Does anybody here not eat meat simply because it is just too expensive?

[Luanne]

I'm on such a limited budget that I have taken to not buying any meat at all. I do eat cheese, beans, and drink milk. It is starting to get kind of frustrating though. I just wondered if I am alone in this. :(

[Old Dominion Heather]

Well, we don't eat much and this is the reason.

[PariSarah]

I haven't bought red meat or pork in a year or more. Mom or MIL sends us some, from time to time. Otherwise, I only buy chicken, turkey, maybe some sausage.

 

I take it back--I think I found a couple london broils on a really good sale a few months back. And maybe a pound of ground beef that was nearing its expiration date. But, yeah, otherwise, meat has become a garnish in our meals.

[Old Dominion Heather]

meat has become a garnish in our meals.

 

Yep, that is where we are, too. And really, it is not a bad thing.

[Classical Michele]

Otherwise it's veggie meals for us.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I only purchase meat at under $2 a pound. At that price we have been able to eat skinless bonless chicken breasts, whole chickens, bone-in chicken breasts, chuck roasts, ham, pork chops, and ground beef over the last year. I stretch the meat as much as possible, but we do eat it 4-5 times a week.

 

Right now, it is more expensive to eat cheese than meat at almost $5.00 a lb. in our grocery store.

[BarbaraL in OK]

Yes, though we buy grass-fed meat when we do buy meat. We're coming out of many years of paying off debt and buying cheapest-possible food, so many of our family favorite meals are actually meatless. Now I'm able to buy much better quality meat (and dairy) -- but only if we stay on the low-consuming end of the meat-eating scale.

 

Our mainstay dinners are Mexican-style meals (tortillas or rice, beans, veggies), Italian meals (pastas, sauce, veggies, and cheese), and some Asian-style meals (rice or noodles, veggies, tofu or egg). Then meat can be a condiment, or a side dish with the meal really about the veggies and (in the best case) whole grains. Ethnic cooking keeps our meals interesting, for us.

[frogpond1]

lots of people buy. I buy meat, but use lots of pasta and potatoes etc. to fill my kids up. The thing I cannot stomach is the price of other convenience snacks that my kids' friends' moms buy. Personally, I am a carnivore. I'd rather eat meat than cake if I had the choice, but I try to buy bulk and get the best prices possible.

[Susan in MO]

I made the change to eating a vegetarian diet in the nick of time. I thought that we would ease into it but in looking at the meat prices (:eek:$9 for a bag of chicken tenders) I didn't have enough funds for the meat and the whole wheat past. So instead, we just dove in feet first.

 

Susan

[JennifersLost]

but I got sick of buying the cheap cuts of meat (all we can afford) so I buy it less, but buy better stuff when I do.

 

Cheese is the real killer, though. Again, I buy the cheap stuff, but sometimes go without for awhile so I can get some of the better stuff.

 

Even vegetables are outrageous.

 

Sigh.

[chickenpatty]

lots of people buy. I buy meat, but use lots of pasta and potatoes etc. to fill my kids up. The thing I cannot stomach is the price of other convenience snacks that my kids' friends' moms buy. Personally, I am a carnivore. I'd rather eat meat than cake if I had the choice, but I try to buy bulk and get the best prices possible.

 

That is so true! We stock up on meat when it is on sale. For instance, turkeys were recently on sale for $.69 a pound. Fresh pork roasts (which make wonderful barbeque, among other things) are often on sale for $.99 a pound and go a long way. Most stores have their sales flyers online, so you can plan your grocery list and menu strategically.

[Luanne]

we might have to give up eating entirely. I guess we can't do that, can we? Oh bother!

[CLHCO]

We are also eating meat on a low-consuming basis. Most of our meals are vegetarian. I do not care for the high-fat, bad cuts I can afford so I just wait until my husband really wants his slice of meat and I get something of a higher quality. I've gotten very good at a wide variety of vegetarian one-pot meals and now he doesn't seem to notice much if we haven't eaten meat in a week or two.

 

I agree that the processed snack foods are more costly than the meat. We don't eat those either. However, I do pay quite a bit for produce. That's not that cheap either but if given a choice between bad cuts of meat, high sugar or salt snacks or a pile of clementines, the clementines win. So, we eat a lot of fruit, veggies and grain & bean meals. Thanks to learning to really use that wonder called a spice rack and the marvelous garlic and onion, we are enjoying our meals as much or more than ever.

[Queen_Zarga]

we might have to give up eating entirely. I guess we can't do that, can we? Oh bother!

LOL!

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

Could you tell us more about some of those vegetarian one dish meals?

 

Thanks.

[Renee in NC]

I only purchase meat at under $2 a pound. At that price we have been able to eat skinless bonless chicken breasts, whole chickens, bone-in chicken breasts, chuck roasts, ham, pork chops, and ground beef over the last year. I stretch the meat as much as possible, but we do eat it 4-5 times a week.

 

Right now, it is more expensive to eat cheese than meat at almost $5.00 a lb. in our grocery store.

 

 

I rarely find meat for that price, even when on sale. We did find frozen Wal-Mart brand boneless, skinless chicken breast for $2 a pound a few days ago, so I bought 9 pounds.

 

Generally, though, we just don't eat meat. Or buy cheese or milk.

[Anne/Ankara]

We don't buy that much red meat but I have this feeling that quality protein is very important to growing children, so we do splurge every so often. Also, I like the taste of a good steak! We probably have red meat about once a week, but mainly fish, chicken, pasta, beans, and things like that.

[Plaid Dad]

I now eat a vegetarian diet for health reasons, but yes, there are have been stretches where I gave up meat because we couldn't afford it. (My dw and dd have been lacto-ovo-vegetarians all along.) Cheese is very expensive, too, but then again, it's not something most people eat in quantity; I can easily sit down and polish off an 8 or 12 oz. steak, but that amount of cheese at one sitting? :eek: In the past we've made our own yogurt with powdered milk, too. None of us drinks liquid milk - that is mostly a matter of taste, but it's also ridiculously expensive. If I need milk for a recipe, I can get rice milk at Trader Joe's for much less than cow's milk. I know people who make their own rice and soy milk as well, for pennies a quart.

 

I know a lot of people dislike tofu - mostly, I think, because they've never had it cooked well - but we can get it here for .99-1.29 a pound, and one pound is more than enough for a family dinner plus leftovers. That's organic/non-GMO, too. We also eat a lot of bean-based soups, noodles (rice for me, as I'm trying to avoid wheat), and (brown) rice dishes. I eat oatmeal or sweetened cooked rice for breakfast most days, and either leftovers or a quick homemade miso soup with noodles or rice for lunch. We get a lot of our Asian ingredients from an Asian grocery store and that saves a bundle. Produce is expensive, but during the summer we have a CSA membership, so for 4-5 months of the year, we buy relatively little supermarket produce and get really high-quality food.

 

HTH!

[Quiver0f10]

I switched to vegan for health, but my family is eating that way a few times a week mostly to save money.

[shell in SC]

I refuse to buy meat at the grocery store anymore. I went to Walmart, and their ground beef was $3.00/lb I refuse to pay that much for ground beef. i went to the butcher shop/meat market instead and got 10 lbs of ground chuck for $16.00 that's $1.60 a lb. half what I would have paid at Walmart, so check your local meat market. . .their prices may be more affordable!

 

shell

[Deidre in GA]

i buy chicken and pork on sale. extra lean ground beef doesn't seem to dip down to $1.99lb anymore, even at costco. we haven't cut out meat completely but financial concerns certainly have me looking up bean recipes more often. it's actually the produce my teenager consumes that is really killing my budget but it's hard to cut back on something so healthy for him.

[Rhonda@LivingWater]

I am able to get IQF chicken breasts at our Kroger for about $2/pound, so I get about 3 pounds per week and use that for soups, casseroles and things like that. When ground turkey is on sale for 1.49/pound, I stock up on that and use if for spaghetti, meatloaf, chili, etc.

Right now is seems that EVERYTHING is so expensive!!

[CLHCO]

Could you tell us more about some of those vegetarian one dish meals?

 

Thanks.

Sure but there's not much to tell. I have found fatfreevegan.com to be a great resource. I particularly like the book "Saving Dinner", which has one specifically for vegetarians now. The only drawback is I think she actually goes a bit low on the protein at times and is so concerned people won't want to overuse beans there often ends up being only one bean dish a week, which is a shame because there is a world of wonderful beans out there!

 

Basically, I have used the Saving Dinner Vegetarian off and on when I need a quick meal plan and then if there is a recipe we like, I mark it to use again. When I have time I browse the web for better bean recipes and varieties, adding to my list. Last night I made the African Peanut Soup from fatfreevegan.com and it was wonderful. But if eating Vegetarian is new to someone, I do think the Saving Dinner book is a good start because of the set meal plans with grocery lists. Sometimes she uses fancy ingredients but most of the time they're basic pastas, beans, lots of veggies, etc.

 

That book is not vegan, btw. She uses eggs and cheese plenty. Most recipes can be altered to avoid this for those that are vegan but we're not. I am at the moment to lose weight but not as a firm lifestyle, outside of a preference for saving money on these things.

[Mom2GirlsTX]

Well, we have been vegetarians for 20 plus years, but a few weeks ago I cooked two potroasts for sick friends. Wow, I was so blown away by the cost of meat!!! These are big families I was cooking for and the two medium potroast were about $25 for the two of them (they weren't big, not small). I was just shocked...talk about an eye opener. I bought pot roast because I hadn't cooked meat in so long, I forgot how :eek:

If I were a meat eater now, I would think about going vegetarian for the financial cost alone...ouch! But since I'm already a vegetarian, it is a mute point...but I'll tell you what, if we were meat eaters, we wouldn't be eating very much! I like what Barb said about the grass fed beef, if I were to eat meat, I would much rather eat it less often and eat the best (safest) quality when I did.

One thing, when I first went vegetarian, it was for my dh's health and it was no fun to cook meat for one...I used to miss it alot and then gradually it just kind of lost any appeal for me at all. Being vegetarian isn't really denying yourself good food, and I know many on a budget seem to think vegans and vegatarians just eat rice or beans or a slab of tofu...LOL Maybe since the meat is so expensive, you could rethink your thinking...something to the effect of not thinking you are depriving yourself by not having meat to thinking to yourself, I am improving my diet and my pocketbook by preparing meat free dishes. Just trying to throw a positive twist on it!

[PrairieAir]

I'm trying to cut back for health and budget's sake. Dh got a deer this year (he butchers them himself), so that has cut back some on the amount I've had to buy. I usually only buy chicken and ground beef. Sometimes I buy bacon or sausage or ham. Cutting lunch meat out would save quite a bit. I rarely buy fish and it's usually canned tuna when I do. I really love some of the vegetarian meals I've made in the past few years, but my family craves MEAT. Black bean burritoes with onions, corn, diced tomatoes, taco sauce, and cheese are a current favorite of mine.

[~Tara~]

We've cut back for health and budget reasons as well. Buying more expensive, better quality meats when I do buy. But getting by on CONSIDERABLY less than before. We're HUGE carnivores so this has been quite a change for us. We're still new on this endeavor though, so, maybe I'm speaking too soon LOL

Pray for us :p

[Luanne]

another cashier offered me a piece of her chicken in the break room. I hadn't had any meat in over a week. I think I thanked her four times. LOL

[Jenny in Atl]

Since my kids can't have gluten I would be limiting ourselves to fruit and veggies.. GF stuff is very expensive, and we try to buy that wisely. So we do Costco for most of our meat (mostly lamb, chicken, and pork. No beef) and Whole Foods for fish and buffalo. I see food as more important than cable t.v., than dinner out (most places we can't eat anyway), and other things that can eat away the budget. So, I would say when money is tight I look elsewhere to cut and not cut the meat

[Susie in MS]

We have to stretch our money as far as it will possibly go. Dh has been disabled for 4 1/2 months now and the money we have had coming in is from selling our belongings and the goodness of people's hearts!! We look forward to earned income credit next month!! Anywho...

 

We stretch meat by putting it in things like:

Chicken and dumplings

Dirty Rice

Spagetti

Sasuage Pancakes

Gumbo

Jambalijah

 

Make grains your main staple and add from there. Stay away from anything in a box or a bag that is pre-done.

 

Go to http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com for some recipes and savings suggestions.

 

We have been blessed that we have a local farmer that will sell us milk for $2 a gallon!! Compare it to $5-$6 a gallon that is charged at the grocery store!!

 

ALL foods around here, with the exception of flour and rice, are expensive. Even beans went up to over $1 a bag. Then you have a higher electric bill from cook time and running the ac more in the summer.

[Joanne]

Um, respectfully, no.

 

I don't personally believe less meat = healthier or better.

 

In the large picture, it's also not best of our budget. The satiation, staying power and versitility meat provides *this* family is absolutely worth spending our grocery budget there.

 

I'd buy meat before beans, potatoes or bread if I had to make the choice.

 

That said, I buy meat early am, on sale AND discounted. My DH laughs that we do not have any meat that is not clearance. It's pretty much true of canned goods, too. LOL.

 

My experience as a former veggies (ethical and health), former obese woman and now currently well on the road to fit and trim has shown me that for my body, quality animal based protein is necessary. I've observed the same in several of my family members as well.

[Luanne]

It is nice to hear an alternating viewpoint. I would love to be able to buy meat all the time. I am a single mother with only my income from my cashier job at Wal-Mart though, so it just doesn't happen very often that I can afford meat. Maybe some day I will find a wealthy eligible man ... then I can eat meat again LOL.

[Txmom]

:)

We have lots of tuna casseroles or just tuna fish sandwiches,

I buy Jennie O ground frozen turkey meat is 1.50 for a one lb roll and make casseroles , turkey burgers, chili, hambuger helper with it.

I buy one on package of Teryaki chicken already cooked.

Even the stuff that people bought to help till the next payday is not cheap, peanut butter, bread, lunch meat, etc.;)

[Julpost]

I like the idea of eating less and having it more as a side than as the main dish. I'm not very good at this yet but I'm working on it. I think the key will be learning how to cook with a variety of beans more and becoming more familiar with different vegetable dishes. I'm encouraged because I know it can be done and my family will be healthier for it.

[Tami]

We save money on meat by buying a month's worth as Sam's. It is MUCH cheaper there. I also save money by refusing to buy any junk food, pop, or pre-packaged food. Having a menu plan for the last couple of years has also cut down on food being wasted because it goes bad and has to be thrown away.

 

Good food is a big part of our budget, because our health depends on it. I'm not a bean/legume person unfortunately. :(