counts.
Deletecheaper than potato chips & pop when you compare nutritional value!!
ReplyDeleteWhen compared by nutritional value, everything is cheaper than something that has no nutritional value.
DeleteNothing organic here is cheap unfortunately (Toronto, Canada).
ReplyDeleteOrganic eggs are at least $6.50 for a dozen. Milk is $10 for 4L or Around $6 for 2L.
I wish I could get organic eggs for $2
Indeed, the more nutritional value, the more it costs apparently.
ReplyDeleteAgree! Buying all organic for 5 people in the family in the city for 40$ ? You mean 400$ !!! That's how much I spent a week
ReplyDeletebuy direct from farms and other local fruit and vegetable stands!
ReplyDeleteOrganic etc is just a sales trick, no supervision and it could be as unhealthy as big corp gen mod stuff.
Another aspect is:
Too eat what your blood type allows: according to the amount of HCL production in your stomach.
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieta_sangu%C3%ADnea
Use translator for any language, using the wiki links will not give the same info!
Nice thought, but a bit short-sighted, not everybody lives near farms and have to depend on supermarktes and in cities small shop owners buy their stuff in the big supermarkets and charge more. Not all countries allow farmers to process their own meat.
ReplyDeleteunfortunately in most cases eating healthy is still the most expensive, but it is still worth it.
So if you can afford it, do it.
I try my best to get good food, but I really love meat, all meat from bear to iguana.
ReplyDeleteThis article's author is living in a dream world. You want organic from local farmer's stands, you are still going to pay an arm and a leg. Sprouts is probably the best store for organic, because you can get things cheaper from them than from local farmers. However, they are not cheap by any means. Organic eggs, when they are on sale, are 4. a dozen. Otherwise, they are more. I shop local farmer's stands and balked at many of their prices. One had organic carrots, 1.5 lb bag, for four bucks. Sprouts sells them for a 2 lb bag for 1.89. Grass fed meats are ridiculously expensive, even when bought from local farmers. I've never seen buffalo meat sold for less than 10. a pound, and grass fed hamburger, on sale, is 6.99 a lb (regularly 7.99.) The author should state exactly where she or he gets these prices, because they are probably prices that her farming uncle gives her on a family discount.
ReplyDeleteI live in Western PA and our prices are very similar to hers above. I pay $5.50 for grass fed hamburger and even less for fresh produce from my local farm.
DeleteI'd also like to mention that you can purchase a garden's worth of food (for a family of 4) for about $30 on Seed Savers Exchange website. NonGMO organic, heirloom seeds. A summer's worth of produce for $30. Calling this author an idiot is a bit overboard. I buy organic 100% of the time, but I was still interested to learn what other's were stocking up on. Personally, I see a lot of brown rice in my future.
DeleteIn addition, there is no such thing as "cheap" organic flax seed. I only buy it on sale, but I still pay a ton per nutritional value.
ReplyDeleteJust because Whole Foods sells eggs for 2. per pound does not mean the eggs are organic or even one iota better than regular eggs. Whole Foods sells many things that are pure garbage. They have promised to "label" GMOs within a year or two, but that doesn't mean they still won't sell the trash. Whole Foods TRULY organic eggs cost much, much more than 2. per pound. Read the labels.
Now, I will say that I was able to purchase organic cauliflower for 1. a pound from a local farm stand recently, and that was a good buy. A small bag of spinach was 2.50, and a bunch of radishes was 1. These were better than Sprouts. Anyone who says that a family of four can eat totally organic and still live on food stamps is either lying or not counting all the visits to friends to eat out, not counting the friends who donate food, or the fact that the family has their own garden. Otherwise, it is literally impossible.
If I'm wrong, print their menu, the costs of every item and where it was purchased. Can't do it, can you? I'm a 62 year old who has spent my entire life cutting costs and finding every solitary place where I can get deals. I live on half of what others do with the same lifestyle. If I can't do it, no one can, unless they live in a rural area where tons of gardeners bring an abundance of produce to the swap meet each week. That's the only way, and that doesn't happen here. As I said before, this author is in a dream world. Wish I lived there.
One last thing before I quit this. The author LIED about the documentary. The author stated: Even families on foodstamps have been able to live entirely on an organic diet on the foodstamp income alone. There’s even a documentary about it called Foodstamped, which is hosted free online. The couple in the film eats a 100% organic diet on as little as $40 a week.
ReplyDeleteBALONEY. The couple is NOT living on a 100 percent organic diet. They are dumpster diving and doing other things in the documentary. So why did this article get past the editors, if there were any editors on this?
Okay, one last, last thing. The couple in the Foodstamped documentary were a professional film maker and a certified nutritionist. They lived on the food stamp budget for ONE WEEK and admitted that it was extremely difficult and that they were often hungry. Try living on this diet more than a week, or watching your children go hungry and see how you like it. And again, they did not eat ORGANIC, merely "healthy." Most don't even know how important organic foods are. Now, I'm done. I've wasted too much time already on this idiot author. Sorry folks; I wish you all success in finding better articles in your quest for good, organic foods.
ReplyDeleteOkay aside from the fact that prices are not the same all over there is still no reason that you can not try and include these foods in your diet. I agree that some of these items are expensive in my area but will still try and include more of them in my diet and hopefully in the long run eating better foods will help me to cut down on the bad items in my diet.
ReplyDeleteYou all are a bunch of whiners, so go ahead and eat the crap that is filled with chemicals and antibiotics, im eating the good stuff with my family of 5. It takes time and effort to save and the article often eluded to buying in bulk associated in getting together with others and splitting it up. But go ahead and continue to be a reflection of our society, whiners.
ReplyDeleteSaying something is impossible makes one sound completely ignorant to reality. If you aren't intelligent . To figure out how to eat healthy on a budget. Then good luck fighting cancer on a budget as well. Food is cheaper than interfuron and surgery. America the Great, where we let people die because the doctor needs a second mercedes for his yuppie wife.. get real, grow some damn plants and quit bitching. The more people that buy organic the cheaper it will get, macroeconomics 101 people.
ReplyDeleteGrow as much organic food you can yourself, takes time but is worth it and you don't have to worry about the safety of it
ReplyDeleteYour "Share" banner down the side makes it hard to read the article... why not move it to the other side, and block a bit of the ADVERTISEMENTS...
ReplyDeleteI agree with the basics but I prefer quinoa and couscous to brown rice. I always have eggs, onions, olive oil, many veggies, sprouts and fruits, raw nuts and grains, as much greens as possible and dark chocolate and almond/coconut milk. I also try not to cook too much of the food I eat. I think raw is preferable. It's not that cheap but if you compare with already packaged/processed foods and meats, it's not that bad. I am on a budget and can still find a way. Make sure you know about the dirty dozen if you don't buy organic! I also make soup when vegetables start losing their freshness - just throw it in blender and use organic broth cubes. Favorite herbs and spices: cinnamon, turmeric, basil, cilantro, fennel and oregano. I also like to throw feta cheese on all my salads!
ReplyDeletetomato is in fruits box not in vegetables box because it is a kind of fruits
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness I am so envious...$2 or less for a dozen organic eggs??? Here in NZ we are looking at having to pay between $9 and $11 per dozen!!! Even if you take exchange rates into account we are still paying way, way, way more than you are. Even our normal eggs can set you back over and above $5.00 a dozen.
ReplyDeleteOrganic Foods are beneficial for human body and this is very nice and helpful organic foods list because after that everyone can go with them.
ReplyDeleteI saw Foodstamped, too. While it was a great documentary it didn't so much show that you can eat organically on $40 a week as it showed that was not a sustainable practice for most families. While I fully support an organic diet it is not a reality for everyone. Food prep is a huge issue when you're buying produce. It's a shame that you end up working more hours when you don't make enough money to support your family and therefore have less hours to prepare food with and for your family. Lunch Room Politics is a good book about early government food programs.
ReplyDeleteI do my best to stay away from some of the terrible things you encounter when you don't eat organic. I really CAN only spend $40 a week on food and I am just as worried about environmental concerns (I live in Michigan, PBB's anyone?) like cans lined with BPA and landfills, water quality etc. You really have to pick your battles and it can be overwhelming to someone who grew up eating cold hot dogs and drinking out of overheated plastic bottles. There are so many issues that need to be understood. I just hope that we don't forget that scolding and belittling people that do things differently won't open their eyes. We criticize people who don't sacrifice a new cell phone or brand name cereal for organic food, and clothes made in America. We must also examine ourselves under that same light. How patient are you willing to be to help others understand how the environment and culture of everyday America is harmful? We need to listen to those who we want to help before we condemn them.
When my girls were young I had WIC. The government funded program Women, Infants and Children. Organic products were NOT aloud to be purchased. Not eggs, milk or any other product. I appreciated it because times were hard, but I would have much rater provided them with an all organic diet.
ReplyDeleteYou can help your body's immune system stave off the bad effects of some non organic foods if you can't go total organic.I am not going to detail all the test results supporting my procedure as I would have to write a book.
ReplyDeleteone if possible grow your own from heirloom seeds.
two do not buy non organic thin skinned fruit apples pears peaches etc buy those with thick outer skin grapefruit oranges melons etc.the difference in quantity for organic apples versus non organic where I live is 5 for organic versus 7 for non organic for 4.00
three do not buy farmed fish wild caught is best.
four do not buy anything labeled product of china japan is better taiwan the best of all.
five herbs and spices can remove toxins from the body if used on a daily basis turmeric ginger cinnamon cayenne pepper garlic cilantro winter and summer savory oregano .I take a 1/2 tspn of each ground turmeric ginger cayenne pepper cinnamon in a bottle of water shake it up well and down it in one go daily.
six look into supplements krill oil with ataxathin content cqionol liquid vitamin D3 in winter B complex and VIT C. I am 73 years old 5 years ago I was diagnosed with COPD and pre diabetic.By following the above plan my COPD STATUS CONSIDERED UNCURABLE has been down graded to mild bronchitis and I am no longer pre diabetic.
Last advice eat green veggies kale and broccoli top of the list lots of them trim all fat from meat and don't buy prepackaged meals of any kind replace sugar in your tea or coffee with stevia and excercise .
Organic foods are valuable for human body and this is very awesome and beneficial natural foods. Eat preferably organic foods for health and wellness. They are rich sources of nutrition.
ReplyDelete\
Fitness Tacoma
As tempting as all that junk food out there may sound, it really can be cheaper to eat food prepared at home.
ReplyDelete