How to save money on food

There are 3 main ways to save money on food

1. eat less meat
2. eat more seasonal food
3. eat less processed food

eat less meat
There are 4 ways to spend less money on meat

1 Eat the same amount of the same sort of meat but cheaper, lower quality meat. This will be intensively-reared meat such as cheap chicken.

2 Do what poor people in the past have always done and buy cheaper cuts of meat and offal such as liver.

3 Eat a smaller quantity of good quality meat such as free-range and/or organic.

4 Don't eat meat.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of these 4 approaches? Cheap chicken has a higher proportion of fat than free-range or organic chicken. This fat is saturated fat and is unhealthy. Cheap chicken has a lower proportion of protein than free-range or organic chicken. This is not so important because (contrary to popular opinion) people do not need lots of protein. It does mean that cheap chicken is not as good value as it may seem. Especially when much of it is processed to absorb water. Think about this when you next hear someone say that poor people need cheap chicken to 'feed their families'.

It is obvious that eating cheaper meat makes economic sense. It is not so obvious that what makes just as much economic sense and more nutritional sense is to eat less meat. How can it be thrifty to eat 2 or 3 times more protein than you need? This is what most people do in our part of the world, rich and poor alike. It is like buying 3 chickens and throwing 2 of them in the bin unused.

Buying free-range or organic should cause less suffering for animals. If people choose to save money by eating fewer free-range/organic chickens and more intensively-reared chickens, why should animals suffer because people insist on eating as much meat as they did before? Especially when they know they don't need it and that it is not good for them.

If someone spent half as much money on meat, but bought meat that was twice as expensive, they would benefit in a number of ways. They would save money. They would be healthier because they would be eating a quarter of the amount of meat they ate before. Meat is not a healthy food, especially in quantity. And they may well enjoy their meat more because it would taste better.

I am beginning to suspect that some people prefer the taste of intensively-reared chicken to free-range/organic chicken. This is because intensively-reared chicken is fattier. They think it is more succulent. People have become used to the taste of fat, sugar and salt. These have become the dominant flavours of our cuisine. If this is so, people would benefit from weaning themselves off their taste for fat, and learn to appreciate the different and more varied flavours of meat and good vegetables, fruit, herbs and spices.

People can use cheaper but still good quality meat. They would have to have some knowledge of the different cuts of meat, their relative prices, and how to cook them. Most people today lack this information. They can't be bothered because they no longer need to be bothered. But if people complain about not having enough money to feed themselves then maybe they need to learn.

Chefs have been telling people for some while now that the dark meat of chicken thighs is cheaper and tastier than the white meat of chicken breast. Pork shoulder and belly is cheaper than the more usual cuts. Mutton is cheaper than lamb. Offal like liver is cheaper and more nutritious. Cheaper meat does not have to be of poorer quality.

Vegetarians and vegans are healthier than meat-eaters. And they save themselves a hell of a lot of money. I am not a vegetarian myself, although most of my meals are vegetarian and vegan. I don't like meat that much. When I do eat meat it is usually liver (because it tastes good and is nutritious) and bacon (because it tastes good). I do like fish and especially sea-food. I think fish oil or cod-liver oil is important because of their long-chain omega 3 fatty acids.

It is now known that people do not need lots of protein. They do not require meat protein or any concentrated source of protein. Cereals are around about 10% protein and can provide enough. Most people eat 2 or 3 times as much protein as they need. This is a waste of money. We can no longer afford this luxury, especially in a world of food shortages.

People think that they benefit from the iron in meat. People who suffer blood loss may need iron, but it is suspected that one of the reasons why vegetarians are healthier is because they have less iron in their blood. Iron is an oxidant.

Some people think they are omnivores and want to continue to be so because they think it is more natural. If you eat insects, brains and bone marrow - as our ancestors did - then you can call yourself an omnivore. If you don't even eat offal but just prepacked meat from the supermarket you cannot call yourself an omnivore. We do have canine teeth but that is nothing to do with meat-eating.

Vegetarian and vegan food can be very tasty. Many dishes from the Mediterranean region are healthy and taste wonderful, especially from southern Italy and Crete. India has a vegetarian tradition. Many parts of the world have vegetarian dishes, often centered around wholegrains cooked with vegetables and flavoured with herbs and small amount of spices and oil. Some dishes can be adapted to vegetarian needs.

So, of the 4 ways of saving money on your meat bill, the first is not recommended. It does allow the shopper to save money, but at the expense of flavour, healthy nutrition and animal welfare. The other three allow the shopper to save money but this more intelligent and informed approach means that people can also enjoy their food more, be healthier and care more about animals.

What applies to meat also applies to cheese.

eat more seasonal food
Poorer people can enjoy asparagus and other delicacies. For 2 months of the year English asparagus is available and cheaper than imported asparagus. It also tastes better because it grows in our cooler climate. Just as the knowledge of our parents and grandparents has been mostly lost when it comes to cheaper cuts of meat, so too with seasonal meat, vegetables and fruit. Supermarkets are not much help in this regard - I often think they would prefer people to forget about seasonality - but greengrocers and farmers' markets are.

eat less processed food
Processed food is expensive and unhealthy. The more processed a food is, the less natural flavour it has. Fat, sugar and salt are added in large amounts to try to give it some kind of flavour. People get used to this and don't know better. They come to like it.

To replicate processed dishes at home may take time. Some people don't have that time, and some people don't want to spend lots of time in the kitchen. Poor people are obviously cash-poor, but not necessarily time-poor too. It is wrong to generalize about poor people, which is why it is wrong to say poor people cannot afford healthy food. Only some poor people work long hours for low pay and have lots of children too. Lots of poor people are pensioners, for example.

I don't try to replicate processed dishes in my kitchen. Shepherds' Pie and such like is boring fare anyway. People say that vegetarian food is boring but most traditional British recipes are that. I prefer something like pasta with a nice pasta sauce. It is cheap, easy and quick to make, and can be healthy.

If you forget about following recipes and the concept of 'square meals' you can have things like brown rice with boiled or steamed vegetables. You may say that people do not want to eat this sort of thing but if you are short of money then you should try it. Then you might like it. It is the sort of thing that millions of people eat in really poor parts of the world. Many immigrants to this country buy sacks of rice and beans and base their meals around that. Grains, pulses and vegetables are a cheap and nutritious base for a diet. Many traditional cuisines from around the world have this kind of basis.

I often eat nuts and seeds, fresh and dried fruit. This needs no time cooking and no time preparation. I buy walnuts and pistachios from Lidl where they are cheaper and fresher because they are sold in foil packs. I like salads but can't be bothered to prepare them, so I buy them pre-prepared salad in packs and dress it with olive oil bought from Lidl. Yes, poor people can afford olive oil.

I have an allotment and grow some of my own food, but I do not believe that people can save a lot of money this way. I do it because I can get the flavour that I want from fruit and vegetables that is usually lacking elsewhere. The best way to save money on food is to make some radical changes in the way you eat, and not just eat the same sort of things as you have always eaten, only cheaper and poorer quality. That way you can save money but enjoy your food and be healthier.