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Economics of Veganism

3K views 42 replies 19 participants last post by  kamizushi 
#1 ·
Hello everyone!

I am a new vegan and my boyfriend (a meat eater) is actually very supportive of this. He eats whatever I cook and was actually the person who encouraged me to follow my ethics and transition from ovo-lacto to vegan the most.

That said, his primary concerns in life (unrelated to veganism, just his way of life) are health and saving money. My work convincing him that veganism would be the healthier choice has actually been done for me by an internet fitness personality called Scooby. I am fairly certain that he would be vegan if it were shown that it was cheaper. He likes meat, but not to the point where he would defy reason to continue eating it.

Basically, I'm asking for resources. He is very well versed in economics and personal finance, so more in-depth even if potentially more difficult literature on the subject would probably be preferable to simplified info-graphics.

Thanks guys!
 
#2 ·
I *think* John McDougall, MD, has an article about this on his website (www.drmcdougall.com), but I am not 100% sure how in-depth he gets. If you can find that article, though, it's a good one. Also, John Robbins wrote a book about simple living a few years ago that your BF would probably really like, I think it is called _The New Good Life_. John Robbins is a Vegan and a big animal rights activist, has written several books. He strongly encourages whole foods and preparing foods from scratch as opposed to (very expensive) pre-packaged convenience foods.

My observation over the years (without any scientific study or numbers to back it up) is that there is virtually no way to eat meat that is both cheap and safe. Leaving behind animal cruelty for just a minute, If you want to avoid the toxins, growth hormones, GMOs, antibiotics and such, then you have to buy organic meat, which is extremely pricey - and meat is already very pricey. Better quality, slightly healthier meats are also more expensive. But even then, there is no way you can eliminate the fat, cholesterol, naturally occurring hormones, protein overload. Joel Fuhrmann, MD, makes the case that if one is going to eat meat at all, to use it strictly as a garnish and/or flavoring - i.e. soup broth or a little bit of salad topping, but never, ever as a main dish, and never as the bulk of one's calories. Another "personal experience" thing: I regularly hear people talk about how they are spending $400 a month on groceries and I'm thinking, good heavens WHAT are you eating? Before I remember - they are eating meat.

Another important consideration is that eating meat on a regular basis puts one in danger of health problems sooner or later. If your BF has not checked out the cost of heart surgery lately... or cancer treatment... he should. Many insurance plans these days have the patient paying a pretty big co-pay. If you imagine a $150,000 heart surgery, and your co-pay is 10% of that, you're talking about $15,000. There is no way you can write that off as chump-change. Some of these illnesses and treatments, in addition to costing money out of pocket, also can inhibit a person's ability to work (think chemotherapy and radiation treatment). Being veg*n is no surefire guarantee against illness, but by and large, we do have a much better track record for the Big 4: heart attack, stroke, diabetes and cancer.

Just about any way you look at it, a reasonably healthy (i.e. NOT potato chips and candy) veg*n diet is economically smart. Even a part-time veg*n diet makes economic sense.

by the way, have you thought about keeping track of the grocery bill and restaurant bill for a month? The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. That alone might help convince him.
 
#3 ·
wow $400 a month would not be high where I live. I venture to say the average couple in BC in Canada who eat meat probably spend $600 - 700 a month. Those who don't eat meat, maybe $500 - 600.

So me, just me, would spend probably $300 a month to eat vegan and we are not talking organic. This is Canada, and regionally prices are all over the place.
 
#4 ·
Hello everyone!

I am fairly certain that he would be vegan if it were shown that it was cheaper. He likes meat, but not to the point where he would defy reason to continue eating it.
I'm not seeing how cost of vegan vs. meat and dairy is even a debate. Meat is SO expensive. Wouldn't a resource be the grocery store? I mean, if you go in and compare steaks to rice and veggies - steak is gonna cost more... Dairy is pretty expensive too. And decent eggs if you eat organic.

BUT, here are a few resources.

A meal cost chart - not super scientific though.

http://www.theveganwoman.com/is-vegan-food-more-expensive-a-guide-to-eating-vegan-on-a-budget/
http://20somethingfinance.com/cost-of-vegetarian-diet/
http://gourmandelle.com/vegetarian-on-a-budget-cost-diet/
 
#5 · (Edited)
I've spent a fair amount of time analyzing food prices in my area. The cheapest foods BY FAR are vegan, though of course there are expensive vegan foods as well.

Let's start by looking at cost per calorie, since that is the most essential aspect of food. When I say "up to __ kcals per cent" I mean that that is the cheapest form of that particular food that I've been able to find. Often times these are store brand or sold in bulk (i.e. scoop and bag). Larger containers are often more cost-efficient also, although sometimes a small store-brand container is cheaper than a bulky brand name container. I found some weird anomalies at my store like make it yourself peanut butter in the bulk section that was considerably more expensive than the store brand packaged peanut butter on the shelves and bulk oil that was considerably more expensive than the packaged alternative. Bulk beans and rice were cheaper than bagged beans and rice and much cheaper than jarred or canned beans. And then you have prices that vary by region/store/year. So take my data as a very rough comparative estimate.

Tier 1:

-Flour (up to 44 kcals per cent)
-Oil (up to 43 kcals per cent)
-Dried beans (up to 33 kcals per cent)
-Rice (up to 29 kcals per cent)
-Sugar (up to 29 kcals per cent)
-Couscous (up to 18 kcals per cent)
-Pasta (up to 17 kcals per cent)

I haven't been able to find any meat products that come anywhere close to as cheap as these foods. And you can get sufficient protein from beans and grains and also from many of the "tier 2" foods.

Tier 2:

-Peanut Butter (12 kcal per cent)
-Lentils (12 kcal per cent)
-Oats (12 kcal per cent)
-Millet (11 kcal per cent)
-Grits (10 kcal per cent)
-Sunflower Seeds (10 kcal per cent)
-Cornflakes (9 kcal per cent)
-Bagels (9 kcal per cent)

The only meat product I've been able to find in this ballpark was something called "value hotdogs".

As far as middle range foods you have stuff like sliced bread, poptarts, dried prunes, tortillas, earth balance, potatoes, bananas and almonds.

As far as the bottom range for kcal per dollar value, you have stuff like mock meats (cheaper than some meat products, more expensive than others), mock cheese/yoghurt (a bit more expensive than the real ones), milk alternatives (a bit more expensive than cow's milk), tofu, tempeh, frozen meals (e.g. Amy's), canned soups. And of course fruits and vegetables tend to be low in calories so they will be down at the bottom as well except for bananas, potatoes and a few others.


What about protein cost efficiency? Probably not surprisingly, beans are the cheapest source of protein (up to 8 gs of protein per dollar). Below that are flour, oats, couscous, rice and peanut butter (2-5 gs of protein per dollar). Compare this to packaged protein powder, which I've found at 1-1.4 gs of protein per dollar. Of course the downside of cheap sources of protein, if there is one, is that these foods are also high in carbs (or fat in the case of peanut butter) and you can't just separate out the protein. This isn't really a problem for me, but if it's a problem you can always throw in a bit of tofu some other high protein food into your cart. Soymilk has quite a bit of protein. Or you could look for whole dried soybeans, which are higher in protein than other beans and cheaper than tofu/tempeh/soymilk.


What about micronutrients? I haven't done as much comparative analysis here. You should be obviously eating fruits and veg even though they aren't cost-efficient in terms of calories. However, fruits and vegetables are just as important to the health of a meat eater as they are to a vegan, so this isn't an added expense of being vegan.


What about B12? I recently bought 2 years worth of B vitamins for 27 dollars. That's less than 2 dollars per month. Also there are various foods fortified with B12 such as soy milk, certain breakfast cereals, tofu, vitamin water and so on.


What about preparation? If you're concerned about the time and effort involved for making things like homemade bread, dried beans and rice and such, then you might want to invest in an electric pressure cooker for beans and rice and/or a bread machine.


ETA: If you're interested in any more details let me know. I have a spreadsheet full of this type of data.
 
#6 ·
A vegan diet is only cheap if its oriented around whole foods, the minute you start to add specialty vegan products your food budget can sky rocket. Strangely many of the mock meat/dairy products are more expensive than real meat/dairy products.

But health and costs are well aligned, all the healthy staple foods are the cheapest. If one is concerned with the long term costs and isn't a committed vegan than eating mostly whole foods and standard packaged foods (regardless of whether they are 100% vegan or not) is the cheapest.

For whatever reason, many vegans choose high cost foods over cheaper foods that are just as (or more) healthy (e.g., quinoa over whole wheat pasta). I think this and the specialty products often gives one the impression that vegan diets are expensive.

What about micronutrients? I haven't done as much comparative analysis here. You should be obviously eating fruits and veg even though they aren't cost-efficient in terms of calories. However, fruits and vegetables are just as important to the health of a meat eater as they are to a vegan, so this isn't an added expense of being vegan.
Most of the common meats aren't that nutritious so the plant-based staples are going to easily beat them in terms of costs.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I really liked this article, and the math does add up. The Food Stamp budget is about $4.50 a day per person, and this writer did it vegan style on $1.50 a day. Every time I read about someone trying the Food Stamp budget challenge, I wanted to scream "Dried beans! Not cans!" Though I knew better than to expect them to forgo hamburger and chicken parts.

A big part of voluntary frugality is the fun of knowing you can spend so much less while eating healthy food that satisfies. People look in from the outside and say it would be impossibly monotonous, but it isn't. It's more like a game, like seeing how many more miles per gallon you can squeeze out of a hybrid that the reviewers say is "fantastic for mileage but not much fun to drive." The hypermiling IS the fun, especially when you're not in a hurry and other drivers can easily get around you. EPA says a Prius C will get you 50 MPG, but it actually gets better than 60, sometimes closer to 70, and without trying very hard. It is fun, and so is staying healthy and satisfied on a shoestring grocery budget.
 
#10 ·
Dried beans and grains bought in bulk, root vegetables, and canned tomatoes when fresh tomatoes are out of season. Keep that as the base and you'll never starve and you'll seldom have to shop. Add whatever fresh vegetables and fruits don't cost the world that week, and you won't go blind with boredom, either. Add nuts for texture; a little goes a long way. Stretch the expensive items: Two cans of coconut milk aren't cheap, but they form the basis for a curried lentil soup that will yield maybe a gallon's worth of servings. If you can find a discount grocery store like Aldi or Grocery Outlet, you've hit the jackpot. And when you're not cooking with meat, eggs or milk, your leftovers keep longer in the refrigerator, so you don't have to freeze all of it. If you have, or buy, a crockpot, a food processor and a breadmaking machine, they'll pay off in the medium term. If you can find them used, they'll pay off in the short term. When fresh fruit starts to go overripe, cut it up into pieces and freeze them to make smoothies.
 
#14 ·
What I can buy at the local dollar store (everything is $1 each item) that is vegan:

dried beans (have found Great Northern white beans, pintos, and black beans in this section in a 1 lb bag for a buck)

canned beans (have found chickpeas, pintos, black beans, kidney beans)

diced tomatoes and tomato sauce

cans of applesauce

frozen fruits and vegetables (usually in three to four serving packages) (have found blueberries, mango, strawberries, peaches, mixed vegetables, corn, and green beans)

3 serving box of raisins or 6 pack single serve boxes

bag of sunflower seeds (raw) and bag of salted pumpkin seeds with shell on and no other ingredients listed

Westsoy plain lowfat soy milk in 32 oz carton (made with whole soybeans, labeled organic, and 4 servings)

corn flour for making your own tortillas (also happens to be certified gluten free)

instant plain oats in canister

distilled vinegar

Lemon juice although it has lemon oil listed on it

used to get plain canned pumpkin there but haven't seen it lately.

This is all I can think of off the top of my head. I have been doing some shopping there and saving a bit of money. For some reason the exact same brands of some of the items I am getting at the dollar store (such as Goya beans) I can find at regular supermarkets but they are more expensive by sometimes as much as $0.40. Dried white beans are more expensive at the supermarket by almost a $1. I realize some of this stuff at the dollar store is not organic and some is off brands but when you are on a budget you do what you can.

At the supermarket I buy my produce, potatoes/sweet potatoes/squashes, whole grains such as rice, millet, bulgur, steel cut oats etc, tofu or tempeh (not every week but twice a month or so), or a few specialty items like salsa, cocoa powder, or some spices.

I might spend a little more on high quality oil but rarely use it so I might buy it once every other month if I do some baking. I buy vegan butter maybe once a year at Christmas lol. I get my nutritional yeast, chickpea flour, and buckwheat groats in bulk at my local Whole Foods Coop since I can't find them elsewhere but again buy those items every two or three months. I make my own bread if I eat it. Used to buy Ezekiel bread but stopped buying it altogether about a month ago as it is way too expensive. Other than the soy milk from the dollar store I stopped buying commercial plant milks and make my own flaxseed milk which is still cheaper than store bought milk (1/4 cup flaxseeds and six cups water yield five cups milk). I stopped buying fancy sweeteners like agave, maple syrup, turbinado sugar etc a while ago and just use applesauce or fresh fruit or raisins or something. I also grow my own stevia herb plant and use stevia leaves for when I blend my flaxseed milk or make smoothies. If I bake a large batch of something on special occasion I have been buying beet sugar (American Crystal Sugar made in Minnesota) and a bag of that will last me three or four months (would last longer but my husband uses it for his stuff).

I think the more expensive vegan food items would be Earth Balance, vegan cheeses and spreads such as Daiya or Tofutti, processed fancy organic cold cereals, organic nuts and seeds, (though flaxseeds can be fairly cheap as can sunflower), fancy oils (coconut, high end organic canola or olive etc), sweeteners, some organic and high end plant milks like hemp or rice, organic vegetable broths, frozen meals like Amys and processed boxes of mixes like Fantastic Old World or McDougalls soups, and the fake meats like Field Roast or tofurkey or Beyond Meat. Or condiments like vegan worcestershire sauce and tamari and so on. These items I almost never buy. I get the impression that non vegans think these items are predominantly what vegans eat. Often in "starter kits" for vegans and vegetarians these are exactly the types of items listed.

On a side note, when you think of the cost of agriculture in terms of feeding farm animals (which means growing a lot of grain or providing vast space for grass fed animals), providing shelter for them, vet care, labor to care for them and milk them etc, antibiotics, and the cost, energy, and labor to slaughter the animal and process it into edible meat, to me this seems like a much greater cost all around than simply growing plants for us to eat directly. There is still cost for space, labor to process them, and water needed etc but with animal agriculture there is the need to grow plants AND the animals. I just don't see how animal agriculture can possibly be more efficient and cost productive than plant based.
 
#16 ·
Thanks so much guys! The next time my boyfriend spends a week with me, I am going to dazzle, amaze, and educate by making him a bunch of delicious and healthy vegan meals, then I am going to explain how much it would have cost to make him delicious and healthy omni meals. I know a lot of tricks when it comes to saving money on both diets so I'll be fair. Then, I will appeal to his Libertarian leanings with a discussion on the economic impacts of the meat industry and the government cost of supporting the meat industry. It'll be pretty awesome.
 
#17 · (Edited)
Well, tell him to take into consideration that when he eats meat, he's also paying for all the veggies that animal ate during its life, only he's not receiving 90% of those calories due to energy loss between trophic levels (the animal sh*ts and pisses out most of the energy it takes in, or the energy goes to parts of the animal that one doesn't eat). Granted most of the food livestock eat is just soy and corn, but still economically speaking it is very logical for the price of meat to be much higher than produce. It's like how bottled water companies want to convince you to buy the same stuff that comes out of your faucet but out of a plastic container, just so they can make money as the middle man. It's both better for the environment and cheaper to cut out the middle man -- skip eating the animals and just eat what they eat.

Let's say you want to make a quilt. Would it make sense to buy a bunch of t-shirts to cut up to make that quilt, which have had their prices jacked up due to labor and processing, or would it be cheaper to go straight to the fabric store? Same thing with energy. We can't go straight to the sun obviously, which is the source of calories, but we can let plants eat the sun and then we can eat them.

I know I'm hammering home these metaphors too hard, but one more. If meat eaters were running a business, it would look like this. The human, the CEO, is on the top floor. The bottom floor, the plants, receive $1000 from the sun. They pocket $900 for themselves and pass the remaining $100 on to the second floor, where the livestock live. The livestock pocket $90 for themselves, and pass on $10 to the CEO at the top, the human. The human could make ten times more profit if he just ditched the second level of livestock. He needs the plants because they're the only ones that know how to work with the sun, but the animals just sit around being inefficient.
 
#29 ·
Well, tell him to take into consideration that when he eats meat, he's also paying for all the veggies that animal ate during its life, only he's not receiving 90% of those calories due to energy loss between trophic levels (the animal sh*ts and pisses out most of the energy it takes in, or the energy goes to parts of the animal that one doesn't eat).
Good point!!
 
#18 ·
most everything I buy is fairly inexpensive except:

field roast sausages $$$ but so good
really good quality olive oil from Spain $$$ but lasts me a long time
limes $ about $1.25 each, but worth it when you need a lime
avocado $ about $3 each, but what can you do (now if they go bad that is a bum)
Braggs $ costs a bit more
tofu organic $costs a bit more

any citrus fruit or pinneapple or cherries. We grow a lot of our own berries and make our own apple and pear sauce.

We are in Canada, though, and things can cost a whole lot more here. Still, it is worth it to live on an island in the Pacific Northwest. Off to walk down to the beach to watch the sunset.
 
#21 ·
My weekly grocery bill has decreased since going veg*an. And that's just me, not both me and my husband.

I think it's easier to have a lower grocery budget when you live in a veg*an friendly area, like Portland or Seattle or almost any large-ish city on the west coast of North America. Here in the Portland area, it is cheaper to buy tofu and tempeh than it is to buy meat, if you look in the right stores. Trader Joe's has good deals on everything from tofu to cooking oil to goodies like sweet hot cherry peppers in jars (if you have not tried them, you must). You can also put a dent in your food budget by joining a CSA or getting Bountiful Baskets. I just picked up my Bountiful Basket yesterday and I got probably twice as much fruit and vegetables as I would have been able to buy in an average grocery store.
 
#24 ·
In N.E. Ohio at least Boca and Morningstar quite often go on sale, so I'd say $3.00 a box is typical. I just bought 3 Morningstars and got a store coupon for a $2.00 saving on my next visit.
They're certainly marketed towards omnis. Esp. Morningstar, you need to look at the tiny nutritional info just like any other product to discern whether vegan or not. I've complained to both to make some kind of easy identifier, and more vegan products. They sent me a nice response saying they're working on it, but I don't think so. Vegetarian is far more acceptable.

The thing is, if you're vegan you're probably gonna pay less for some, and more for other things. Mock-meats to me are something I eat once a week at most. Things like Daiya even less. I used to easily eat a lot of cheese, frequently! Same with meat
 
#26 ·
In N.E. Ohio at least Boca and Morningstar quite often go on sale, so I'd say $3.00 a box is typical. I just bought 3 Morningstars and got a store coupon for a $2.00 saving on my next visit.
Yes, but they are usually 8 oz boxes so that is $6.00 or more a pound which is more than the comparable animal versions. On the other hand, the cooked weight of beans is around $.25~40/pound, much cheaper than even the grossest low quality meat products. But I think the Boca and Morningstar type products could easily be sold for $1.00~$1.50 a box if grocery stores started to produce generics or by other low-cost brands which make them more on par with the cost of similar meat products.

Coupons are issued in the hopes that you'll get use to the product and pay regular price later.
 
#28 ·
That said, his primary concerns in life (unrelated to veganism, just his way of life) are health and saving money.
Veganism is for him. He just might know it....if he really wants to be healthy.

The vegan diet is the healthiest diet, and it saves money. Pay $20 for a bag of rice....that will feed you for weeks....or a $20 steak, that will feed you for one meal. One will give you a heart attack, one won't.

The reduction in health care costs for vegans is astounding. The numbers don't lie. The US diet will kill you....period. A vegan diet will prolong your life.

Do a search here about the videos, like FORKS OVER KNIVES, VEGUCATED, etc.....along with the multitude of books. It's pretty simple.

He should be a vegan by the end of the week. :naughty:
 
#38 · (Edited)
There are some generic faux meat products in the US. My local grocery store's brand, Publix Greenwise, has several faux meat products, since at least 2011.
That is more of a "private label" product, I've see a couple of examples of this here for veggie burgers but not any of the other fake meats (and I don't think a veggie patty is necessarily fake meat). I've yet to see any true generics which would be packaged in very plain white packaging.

I appreciate that if you had more authoritative information for VB members re who buys/eats fake meats [in the USA] and why its price is relatively high
I'm not sure what "more authoritative information" amounts to, but I answered your questions and described why fake meats are expensive in the US market. Was I suppose to cite my credentials as well? You want me to cite resources for marketing data and that isn't something I can cite regardless of whether I had access to it because its proprietary information. As I said before, I was speaking about matters in a general business/economic framework precisely for that reason and nothing I've discussed hinges on the precise marketing data of particular grocery stores.
 
#39 ·
In theory, the absolute cheapest diet we could have is probably not vegan because being able to pick between more diverse products means that you can always pick the cheapest, especially when there are promotions.


But in practice I doubt that it's how people usually shop. People tend to shop with their guts, not their smart and so if you can force yourself to, for example, buy beans for proteins rather than meat, in general you are gonna save money since the later is generally more expensive.
 
#42 · (Edited)
Fake meats cost so much because of the cost of vital wheat gluten, for one thing. It's the main ingredient in my "sausage" recipe, and it's processed on a mass scale for commercial and home bakers. Vital wheat gluten is not a niche product for vegans, but a common item for bakers. So the factors Logic cited don't apply so much. With so many people giving up gluten without giving up baked goods, I would have expected this product -- this byproduct of separating the protein from the starch in flour -- to drop in price because the starch with its protein removed is more desirable now than it used to be. I pay more to make my own sausages than to buy them, and I pay more to buy them than meat sausages would cost. All that inefficiency of feeding grain and water to cattle and hogs instead of just eating the grain ourselves -- it doesn't show up as lower cost to me, even when I toss in my own labor for free. It gets discouraging if I let myself think about it too much.
 
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