- The financial advantages to a plant-based lifestyle.
A common misconception is that eating a meat, egg and dairy free diet is financially draining. This is not the case. Whilst it is true that eating at restaurants and buying meat-alternatives (Quorn, Linda McCartney…) can be a bit pricey, although never normally more than the non-vegan option, us plant-based brothers and sisters save a pretty penny on our weekly shop. Here’s our super-simple, super-secret trick: Swap out the meat for beans, peas and pulses.
If it were a boxing match this is how it would turn out...
Round one: Soya Mince vs Lamb Mince.
Fighting out of the green corner…Soya Mince, weighing in at £3.86 per kilo. Fighting out of the red corner… Lamb Mince, weighing in at £12.00 per kilo.
Unanimous winner…Soya Mince. Not only does this product have double the number of serving portions (4 to 2) and has a longer shelf life, but its 3x cheaper per kilo.
Round two: Chickpeas vs Chicken
Fighting out of the green corner, presenting the challenger…Chickpeas, weighing in at £2.30 per kilo. Fighting out of the red corner…Chicken Breast, weighing in at £5.85 per kilo.
Winner by knockout… Chickpeas. If you want more bang for your buck, you’re better off choosing the humble chickpea. For the price of one kilo of chicken breast, you could get your hands on 2.5kg of chickpeas. That’s 20 servings of chickpea, versus 6 servings of chicken
Round three: Beans
The main event of the evening, defending heavyweight champion of the world, winner by abandonment… Beans.
That’s right, the meat opponent didn’t even bother showing up. That’s how great the economic value of beans is. To name a few, you’ve got Baked Beans costing as little as £0.76 per kilo, Pinto Beans at just £1.38 per kilo, and Cannellini Beans costing a very respectable £2.24 per kilo.
Post-fight commentary
Start saving for a raining day by swapping out meat for beans, peas and pulses - the plant-based Holy Trinity. Cook 'em up using our super tasty recipes in our SPICE UP YOUR LIFE section.
We decided to use Tesco since it is the supermarket with the greatest market share in the UK (27.8%),[1] and ranks halfway in terms of value for money compared to the other big UK supermarkets.[2] Where possible we chose Tesco’s own-brand in order to offer a better comparison between products. We appreciate these numbers might fluctuate supermarket to supermarket.
Piggy bank image: Ken Teegardin from Boulder, Boulder [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]