But healthy eating is so costly… Is it not?

Healthy eating is costly… okay? Today, it doesn’t have to be costly to enjoy nutritious food. Indeed, the preparation of meals out of the box may be cheaper and less complicated. Keeping your fridge and carpet stocked with a few cheap, essential items may save you plenty of grief in the kitchen (not to mention saving a little money) while becoming a healthy, self-sufficient person at the same time. Let’s start with the option of scratching your food. OR “Why comfort food stinks,” what I prefer to call. “Why convenience food smells, there are three primary reasons.” The health element is the first reason. When were you last reading the ingredients on a food product you bought? All right, when was the last time you actually could pronounce the contents on the packaging, or did you have a clue what those seemingly strange phrases meant? Mixed triglyceride, red 40, yellow 5, partly hydrogenated soybean oil, monosodium glutamate (MSG) ingredients such as disodium inosinate, ferric orthophosphate, silicon dioxide… Really, what’s this thing? It doesn’t sound like food, and it doesn’t seem nutritious, indeed. I’ll save some money on food, perhaps a few years in my life, and buy some essential genuine foods if all these components save me time, then I say no thanks. Boxed foods have the second concern of cost. You end up paying more money for the quantity you purchase (in contrast to how many portions it offers after reconstituted with water and any additional components you have to purchase). In a nearby grocery shop, for example, a 10-pound potato bag costs $2.48. An instant mashed potato package cost $3.90 on the other hand. You still only get 3 1⁄2 pounds of mashed potatoes after adding the right amount of water to rehydrate the potato flakes. The packaged “potatoes” cost approximately three times that of the real stuff in this example. Let’s speak on cheap, nutritious lunch meat substitutes. I purchased a 10-pound ham for approximately $15 this year, entirely just after New Year. I packed around five bags with a thick slice of ham, other bags of different sizes with different chunks of ham, bagged the ham bone with the flesh surrounding it, and even melted some of the fat into a jar. For several months, we ate excellent ham sandwiches, ham-scrambled eggs, ham-sprinkled veggies, a lovely pea soup prepared from the ham bone, and home-crafted biscuits coated by ham-gravy. You may also get a frozen turkey at a comparable discounted price soon after the holidays. You may buy multiple ham and turkeys at a time if you have a big freezer and use them throughout the year. Ham-sliced “boxed food” is pre-sliced, lunch-packed meat filled with preservatives, nitrates, and nits, and the added water is not forgotten. I saw a 6 oz sliced ham packet for $2,23 at the same supermarket shop I got the ham. Let’s compare pricing, therefore. = 160 on, which is $1,00 for every ten oz. or such. I spent $15,00 for 10 lbs. and ten lbs. If you buy $2.23 for a 6 oz package of lunch meat, then you spend nearly four times more to have somebody slice your meat and pour water into it.