Grocery Costs On A Whole Food Plant Based Vegan Diet
Before switching to a whole food plant-based vegan diet my grocery cart would be full of meats, cheeses and animal products every week. These items were on a weekly rotation through my cart along with a few token vegetables, tortilla chips, cereal and coffee. When I decided to add these exclusively to my cart app and see how much I spent each week I was stunned to realize that it was $60.
These prices are from my local Walmart Grocery app and may not reflect your current regional comparative prices. Prices may have changed since taking these screenshots as well.
Sixty bucks every week I no longer spend (if not every two weeks) on items that would make us feel not so good. However, over the course of the year and a half that I’ve been eating/cooking WFPBV a few of these items had trickled in when someone else got groceries as not everyone in my house is completely plant based (yet!) but I noticed lately that it has dramatically, if not completely, stopped. I can’t recall the last time my husband brought home some ground beef to supplement my lentil taco filling or chicken wings to grill along with my veggies. That’s a win in my book!
Of course we have replaced most of these with plant based options so we don’t exactly spend $60 less every week but I have found that those plant based options are surprisingly less expensive all around.
Take for example milk. We used to go through a gallon of diary milk every week (two every paycheck). My kids and husband would drink a glass with every meal, have it on their cereal and I would bake with it. Since switching to a plant based milk we go through a half gallon every two weeks now. They no longer drink a glass of it with each meal, instead they have water. They don’t have as much cereal as they used to either as they mix in oats or I make a potato hash for breakfasts. Plant based milks can also be used one-for-one in any baked good. So what used to be almost $6 every two weeks is now only a little more than $2.50.
And what also used to be eggs and bacon at least 2 - 3 times a week for $13.90 in the mornings has now been traded for $4 oats with fruit that usually lasts for a couple of weeks.
As far as meat replacements on a WFPBV diet we use beans, lentils and mushrooms. Those are significantly cheaper than meat. I’ll take $3.52 any day over $20.25!
So I challenge you to try to save a little money in your grocery bill and replace some of these items with plant-based options and see if you are pleasantly surprised as well. Let me know what some of your favorite (and cheapest) swaps have been!