What we eat: Is Eating Clean More Expensive Than the S.A.D.?

It often comes up among our friends and acquaintances who are trying to lose weight that it is too expensive to eat "clean".  While, for us, the investment is a worthy one that we would gladly make even if it meant sacrificing somewhere else, we realize that there are some folks that simply have no wiggle room.  

We decided to (literally) put our money where our mouths are and track, as closely as possible, how much we invest in our food and how far it goes.

As it happens, we are home for exactly one week between two trips and we had pretty much cleared out our refrigerator prior to the first.  So we had to buy pretty much everything we needed to eat for the week all at once.  We spent $155 on the items above.  Will it be enough to cover our meal plan?

Prep Cooking:

Preparation is key!  We bulk cook in advance to ensure food is ready quickly and to prevent impulse eating choices.   Our standard prep (this week and every week) is:

• Steel cut oats (apples and cinnamon)
• Egg salad (6 eggs)
• Fresh salsa (a major cooking ingredient)
• Seasoned chicken breast, sliced to tenders size
• Roasted garbanzo beans
• Whole wheat bread (in our bread machine)

This spread represents a two-hour investment of time, usually on Sunday, and pays us back in the form of time and nutrition throughout the week.  You'll see exactly where we use these items in our meal log.

Our Meals:

You'll notice that we list protein shakes with whey protein in the meal log.  That is not calculated into our food cost experiment because it is a supplement to support our weightlifting training.  Not to worry, there are still three solid meals, plus snacks every day to make this a fair trial.  Also - our beverages are typically coffee, unsweet tea, and water throughout the day.  They're not listed (but in the food cost).

Saturday

Dinner was the first meal post-shopping, so that's where we begin.

• 1 1/2 Hormel Naturals boneless pork chops (pan grilled in a little olive oil)
• 1/4 large sweet potato, diced, tossed in olive oil and seasoned, oven baked

Sunday

• Pre-workout: whey protein shake with a scoop of plain yoghurt and 6 raspberries
• Post-workout: 1 1/2 cups of steel cut oats with apples and cinnamon (from prep day)
• Lunch: Greek wrap (using chicken from prep day), 1/2 cup of cottage cheese
• Snack: (me) Protein shake with peanut butter and yoghurt. (Michelle) She likes to "graze", having small portions of a variety of things: garbanzo beans, some chips and salsa, fresh veggies, a little scoop of peanut butter (or two)... You get the idea.
• Dinner: Quinoa pasta with spicy Italian sausage and pesto

Monday

• Pre-workout: whey protein shake with a scoop of plain yoghurt and 6 raspberries
• Post-workout: 1 1/2 cups of steel cut oats with apples and cinnamon (from prep day)
• Lunch: Egg salad sandwich (egg salad and bread from prep day) with fresh spinach, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese.
• Snack: (me) the usual protein shake. (Michelle) "Grazing"
• Dinner: Chef style salad with chicken (from prep day) and boiled egg.  Rest of the salad went into a green bag for later meals
• Late snack: Plate of Triscuits and an assortment of cheeses.

Tuesday

• Pre-workout: whey protein shake with a scoop of plain yoghurt and 6 raspberries
• Post-workout: 1 1/2 cups of steel cut oats with apples and cinnamon (from prep day)
• Lunch: 1/4 pound of barbecue pulled pork (from the local butcher shop) on zucchini slices, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese.
• Snack: (me) the usual protein shake. (Michelle) "Grazing"
• Dinner: Pot roast (made in the crock pot, leftover servings are saved for later meals), veggie stir fry 

Wednesday

• Pre-workout: whey protein shake with a scoop of plain yoghurt and 6 raspberries
• Post-workout: (me) Slice of toast (bread from prep day) with peanut butter. (Michelle) 3/4 cup of Greek yoghurt with blueberries and a sprinkle of granola
• Lunch: Mexican-style chicken (from prep day) wrap, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese.
• Snack: (me) the usual protein shake. (Michelle) "Grazing"
• Dinner: Fiesta-style roast beef over 1/2 cup of quinoa.

Captain's log: supplemental:  Had to make a run to the store this afternoon.  We were (gasp!) OUT... OF... PEANUT BUTTER!!  This shall not stand!  Plus a couple other items.  Added $22 to the total for the week.

Thursday

• Pre-workout: whey protein shake with a scoop of plain yoghurt and 6 raspberries
• Post-workout: 1 1/2 cups of steel cut oats with apples and cinnamon (from prep day)
• Lunch: Egg salad sandwich (egg salad and bread from prep day) with fresh spinach, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese.
• Snack: (me) the usual protein shake. (Michelle) Garbanzo beans and bell pepper slices
• Dinner: 1/2 a ribeye steak, pan grilled with a side salad (from Monday's bag).

Friday

• Pre-workout: whey protein shake with a scoop of plain yoghurt and 1/4 cup blueberries
• Post-workout: 1 1/2 cups of steel cut oats with apples and cinnamon (from prep day)
• Lunch: (me) leftover quinoa pasta with sausage, (Michelle) Egg salad sandwich (egg salad and bread from prep day) with fresh spinach, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese.
• Snack: (me) the usual protein shake. (Michelle) Garbanzo beans and bell pepper slices
• Dinner: 1/4 lb hamburger (with a hot Italian sausage mixed into the meat) with cheddar on fresh spinach (no bread here) and a 1-cup side of Ore Ida french fries, oven baked.

Saturday (rest day - projected menu, but you can count on it)

• Breakfast: 2 1/2 eggs scrambled with grilled onions, peppers, and shredded cheddar, 3 strips of bacon
• Lunch: Chef-style salad (from the bag) with chicken (from prep day) and a boiled egg
• Dinner: "Mixed grill" (using leftover pot roast and chicken from prep day), seasoned Asian-style with grilled mixed vegetables.

Transparency Note:  We used a couple of items that were already in our cupboard this week:  Mission wraps and a box of Ancient Harvest quinoa pasta.  Since most of us have some rollover from week to week, I don't think of this as a budget issue, but wanted to be totally open.

About the Meal Plan:

We refer to our eating approach as "clean eating", but I'm sure you've noticed that it doesn't completely eschew some common mass-marketed products.  We like Jif peanut butter - it isn't strictly "clean", but it's the one we like the best.  Mission brand wraps just happen to work the best of any we've tried in terms of flavor and usability.  The point is, you don't have to be militant about your choices.  You can "work in" some things that you'd just prefer not to live without.

We aren't currently in a weight-loss mode.  At the moment, our diet is about maintaining current body fat and gradually increasing muscle.  Though we ate many of the same things here when we were dropping fat, we certainly ate less of it.  And snacks were primarily vegetables.  I just didn't want any weight-loss readers following the exact plan and blasting us for not dropping the pounds.

The Results:

For 44 meals (two people, three times a day, plus snacks), we spent a total of $177.  That works out to $4.02 a plate.  We did our shopping at Target, not the cheapest way to go, nor the most expensive.  We didn't use coupons or sales, and we also didn't buy organic or grass-fed products, which are, of course, more expensive.  In short, this is a very "middle of the road" budget number for anybody to work with.  Especially considering we're pretty much "free feeding" at the moment as we seek additional muscle gain.

Outside of our prep day, we didn't spend more than 20-25 minutes preparing any meal.  And we used our pre-prepared or leftover ingredients in 16 of the 44 meals (over 1/3).  

For comparison, a standard combo meal at McDonald's is anywhere from $6 to $9.  A meal at Chipotle, probably a better comparison for general quality, is over $10.  We almost never eat out, unless it is a special occasion.

So - is it more expensive to eat clean than to rely on processed, packaged convenience foods?  Possibly.  Is it out of reach for the average family?  Not if you plan ahead, cook ahead, and make the most of your ingredients. And this meal plan is more rounded, more nutritionally dense, and extremely satisfying, compared to processed or "diet" foods.  Hopefully we showed you some practical ways to make it possible.

Were you surprised?  How does this compare with your own weekly food cost?  We'd love to hear the results of your own experiments.  And come back in a week or two and we will have many of the items on the food log linked to our personal recipes as part of a new tab on the site.