Living a gluten free diet is very expensive

DANAC1 · Joined: 09 Jan 2008 Posts: 4

Hello,

I am really in need of any advice, comments, suggestions from everyone who can help. I have just been diagnosed recently with CD and am on a strict GF diet. I have found that the gluten free foods are so EXPENSIVE. I feel like I am eating just to live. The money I make from work is a large portion that goes to my GF diet I feel like I am starting to struggle and not being able to make ends meet with other things I need to take care of because a major portion is going to food. But I have to stay GF or my health will be in danger. I feel healthy and great being GF but I am a single mother of a young infant and it seems to be very hard. Does anyone know of any ways that can help with the expensive products. I have tried on line but that is quite costlyalso. Has anyone experienced this and what kind of assistance, help, coupons does anyone recieve or anything at all. And are there websites or anything that can help?

Thanks,
Dana

celiacmaine-iac · Joined: 19 Dec 2007 Posts: 702 Location: Maine

Hi Dana! The sticker shock is pretty bad when starting out GF. I'm a little short on time, but there are a couple of threads I'll pull to the top for you if someone else hasn't done it yet.

The big thing I found is that I need to cook to keep the cost down. Pre-packaged GF foods are very expensive, and usually not that great. The majority of foods are GF naturally, so keeping it simple for a while is a great way to keep costs down. If you are cooking just for yourself, things like GF pasta will go a long way even though it is more expensive than non-GF. My DH has been out of work all winter, and I've managed to keep our food bills to about $60 a week more or less. I may have more suggestions later, but have to run now.

Steph

cruelshoes · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 2563 Location: Washington State

My favorite subject to talk about!!! My name is Colleen and I am a cheapskate. I like to say I am thrifty or frugal, but I am just tight with a buck. We are a single income household just like you, we just have more kids and one grown up kid (DH) Very Happy

. Our grocery bill has been going up since my kids are getting older, but I think we still do a pretty good job of keeping the costs down.

Eating GF can be expensive, but it doesn't have to be. One way it starts to rack up quickly is when we try to replace our old gluten favorites with a GF version that is exactly the same. For example, a gluten cake mix costs $.79. A decent GF mix can cost 3 or 4 or even 10 times that much. But by not relying on a mix and making it from scratch, the price goes down to not much more than the one we can't have anymore. Poke around the recipe section to get ideas.

If you have an asian market nearby, you can find many of our flours for a fracton of the cost of what you would pay in a health food store or online.

Also, cooking with whole foods can be a big money saver. Rice and beans is inexpensive, filling and versatile. A 10# bag of potatoes can be used for many meals and in many ways. Soups can be made inexpensively with vegetables that are in season or frozen and on sale. Could you have a garden? Even a tomato plant or some carrots are a start. Seeds are inexpensive, it is great fun for kids, the food is fresh, and you control the pesticides. So much can be done in containers if you don't have a yard. Here is a link to the latest issue of Mother Earth News for information on container cardening. Craigslist or freecycle is a great resource for cheap or free planting materials.

Cooking in bulk can be a real money saver. If you do a Google search for once a month cooking (OAMC) you can get lots of ideas to adapt. I used to cook that way, but my big freezer is broken so I have gotten out of the habit. You’d be surprised how much you can get into an over the fridge freezer, however. If you have a casserole or something similar in the freezer, it really helps out after a long day at work.

One of the most powerful tools we have to save money is learning what manufacturers have GF friendly labeling practices. These things are found in regular grocery stores that have sales and take coupons. Here are some links that you might find useful. I do 75% of my shopping at the regular grocery store.
http://forums.glutenfree.com/topic1899.html
http://forums.glutenfree.com/topic35.html

Here are links to some threads that Stephanie bumped for you. I may have repeated some of the info in them above, but here they are anyway.
http://forums.glutenfree.com/topic5066.html
http://forums.glutenfree.com/topic1520.html

Hope this helps and gave you some ideas.
_________________
-Colleen
Dx 8/05 via bloodwork/biopsy
10-YO son Dx 11/05 via bloodwork/biopsy
Daughters (12 and 2) have neg. bloodwork

A woman is like a tea bag-you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water. - Eleanor Roosevelt

celiacmaine-iac · Joined: 19 Dec 2007 Posts: 702 Location: Maine

Colleen, I think you and I were cut from the same cloth. You covered many of the things I would have.

One of the things I do rarely, if ever, is buy meat at full price. Supermarkets rotate their meat sales regularly, so if one week pork is cheap, I buy enough for the month. Chicken might be the next week's special... I put the extra in the freezer every week, so I usually have a good stock of various meats at any given time. You can do this even if you don't have a huge freezer.

We never, and I mean never buy soft drinks. That is like pouring dollar bills down the drain. There is absolutely no nutritional return for the dollar.

Eggs are usually reasonable and make a great protein source.

Plan meals that use a common ingredient, so that if you buy lettuce, for example, you might make a salad one night, and tacos another. It prevents waste. When I have a bunch of different veggies, I make an "every thing but the kitchen sink" soup. Basically, start out with some broth (GF) or even water, throw in some canned tomatoes, various veggies, leftover chicken, potatoes or pasta, whatever. Let it simmer, and season with GF herbs and spices. If you want to get fancy you can saute the veggies first, but it works either way.

You might want to check a couple of GF cookbooks out from the library. There's one I used starting out. It's Gluten-Free Kitchen by Roben Ryberg. Just be aware that not all of her recipes are going to get rave reviews. The only one I've made that I hated from her book was her chocolate cake. Her cheesecake brownies are very good, I love her rolls recipe, and her Danish is very good too. The beauty of her book is that the only flours she uses are cornstarch, and potato starch. It makes it a little easier for a beginner to get started.

Another cookbook author I like is Holly Clegg. She has a lot of quick and easy recipes that are easily adapted to GF, and she doesn't use a lot of exotic (expensive) ingredients.

There are also a lot of recipe sites that have GF recipes. Just google GF recipes, and you'll be amazed what you find.

Every couple of weeks I make a huge batch of waffles and freeze them, and then just pop one in the toaster oven for a quick and easy breakfast, that is much less expensive than buying the pre-made ones. You can do the same thing with pancakes, or muffins. If you've missed the thread, Chex has just come out with GF Rice Chex, so that's a mainstream cereal that will be a little less expensive than health food store GF cereal. Edited to add: Check the Chex box. It will say gluten-free on the front. Not all the stores have them in yet, so there are apt to be non-GF ones there too. Be careful

good luck Dana,
Steph

ostrich · Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 4176 Location: Nebraska

nancw · Joined: 04 Oct 2006 Posts: 855 Location: Denver, CO

Cost of your GF food depends entirely on the choices you make. Colleen and Celimaniac's suggestions on how to stretch your $ are great. Simple = good!

Beyond that, choices like organic vs. non-organic can affect your grocery spending significantly. I choose organic 99% of the time, and I do pay for it. I feel that spending more on high quality organic foods is a win for me. I get great food that provides me with optimal nutrition and a strong incentive to waste nothing. I buy little in the way of processed foods and eat out rarely, if ever. Overall my spending is up, but the returns are higher.

I used to save up to 20% each week using coupons and shopping sales. Anymore it's rare that I buy anything for which a coupon is offered, but I do still stock up on on-sale meats and other simple foods.
_________________
Nance

gluten, dairy, soy, rice, yeast and 99% grain-free

celiacmaine-iac · Joined: 19 Dec 2007 Posts: 702 Location: Maine

Dana...I was thinking this morning that if you could give us an idea of what types of foods you enjoy that maybe some of us could come up with some inexpensive, quick and easy recipes for you. I know that cooking can be hard when you have a new baby, but a couple of cooking sessions a week, or month, might help keep you supplied with some inexpensive meals and treats.

Steph

ali · Joined: 09 Jan 2008 Posts: 56 Location: NC

aklap · Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 8615 Location: WI, USA

I'll add this in here too. It's from Our Thread on Dietitian's Resources

The Celiac Diet #8 - The Gluten-free Diet: Can Your Patient Afford It?"
Practical Gastroenterology April 2007

Pam Cureton, RD, LDN, Center for Celiac Research,
Growth and Nutrition Clinic, Baltimore, MD.

http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/digestive-health/nutritionarticles/CuretonArticle.pdf

celiacmaine-iac · Joined: 19 Dec 2007 Posts: 702 Location: Maine

Ali said:

cruelshoes · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 2563 Location: Washington State

ali · Joined: 09 Jan 2008 Posts: 56 Location: NC

celiacmaine-iac · Joined: 19 Dec 2007 Posts: 702 Location: Maine

One thing I don't think any of us mentioned here is that WalMart clearly labels gluten-free when one of their Great Value products qualify. WalMart is pretty reasonable price wise.

Steph

The Edifying Conscience · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 2443

While pre-packaged, processed GF foods are more expensive than the NGF variety one's diet need not depend on those items. As someone mentioned above the least expensive way to eat those items is to make them from scratch. Learn to make your own bread, cookies, etc. They'll be a heck of a lot cheaper and taste much, much better than those over priced products.

I think one of the easiest ways to minimize food spending is by shopping the perimeter of the grocery store. It seems to me all of the over priced (and chemically laden) foods are in the center aisles. It's possible to enjoy wonderful gluten-free foods without killing the budget - rice, potatoes, squash, etc. are naturally GF. Trader Joes sells GF brown rice pasta for $1.99 per pound bag. Lots of other stores have lesser priced GF products as well.

Mom2BoyzOnly · Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 50 Location: Indiana

I agree with you for sure. But on our recent trip to Nashville, TN, we located a Whole Foods store nearby. (There isn't one within a 90 mile range of home.) I was excited by all the GF products that I can never find close to home and ended up spending $141! It's probably good that it isn't closer, but then again, if I had easy access I doubt I would spend as much either. Razz

_________________
Robin
Diagnosed approx 13 yrs ago
Seriously GF past 4 yrs