Posts from the ‘Eating’ Category

How to Beat the High Cost of Eating Natural

Written by Green Mama

There are many ways in which living a little greener can save you money: conserve energy in your home and you will save on your utilities bills, buy secondhand clothes and you will cut your wardrobe budget, reuse and re-purpose objects and you will simply have less to buy.

But, in general, eating organic or all-natural food is going to cost more. So, just how much more money are we talking about? And what to do about it?

Green Mama: Comparison Shopper

While my supermarket cart looks a lot greener than it did a few years ago, not everything I buy is organic or all-natural. But this week, I wondered what my grocery bill would look like if everything on it were organic or all-natural. So I did my best to make it so, and then I calculated what it would have cost to buy the “traditional” versions instead.

So, what did I learn? First, I learned that comparison shopping is a big headache — no joke. Organic and non-organic versions of the same foods are often in totally different sections of the market, or they are very different sizes, or priced differently (e.g. by weight vs. by unit). This project required a lot of note-taking and fighting my son for the calculator (“buttons! buttons!”), as well as a follow-up price study on the market’s online delivery website.

Also, I couldn’t find comparables for a bunch of items (e.g. no organic garlic, avocados, or pears; no non-organic tofu or scallions) and so, for the sake of this exercise, I left them off the list. The resulting grocery bill doesn’t look exactly like a week’s shop for my household, but it’s pretty close, and includes produce, dairy, fresh meat, grains, canned and jarred non-perishables, and snacks (no paper or cleaning products). Read more