Guest Post from Bella @ The Little Budget!

As of right now, I have no health insurance. I haven’t had any for the past year. I just can’t afford it. Right now, my fiance and I are living on his one income (I lost my job, just like many other people in the U.S.) and his job doesn’t offer benefits. Unfortunately, with this economy, tons of Americans are in the same boat we’re in.

If I get sick or hurt or get involved in an accident, it’s going to be not so good when it comes time to pay the bills. I can’t do anything about getting into an accident but I can take charge of my health. I have to make sure I take excellent care of myself because I can’t get a prescription for any medications if I get sick. The best way for me to take care of myself is to watch what I’m eating – that means eating nutritionally dense, unprocessed food. My grocery store is where I find the best, and the cheapest, preventive health care I can afford. Like the old adage goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

I was watching a trailer for the new documentary, Food Inc. and a lady being interviewed says, “We look at vegetables and say, ‘we can get two hamburgers for the same price.'” I don’t know where she’s shopping but that’s completely untrue. I guess if you’re comparing price per calorie, fast food will always win. But our bodies don’t run well on calories. They run on vitamins, minerals and nutrients found naturally in foods. When it comes to price per nutrient, fresh food wins hands down. Even if you compare ounce to ounce, fresh food is still cheaper.

Have you ever thought about how much processed food costs compared to say, other high priced goods? We all know gas is getting pretty expensive when it starts heading toward $4 and then $5 per gallon. People stop driving as often, protest, ride their bikes – anything to offset the high price of gas. What’s the price for a gallon of, let’s say peanut butter or canned soup or tortilla chips?

I decided to do a little experiment. I logged onto Safeway.com (the grocery store I shop at the most because it’s open 24 hours.) to check prices of various processed goods. Okay, Jif Creamy Peanut Butter – 28 Oz is $5.39 or $0.19 per ounce. There are 128 US ounces in a US gallon. $0.19 multiplied by 128 equals $24.32 per gallon of Jif peanut butter. How many of you have bought those single serving soups to take to work for lunch? You know, the kind you heat up in a microwave? Right now there is a special on Healthy Choice Steak And Noodle Soup In A Microwavable Bowl – 14 Oz for $2.99 or $0.21 per ounce. For one gallon of soup, that comes out to a whopping $26.88! I don’t know if you’ve ever made homemade soup before but it’s some of the cheapest and fastest stuff you can make on the planet! Personally, a 14 ounce serving would NEVER fill me up. When was the last time you stopped by a vending machine to grab a single serving bag of chips to curb your appetite until you got home? For a personal bag of Doritos Nacho Tortilla Chips – 1.75 Oz, it’s $0.75 – mere pocket change, or $0.43 per ounce. That comes out to $55.04 a gallon!

Two days ago, on July 10, a barrel of crude (oil) dropped to $58.72 at it’s lowest price of the day on the New York Mercantile Exchange. A barrel of crude holds 42 US gallons! That comes out to $1.40 a gallon! So, $1.40 for a gallon of crude which, at the present time, is making the world go round or $55.04 for a gallon of MSG-covered corn chips (and corn is subsidized by the government!)

What I don’t understand is how people say “We can’t afford to eat anything but processed foods. Fresh food is too expensive!” For example, a gallon of cage-free, free range eggs is the exact same price per ounce as that Jif peanut butter we looked at. Eggs are chocked full of healthy protein, all 9 essential amino acids, naturally occurring vitamin D and a ton of other healthy benefits. Jif peanut butter contains no vitamins and contains fully and partially hydrogenated soybean oil (hydrogenating oils makes trans fats and soy causes goiters and a ton of other health problems.)

Why haven’t I heard people screaming in the streets and protesting the insane price of processed foods? Why are people buying more of these foods when they have less money to spend? We know processed foods aren’t healthy. We know that they have no nutritional value. Honestly, if it wasn’t breathing or sprouting from the the ground at one point or can last, without refrigeration, for more than a three or four days, you probably shouldn’t be eating it. Why are people paying astronomical prices for junk?

It’s about time for people to wake up and stop buying this processed pseudo-food. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, grow your own fruits and veggies. If you can’t plant anything at all, buy what you can’t grow from farmer’s markets. If there are no farmer’s markets, buy from ethnic grocery stores. If there are no ethnic grocery stores, shop only the perimeter of your local grocery store. To save money on grocery bills, medical bills and clothing bills, stop buying processed foods completely. Fresh food is the cheapest health care you’ll ever purchase.

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Fearful of racking up more student loans, graduating without any job prospects and having no way to pay off her loans, much like many of her newly graduating friends, Bella, a 21-year-old bride to be decided that going to a university out of state wasn’t a financially sound decision. She moved back to California and realized that a journalism degree wasn’t her ticket to a fabulous job as newspapers across the country are going under. Bella decided that if she couldn’t find a publication to work for, she’d create one herself. This idea spawned the newly created site, The Little Budget, a blog chronicling her journey to live the good life in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the fraction of the cost. In the future, she hopes to expand the blog into a user-friendly site to include forums, tips, and free online financial classes to teach other young people how to live a financially sound lifestyle without sacrificing the little luxuries in life.

Bella has 4 years of journalism experience and a passion for business, finance, holistic nutrition, homesteading and politics. She lives with her fiance, Dre, their two chihuahuas, Maximus and Tiberius, their cat, Furball and their kitten, Sophronia.