We don't do great on the monthly food bill. Close to $1000 a month for three of us. I'm looking to you all for wisdom, but I have to admit, I'm having a really hard time getting past all the pictures and discussion of cheap meat.
Can I ask something of you? Please- if you're buying cheap meat - beef and pork and chicken- please look into the state of the industrial factory farming practices. And if you're buying grocery store meat in the US -
it's almost guaranteed to be factory farmed (link is to a USDA report on the transformation of livestock over many decades).
Factory farmed meat is terrible for the environment, and, if you're the sort of person who cares, factory farming is horrific for the animals. I'm personally not a big animal lover, but after learning about these standard practices, I've decided I'm unwilling to take part in the assembly line of well, torture. Please, look into the practices that are required for producing milk, how they handle the 'waste' products that are male calves, and ask if you want to be a part of it. I could use all kinds of incendiary language here, but it's probably better you discover for yourself. PM me or reply if you want recommendations on resources regarding the ethics of industrial animal factory farming .
Lastly- regarding the environment, I'd ask you to contemplate this: terrestrial vertebrate biomass was approximately 300M tons 12,000 years ago. It was all wild animals and some humans (you could argue we were wild at that point of course). Many ecologists argue that 300M tons is the natural carrying capacity of earth for terrestrial vertebrates.
Today, terrestrial vertebrate biomass is 6x that. It's 1,800 million tons. 400M is human biomass. Century after century, wild animals have been absolutely decimated, as only 20M tons is wild animals today. A staggering 1400 million tons of terrestrial vertebrate biomass is livestock. Check out Nate Hagens, Vaclav Smil or Paul Chefurka for these numbers.
Dr. Nate Hagen's 'Blindspots and Superheroes' talk is an eye opener.
To conclude with this portion of the sermon: Please consider swapping out beef and pork for lentils and roman beans. You get a ton of protein in beans, and it's way more environmentally sustainable. There are so many plant based recipes and products out there, it's not too hard - and it can be even cheaper. Although, clearly I'm no paragon of perfection on the $ side of it. Too many blueberries and store made hummus, me thinks.
I'd be happy to share these and other resources with you, but I imagine if you do a google search or youtube search, you'll come across Earthling Ed, Erin Janus (prepare for snark), or the documentaries Forks Over Knives, or the Joaquin Phoenix narrated Earthlings.
Back to grocery store stuff: Ugh - just in February we spent $1022 in grocery stores for THREE OF US! I can subtract only about $20-30 for household stuff like TP, laundry soap and 3 super-discounted glass bowls. So let's call it $1000.
I guess we could cut down on blueberries, and frozen cheeseless pizzas. We could make our homemade hummus more and buy the store-bought less. What I really need to do is find a place to buy the 50lb bags of oats that some of you mentioned in posts on this thread. I make our own oat milk (see reasons spelled out above), but that really rips through the stash of oats. Oats are about $1.50 a lb here.
@APowers says they buy oats for half that. I need in on that action. We also rip through the soy yogurt. $1.40 for a small tub of it. Oh - but it's just like sour cream and so good over cuban black bean soup.
It's time to roll up my sleeves. Too many freaking excuses over here. You guys are an inspiration, and I need to work on this grocery bill. (note: pre-MMM our grocery bill was probably double this - so we are capable of improving - we just have further to go). That's it, I'm meeting with my friend who was born here. I'm going to hit him up for every store he knows of that sells bulk stuff. We can bake our own high-fiber bread instead of buying it for - yikes - $1.80 a loaf.
Sorry if you didn't want to be punched in the face regarding animal factory farming - but there's just too much cheap grocery store meat going on in this thread and I couldn't not say anything.