That's probably a bad thing. Good healthy food, like proper cuts of meat and wild fish, is not cheap. Peasant food is cheap. Eat the cheap starch and lousy meat like the peasants and you'll find yourself bloated and waddling around just like them. I drop $150 a week on just me, easy.
I think you may want to reconsider your preferences among the food industry. Having a rich taste is one thing, but outright accusing less pricey foods as being lower quality is not exactly accurate. I can't imagine spending $150 a week on myself without buying * incredibly * fine cuts of meat on a daily basis.
Absolutely. Inexpensive cuts of meat are by no means 'worse' than expensive cuts. Certain cuts are always going to be expensive, such as fillet of beef, rack of lamb, but more under-appreciated (and cheaper) cuts can be just as good.
As for examples, pork belly is still very cheap, even since it came into fashion a few years ago, and is much more flavoursome than other cuts. Chicken legs are much cheaper than chicken breast, despite the former having more flavour. Rump steak is more flavoursome than Sirloin. Offal can be delicious, too, and despite its cheapness it is used in the very best restaurants without compunction. You simply have to know what you're looking for.
There are many ways how to eat healthy and stay on the low budget at the same time.
One of the first things here is to be smart when you shop. It takes time to find good places, and I'm even commuting 20 miles every two weeks for some grocery shopping, but I can buy high quality food very inexpensively. 20 miles sounds like a great deal, especially, when you'll think about the average total in the receipt (rarely less then $150-200).
And the second thing, organic is a buzz. Buying organic doesn't automatically mean you are buying healthy food. Buying non-organic labeled stuff, doesn't mean you're buying crap.
Whatever, eating habits are eating habits, and I'm not here to change minds. :) I still think that $500/month for a family of three is pretty much enough. However, I can't argue with the fact, that you can spend unlimited amount of dollars on food -- sky is the limit.
You can eat healthy on a whole lot less. My family is pretty health conscious (we are all vegetarians, and my mom is pretty much vegan). And I am sure we have never spent 500 a month for a family of three.
Not everything needs to be organic. Some foods usually have low levels of pesticides. And while Whole Foods has high quality food, it is usually pretty expensive. You can get high quality food for less money elsewhere.
That said, at least your food is probably healthy and high quality.
There are even some foods that are just unsafe organic. Pork (less interesting to you, being vegetarian, bear with me) is not nearly as safe, there's been a rise in trichinosis cases at least related to organic pork. I know I've seen evidence suggesting organic celery is worth avoiding too, but I can't find it now.
In any case, agreed that you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to get healthy food. Expensive often doesn't even indicate better food, just more aggressively marketed at suckers that'll pay more.
