I do spend more now but it’s not necessarily the meat and fresh vegies that have blown the budget…it’s things like the almond meal, WPI and quality olive oils and vinegars etc. that I now buy. The cost of free range eggs and beautiful fresh bacon aren’t exactly cheap but boy do we love our breakfast these days.
One thing low-carbing has forced me to do is become a canny shopper. It’s amazing what you can save when you put a bit of thought into your shopping. When I think of all the money I wasted by not shopping wisely pre-LC it makes me cringe

There's no doubt that foods that are healthier are more costly in the short-term. Yes, absolutely, rice, pasta, potatoes and hot dogs are cheaper than eating fresh meats and veggies (or even frozen for that matter) so if you were used to a steady diet of boxed macaroni and cheese mix with maybe a can of corn, peas or mixed veggies on the side of course going low carb is going to increase your food budget!
On the other hand, if you were living a lot like we were, using a lot of pre-packaged convenience foods, you might find that your food costs go down once you bite the bullet and either learn to cook or start cooking your own meals once again instead of letting the factory do most of the work for you.
We're also buying a lot less expensive snack foods such as chips and expensive breakfast foods like cereals so breakfast and snacks are definitely more budget friendly around here now. Shopping wisely makes a huge difference as well. If the people who wrote this article were basing the cost on the sample menus in the books, I'm not surprised that they came up with the price tag that they did, but nearly all of those menus are impractical for the average person, both in time cost to prepare and the cost of the ingredients. We eat very well at our house, but not extravagantly. With a little advance planning, dinner rarely takes me more than 90 minutes to get on the table unless I'm making something special (and very little of that time is spent standing at the stove) and I cook enough so that there are leftovers for lunch; 2 meals for the price of one!
Lunch for me and my DH more often than not is leftovers that previously sat in the refrigerator in little plastic coffins until they began to growl at you every time you opened the refrigerator door. It wasn't too far from reality when my DH once purchased me a little magnet to put on the refrigerator that said, "If it crawls out of the refrigerator, let it go!".
One thing that the article doesn't address, though, is whether or not eating cheap highly processed foods is less expensive in the long run in terms of poorer health, loss of productivity/increased sick time from work and high medical costs to treat the diseases such eating habits cause.
When I look at it that way, eating like this is going to cost me much less in the long term even if my food costs may be a bit higher.

I read it this morning and thought "Oh, no, here comes the latest scare tactic - IT'S TOO EXPENSIVE! DON'T DO IT!" C'mon, comparing red snapper and radicchio to mac n' cheese? I know vegetarians who put more time and preparation into their meals, and probably spend as much as I do. At least the articles pointed out that you can substitute cheaper ingredients, but I felt they missed the point - overall, I got the impression that Atkins is more about eating gourmet foods than eliminating starchy ones.

And yes, I probably spend more now than on rock-bottom budget beans and rice, but honestly I never ate that way anyway, even when poor I couldn't resist the prepackaged stuff.

Egg-zactly! That is my worry. I hope we're not creating a new sub-class, the poor and sick. Years of bad eating habits and no exercise will play havoc with future health costs. That is why I am so keen to eat right, exercise, and do preventative health maintenance. Who knows how much it will cost us in the future to fix health problems we're creating now.

That's not a problem reserved for the future. We're seeing it now. The poor are far more likely to have health problems than those who can afford to eat healthier food. They are also far more likely to go without needed health care when they do become sick because of lack of access to it or the lack of ability to afford it, let alone receive preventative care.

We eat pretty simply, too. I stay at home, hubby is the bread--er meat--winner. He grosses around $35,000 a year, and we have three kids, two of whom are teens.

There are so many ways to keep food costs down--it just takes a little time and imagination. I try to keep dinner meat costs to less than $3.50 per meal. Sometimes this is easier than others, but it all averages out. We use ground turkey, ground beef and cheap cuts. Sometimes we buy a splurge piece of meat like corned beef. Of course, corned beef is so salty and full of nitrates a person shouldn't eat it much anyway, but we like to have it once or twice a year. The ground turkey is 99-cents a pound. You can't get much cheaper meat than that. WalMart has frozen fish in boxes that's affordable. I buy whiting and tilapia. I prefer the milder taste of the tilapia, but even the whiting is good and just a little over $2.00 a pound (which keeps it well within my dinner meat budget). We do eat quite a bit of pork because it's usually cheaper than beef, and if a person can eat pork it's actually a great source of potassium--moreso than other meats.

We also shop a lot in bulk, whether it be meats, nuts, spices, etc. One of our grocery stores has a huge bulk section which is awesome for things like granulated garlic. We also use quite a bit of chili powder and I've found the 50-cent a bottle chili powder from the close-out store is just as good as the $2.00 bottle from the regular supermarket and even a bit cheaper than the bulk chili powder, and is usually about twice as big as the $2.00 bottle. I also buy 'fancy' mustards and other gourmet-type foods at dollar stores. I can buy a little bottle at the regular grocery for $2-$4, or I can buy a big bottle at the dollar store.

We also do a lot of store brands if we can find good products. Great Value (WalMart's store brand) Caesar dressing is ever bit as good as name-brand at only $1.17/16-oz. bottle, and it has less than 1 carb per serving. Ragu makes a marvelous cheese sauce (no, not store brand, but another good savings) that's $1.28 a jar vs. the low-carb variety at twice the price. Okay, so Ragu's has one more carb in it. Big deal!

My kids always have been and still are big meat eaters. I've been cracking down on them, especially the oldest one, because she'll eat anywhere from 4-6 ounces of cooked meat for dinner. Even eating LC they don't need that much meat for dinner, LOL.

Our most expensive food items are raw nuts, a couple loaves of LC bread and Carb Countdown. Sure, we'd love to be able to eat great steaks and shrimp all the time, but that's not in our budget.

What most people don't realize is that a meat and vegetable dinner is just as filling, for about the same cost, as a meat, potato and vegetable dinner. One just needs to shop wisely for their meat and veggies.

Kyrasdad, you said "There isn't any real way to replace the spaghetti and Ragu sauce meals we used to have."

Perhaps OT, but I have made a lasagne that is to die for. (Not for induction, but fine later on) Make pancakes, using ground almonds, ground porkrinds and eggs to make a batter; then make a lc bolognaise sauce with unsweetend tomato sauce and ground beef, herbs, onions, mushrooms etc.; layer all this with grated parmesan, mozzarella and ricotta cheese and bake as for lasagne. I served this up to some non low carbers and they had no idea..ate it all.

If you can't be bothered with the pancakes, a healthy substitute is to grill slices of eggplant and layer that instead with the sauce and cheeses.

And this is not an expensive dish either.

Val

All the savvy shopping in the world won't stretch a poverty-level income far enough to provide fresh veggies and all the luxuries to a lot of families.

A Jar of Ragu (or the store brand, especially) and a two-lb box of spaghetti can feed several people for under $5. Last time I looked, a puny, underdeveloped eggplant itself was nearly $4 ALONE where I shop, again IF they ever have it.

Eggplant is just one idea, PotatoFree- cauli or zukes, cabbage or other veg could be substituted. Eggplants are not expensive here in Australia, depending on season of course.

Another consideration is that eating low carb, one eats less anyway as you feel fuller faster, so the low carb 'lasagne' will probably go futher.

Val

Or...even cheaper...blanche cabbage leaves and use those in place of your lasagne noodles.

I love your ideas for low-carb lasagne. I've tried eggplant, you have to make sure it's cooked all the way, and it's great! But, Lisa, your idea to use cabbage leaves sounds great too. I love cabbage. I'm going to have to try it with Val's bolognaise, etc. Thanks for the ideas!

I was only illustrating why, although veggies are healthier, a lot of people choose the cheap carb choices, as they said in the original article. When you're poor and have a lot of mouths to feed, you want something to make the hunger stop. It would be nice if it was nutritious, but for many a full belly is a luxury.

I think it generally is more expensive to buy the less fattening or low carb foods. Highly processed foods are always cheaper since they are cheaper to make, and the ready-to-make or instant stuff is appealing due to busy lifestyles and little want to make something elaborate or spend money on something healthy when you can spend less and still be full. I think something needs to be done that gets the government involved to create a new set of rules for making food. If they didn't make any processed or junk foods at all then we wouldn't have such a problem now would we? The media also needs to lighten up on total *perfect image* thing.

First you'd have to convince people not to buy the junk, or the companies will never stop making it. It sells.

Our government has messed up a lot of other things, and the USDA Food Pyramid is the shining star there... Programs such as WIC do try to teach basic nutrition (based on the governments guidelines, of course) but the other food programs are falling much farther below the mark, IMHO.

I can feed my family of 5 a low-carb meal of:
1 can Spaghetti Sauce, the kind with no sugar ($.78)
2 lbs. turkey burger (this is the 30% fat kind) ($2.00)
1.5 lbs. of broccoli (1.00)
Grand total: $3.50
(And this meal generally has some left-overs.)

To feed my family the equivalent of high carb costs as follows:
1 can Spaghetti sauce (same kind) ($.78)
1 lb. spaghetti noodles ($1.00)
1 lb. turkey burger ($1.00)
1 lb. of broccoli ($.72)
Grand total: $3.50
Most people also throw in a loaf of French bread with that (yes, even very poor people) for another $1.00.

I do realize, there are those who can barely get a tummy full, but there are also a lot of people out there who use the excuse of a limited budget not to eat healthily.