A Grocery Budget vs Eating Healthy

I came across a great article today talking about food inequality.  You can read it here.  The article talks about the stigma of fast food vs healthy food for low income families.  It talks about how income (or lack thereof) highly influences decisions to purchase one item over another.  When there's a whole family to feed, the unhealthy carbs are more cost-effective and keep everyone full.

I didn't grow up poor, but I understand what it's like to make food choices.  My family would fall into the lower-middle class.  We were a family of 4: my parents, myself, and my younger sister.  Both of my parents worked full-time.  My sister and I were somewhat picky eaters, but we'd always have food on the table and snacks for after school.  Growing up, my mom would bring us with her for grocery shopping so that we could learn how to pick things like veggies and meat.  I had always paid close attention, trying to absorb the information in--and it worked.  I am now on my own and making my own food choices.

Just two girls growing up in Jersey.

Thinking back, I didn't know what the grocery budget was.  At one point though, my mom had been trying to make some extra money to have more for groceries because both me and my sister were growing kids and needed more and more food to sustain us.  We got groceries from Shoprite, Costco, and the local Chinese market.  Sometimes, my mom would weight the fruits or vegetables as she gathered them into the plastic bags.  She'd ask us what we wanted to have for dinner and we'd go and look for ingredients.  It was great when we developed a love for something like bok choy and it was cheap yet healthy. She would firmly tell us when, no, we couldn't have salmon because it wasn't on sale.  We'd get frozen dumplings or chicken cutlets.  Fresh vegetables includes bok choy, bean sprouts, and broccoli.  Our family lived off of rice and we'd only buy boxes of pasta if it was $1 or less.  With that came jars of pasta sauce (also $1 or less) and some ground pork (from the Chinese market rather than more expensive beef) to add to macaroni.  Mom would let us get crackers or cookies for snacks.  We also had cheap ramen or cup noodles on hand where we'd cook it in a bowl and add ingredients to it (eggs, scallions).  She would pack everyone lunches every day.  Sometimes it was a small thermos of fried rice or a Hot Pocket wrapped in foil (ham and cheese was my favorite until meatball mozzarella came along).  Overall, I estimate our weekly budget was less than $100/week for a family of four.  It is probably average for our income and lifestyle, but for those less fortunate, a lot of concessions would have to be made.

Cup Noodles with Fish Balls & Scallions

I think why an article like the one above resonates with me.  I understand the difficulties and the choices, and now that I'm living on my own, I am understanding the difficulties of needing convenient choices vs eating healthier.  Even now, I only buy grapes, my favorite fruit, when it's on sale.  That's why, a project like Good and Cheap by Leanne Brown is wonderful!  Cookbooks nowadays are focusing more and more on eating fresh foods when in season, but also using ingredients within your means to create a sustaining meal.

For my sister and myself, we ended up more and more involved in our food choices when we started watching Lidia Bastianich and Jacques Pepin on PBS.  When we got home from school, Rachel Ray would be on.  We developed our own passion for cooking and exploring different foods and that helped shape what we bought for groceries.  It was homemade and not necessarily the healthiest (think: meatloaf) but it was wholesome and we enjoyed it.  Now, when I cook for myself, I try to make healthy choices, but also allow for the occasional ramen or chips to fill me up.  And that's okay.