Eating Real Food for Less

Don't you love how in the same day, you can read ideas from two people who live in the same country, who could conceivably live on the same street, who view the world so differently that they might never be able to reconcile their ideas?  Consider, for example, two blog posts I've read recently:

*Feed your family for $0.70 a day!  One woman reveals how her family, out of work, relies on their stored food for every meal.  Their typical choices are oatmeal for breakfast, spaghetti for dinner, and canned pears for snacks.  She gives advice on how to spend the bare minimum on food.  If we all follow her example, we can save thousands!                                         

*Feed your family only the best.  To achieve optimal health, many people eliminate all grains, legumes, dairy, and other foods that were not available in the wild to early man.  Meals are based on pastured meats and fresh, organic produce.  If we all follow their example, we can live forever and never be sick again!

Obviously, the two viewpoints are mutually exclusive: you can't follow them both at the same time.  But saving thousands seems like a good idea, and so does living a vibrantly healthy, long life.  Some people may be forced into one of the two extremes by circumstances they can't control: they may have minimal income and need to feed their family enough to survive, or they may have dire health issues that require a specialized diet just to keep them alive.

But the rest of us are somewhere in the middle.  We would like to live as well as possible, using the resources we have available to us.  I am not going to try to reinvent the wheel here with my some life-changing formula to make real food magically appear for free on your kitchen counter.  I will offer a few ground rules, and a few resources that have been incredibly helpful to me.

First, the ground rules:

• Cheap fake food is not really cheap.  Its costs may be well hidden, but they're secretly lurking.  They may come in the form of reduced energy and a general feeling of malaise, which not only make life less enjoyable, but also make you less productive and unable to work or earn to your fullest potential.  Or the costs may not be evident yet, but will show up down the road, such as an ever-increasing waistline or chronic disease that could result in huge medical costs in the future.
• That being said, cheap real food can be a godsend.  As much as I would like to be able to feed my family only the very best, all the time, we can't afford the very best meat and produce for every meal.  The GAPs and Paleo folks may cringe at the sound of it, but rice, potatoes, and (generally properly-prepared) grains keep my family full and financially solvent.
• We all eat less between meals when we're well-nourished at meals.  This doesn't mean "no snacking," but it does mean snacks have to be planned and full of nutrition.  An avocado sliced up for the kids keeps them satisfied a lot longer than a heap of pretzels... but it takes a lot more planning to have a perfectly ripe, in-season avocado ready at snack time than to have a year-old-and-still-edible bag of pretzels in the pantry.
• In the real-food world, to eat for less, you have to work more or plan more.  That's just the way it is, and you have to reconcile yourself to spending a little time planning and in the kitchen if you're serious about saving money and eating real food.

Now, I'd be crazy to claim I've got this whole eating-right-for-less thing figured out.  So don't just take my word for it.  Here are some resources that have been incredibly helpful for me in balancing both the blood sugar and the check book:

• Modern Alternative Mama's Real Food on a Budget series offers a comprehensive look at spending less while eating more.
• At Dyno-mom's Budget Bubble Busting and Penny Pinching,  a mom of 10 offers her practical, less expensive compromises for some of the more expensive real-food practices.
• Penniless Parenting features tips and tricks (not just food ideas) for living on less.  Real food is staunchly advocated (with the possible exception of seitan, or wheat gluten, which appears in some of her meatless recipes, but doesn't seem like a good choice for everyone).  

Where do you stand in the real food vs. cheap food balance?  What compromises are you willing (and unwilling!) to make?  Do you have any money-saving, real food ideas, posts, or links to share?


Posted at Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist and Unwasted Homemaking at Don't Waste your Homemaking and Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff and Money Saving Monday @ Family Friendly Frugality and Show Me What Ya Got at Not JUST A Housewife and WFMW at We Are That Family and Health 2Day Wednesday at day2dayjoys and Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop