I have heard many times that it is MORE EXPENSIVE to be a vegetarian, because food costs more. But today at work I was going through an entire aisle of over the counter medicine's, pain relievers, and all sorts of suppressants and came up with a theory on how it might be more expensive to actually be a meat eater!



I saw 1000's and 1000's of products, and it made me wonder who actually uses and needs this stuff? I understand the pain relievers and medicine for fighting the flu and colds. I also understand a lot of the other medicine for older people, BUT, I seemed to notice a lot of stuff for diarreah, gas, stomach pain, acid burn, etc.. I never need any of this stuff.. and I began thinking maybe that is because I have no dead matter going through my body or digestive system.



Do you think that eating meat is the cause of such digestive pains and problems?? I understand that my personal experiences can't shape the rest of the worlds situation's, but I do ponder whether or not vegetarians and vegans even need medicine like this?

Yes, meat, dairy and egg consumption can cause many people digestive trouble. I have irritable bowel syndrome, and at the top of the list of things to avoid in any literature about this condition are animal products. I know this is true of pretty much all other digestive disorders as well.



As for other reasons vegetarianism or veganism can be expensive, if you buy a lot of prepackaged veggie foods, a lot of those are expensive, including fake meats. If you make the majority of your food from scratch, it should probably be less expensive, unless maybe you're buying all organic.



And of course you could argue that anyone eating a diet rich in veggies, fruits, whole grains, legumes, etc. and low in saturated fats and cholesterol would probably save on medical expenses in the long run.

Yeah, come on ... its a marketing spin. If food is good for you it MUST be expensive, right?

Go into a restaurant, order a veg*m meal, and pay £10/$20 for it ... and you'll get exactly what the bloke on the next table gets minus his meat, and you'll pay the same!



Veg*n food is expensive because vendors/retailers/etc can get away with it.. it is as simple as that.



I agree that packaged veg*n food will be a "little" more expensive than it might be, but that is because quantity of these is low. Still, often these are more expensive that the meat equvilent... A veggie burger costing 2 times the cost of a meat one ... hmmmm.... they know they can screw veg*ns, and they do!



I've given up totoally on packaged "veg*n" food.. on the whole, it tastes awful, is full of additives and leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and pocket!



I have always wondered about all those heartburn/gas/digestive medicines... I've never taken them, my parents have never taken them.. their parents never did either.... could well be a "meat eater only" thing.. maybe digesting meat is harder with our lazier lifestyles...

Well,I think the produce where I live is more expensive than that of those in California.

I think it can be more expensive if all you buy is processed food, but then again omni processed food can get quite expensive at times as well

If you can cook with basic ingredients (beans, rice, potatoes, vegetables) then you're pretty much sorted.

Yeah, it's all because of supply and demand. Premade veg*n food is more expensive because they need to charge more to stay in business since the demand is so low. If half the world were veg*n, veg*n food would be CHEAPER than meat, by far.

(I have no actual data to back any of that up, but I'm sure of it)

Vegan convenience foods tend to be more expensive because they are specialty items.



I pay more per Amy's meal than I ever did for the Lean Cuisine meals I used to buy back in my omni days.



But, the base ingredients for vegan foods, such as grains, vegetables, and fruits, really aren't that expensive. It just takes more effort to make meals out of them because you have to be able to cook! (Which I am not very good at, hence the reliance on Amy's meals. ^^;; )

Yes, I do. I never use any of those products (not that i would as they have animals in them).



I think it is more expensive to be a flesh eater. I do a lot of cooking from scratch and rarely use "conveinence " items.

I think its more expensive if you're living off of convenience foods, but isn't it always more expensive to live off convenience foods?



I'd like to say your digestive theory is bunk cause I haven't eaten meat in 10 yrs, and recently gave up dairy/eggs to see if it would help my irritable bowel disease and its not done ANYTHING for my belly. I'm still sick all the time. What triggers belly aches is different for everyone.

Yes, that is true, but meat and dairy are very common triggers for IBS and very common irritants for people with other digestive ailments. That doesn't mean they are for everyone, but for the majority of people with these problems they are.

I didn't buy any more medication as an omnivore than I do as a vegetarian.



And my grocery bill is a lot more than it used to be since going vegan.

Honestly, i must say it is more expensive to be vegetarian. Vegetables and fruits (organic or otherwise) can be expensive, especially if you expect to use fresh and not frozen. In terms of convenience foods- that's where you get killed- Veganaise, Mckay's bullion powder, nutritional yeast, veggie burgers- none of these things come cheap- they are at least 3 bucks an item. I can get chicken quarters here for 25 cents a pound, but a 1lb block of tofu costs $2.



That being said- do i think it's worth it, hell yeah. Instead of paying all of the hospital bills later, I just pay some more for groceries and save myself a lot of pain. My digestive and respiratory (sp?) problems were all solved by my going vegan. No more trips to the hospital because my asthma has gone out of control again. So yeah, it's expensive, but totally worth it.

I wish they were, cause then that would be the end of this. Apparently not though, otherwise I expect I'd be much better than I am.

Id rather be rich in health and spirit than posessions.



I loathe prepacked foods. I love working magic in the kitchen, its all part of the fun.



Me and my fiancee have bought our first home, but we don't have £££'s to throw around. Convenience food is the scum of the universe, overpriced, pumped full of additives and far less satisfying than a home cooked meal. You want fast food? Try a veggie stir fry or Chopping up some veggies and eating them in tortillas. Even quicker than microwaving stuff.





But on the subject of price. Food branded 'Organic' is expensive. We pick the stuff that isn't, usually fresh, (more expensive than) frozen and tinned. We live very cheaply - we even have lots of money for wine and ice cream at the end of a shop.



In the local hypermarket there are sections for vegan and organic foods (with the exception of food prone to spoilage) - the food is always more expensive for the what shops consider 'novelty' or 'specialised'. I hate that, Im not vegan - but its a lifestyle, not a special occassion where you can 'splash' out.

I have a friend who says he can't afford to be a vegetarian.

Sure, you can have the "less health problems" argument, but that means very little to a twentysomething.

He just sees the package of Riblets or soy chicken nuggets that cost $4 or $5 for a small box, and then sees a comprable packaged meat product, and the latter IS cheaper.

For many college students, it's the end of the question right there.

that's true peace- i'm a college student and when my friends and I go food shopping with me they say things like- "man, how can you afford that?" and believe me- I dont have money to throw around b/c I am paying my own way thru school. But the thing people don't realize is that most things are not that bad if you just put a little effort into it, and most people don't like to put effort into most things any way, vegetarianism/veganism just happens to be one of those things. (did that make any sense, because I'm really tired right now)

Hey I use those products I have digestive problems, that doesn't mean I eat meat!

For me, it was initially much more expensive to be Vegan than to be an omni, because I had to change out most of my pantry items, and I started using different spices, which can be expensive on the front end. Also, because I didn't know a lot about cooking Vegan, I ate a lot of prepackaged convenience items at first.



Now, it's actually much cheaper to be Vegan, and I purchase quite a bit of organic food. I can get organic dry lentils for 70 cents a pound, US, for instance, and a pound of dried lentils is a TON of food. In terms of over the counter remedies, I use a lot less than I used to, personally. Other than a very mild case of stomach flu in December, I haven't been sick once since going veg, and I use a LOT less pain medication than I used to because I don't get attacks of arthritus all the time, my back does't go out every other month, and I don't get menstrual cramps anymore. I don't need Tums anymore, ever. I feel a lot healthier as a Vegan overall.



Some things remain more expensive. Soy milk is quite a bit more expensive than cow milk, and I drink a lot more soy milk than I ever did cow milk. Other things are a lot cheaper. I get organic golden flax via mail order for like $3.50 US for a gallon container of whole seeds. They keep forever, don't require refrigeration and are the equivilant of dozens and dozens of eggs. In terms of household products, cruelty-free is a lot more expensive than P & G. However, I've learned a ton of new uses for distilled vinegar, which is only about 70 cents a gallon and a lot cheaper than the cleaners I used to use. And I've found a couple of brands of laundry detergent that seem more expensive until you read the label and realize that you only need a tablespoon instead of a cup per load.

My grocery bill was HUGE yesterday. Part of that was restocking on some expensive goods like a big bottle of genuine maple syrup, cat litter, etc., but even so, it was high. I pin the blame squarely on organics. My gala apples work out to nearly $1 each. While this is worth the money to me, it's definitely more expensive than "conventionally grown" (pesticide-ridden) produce, and so I wouldn't put the blame for more expensive groceries entirely on convenience foods.

A few years back (when it was actually a decent magazine) Vegetarian Times ran an article about a woman who challenged her meat-eating friend to compare grocery bills for a week. They both had the same size families and similar lifestyles so it was a fair comparison. At the end of the week, the vegetarian woman had spent far less on groceries. And they also figured out the nutritional content of both family's meals and the vegetarian family's was better.



The non-vegetarian woman was very surprised by the results of the experiment and a s a result, she started incorporating more vegetarian meals into her family's meal plan.



I wish Vegetarian Times still actually ran articles like these. Now it is just a generic glossy food and general health mag that doesn't even seem like it has vegetraian writers or editors.

I found that my grocery bill went down. Waaaayyy down. Produce here is pretty reasonable and our local stand sells the locally grown, organic stuff so... double-bonus! I also don't use many convenience foods and I only get soy milk when it's on sale. Those things add up to lower costs all around.



Add to that, that I don't get sick as often so I'm not keeping cold medicine companies well in business and I'm not eating heartburn meds like candy so there's more savings there as well. I'm also getting good fiber in my diet so things like fiber drinks, pills, wafers and that stuff I'm also saving money on because I don't need to buy them.



Plus, I'm not running to the doctor for this, that, and the other thing so I'm saving a fortune in office visit and perscription costs.



The only real expense in my kitchen is my spices, but I've even found a good, cheap source for that.

Depending on how I'm shopping, I can spend more or less than my omni friends. At one point, I was living off of a food budget of $10/wk (and thanks to some advice from y'all, I was able to eat quite well, too! MUCH better than Ramen, which was my early-college diet..ick). Now, I can easily spend $125 a grocerty trip, but that's only if I go 'all-out,' shop when I'm hungry, and splurge on lots of analogues and organics. I don't buy many name brand cleaning products (vinegar is fab!) or paper products (plates, napkins) so that helps keep the bill low. A bag of dry beans is much much cheaper than the canned, and a can of beans is much cheaper than the equivilant of meat that an omni might eat for protein or taco filling, etc. I don't drink a lot of soy milk, but I was never a cow milk drinker either, so when I'd buy the cow-stuff, it'd go bad and I'd throw it out--complete waste of money; at least soy milk comes in smaller boxes that you can keep in your pantry until you need them! The thing is, even when I DO splurge, I find that I won't need to go back to the store for weeks, esp if I buy canned food, long-lasting fruit (apples/grapefruit/oranges) and frozen veggies and frozen analogues (burgers). I KNOW I save money by making my own lunches and skipping the fast food trap that so many of my friends find 'convenient.' They might gasp at my grocery bill occasionally, but I know that if we actually itemized all our food purchases for two months, not even counting the healthy-factor, I'd come out ahead (spending less).

I think part of the reason why it seems that being vegetarian is so expensive is because, in a world designed for omnis, it's inconvenient. It takes time to look through ingredients, and to buy the fresh veggies for a stir fry, than to just pop a hot-pocket in the oven. I think being veg*n does have some added expense because cheeses and soy milk do cost more than their omni equivilent, but veg*ns save in other areas (like health). I really think it's more of how you spend, and how much time to put into your eating.

The cost for me is about the same though I notice there are rarely coupons for vegetables other than canned items

I guess there are somethings we suffer from less, so it's cheaper from that point of view. Whenever I am sick other people are quick to say 'ah - that's what you get for being veggie' but they don't seem to take into account that a) NOBODY is resistant to being ill at least sometimes and b) I'm actually ill a lot less often than most of them. For example, in my current job where i have been for 2.5 years, i have never taken a sick day but many of my meat-eating colleagues have taken half a dozen or more in that period easily.



Expense in terms of food can go one way or the other. I find that being vegan to buy things like 'sausages' or 'burgers' or soya milk, it is quite a bit more expensive than buying animal based versions. On the other hand if you avoid processed foods, buying pulses and veg is cheaper than buying cheese and meat. But I have to admit that i do buy the processed stuff sometimes because i can't always be bothered to cook properly. So in my case the two extremes probably balance each other out.



Kerry x

Hell, the first time I went shopping as a vegetarian I knew it was cheaper. Not only wasn't I paying oodles for meat products, but you're right. I now only need medicatiosn VERY rarely...my daughter has almost zero trips to the doctor because she's never sick. Neither am I.



I've always maintained that my life is much less expensive as a vegetarian than it was as an omni.



B

The only thing I find that's more expensive is soymilk rather than cow's milk, especially since I buy only fortified soymilk and my bf and I get through a lot of it a week.



And the argument that vegetables and fruits are very expensive makes me laugh. Surely everyone, veg*n or omni, should be eating lots of them anyway!



It's only the convenience foods that make a big difference, IMO, and it's generally advised that they should be kept to a minimum in anyone's diet.



I still get mildly ill fairly regularly as a vegan, but I tend to recover much quicker than I used to, so I definitely use less over-the-counter medication.

Well, when I was buying my own groceries (in the summer, when I had a job), I spent about $25 every two weeks, which is waaaaay less than when I ate meat. So that argument doesn't quite hold up.

I need your guys' shopping lists and menus...