Cutting UPFs from our grocery list was expensive, laborious and time-consuming
Grocery shopping looks different these days. On Saturday mornings, instead of the local supermarket, I’m at the farmers’ market, loading up on fish, meat, apples, cheese and berries – enough for a family of four.
But it’s not a cheap excursion; our weekly grocery spend is now higher than it was when we decided to try to cut ultra-processed foods (UPFs) from our diet five years ago.
In 2021, we spent $158.63 on cereal; in 2025, the total was $34.34.
Our yoghurt costs went from $260.29 in 2021 to $24.27 in 2025.
We no longer buy protein bars, which cost us $261.04 in 2021.
Our peak expenditure on frozen chicken tenders was in 2020, when we spent $159.76. For the past two years we haven’t bought any.
Butter more than quadrupled between 2021 and 2025, to $234.22.
The total in the sugar column went from $9.47 to $83.10 (I did a lot more baking last year).
The biggest leap was for fruit and vegetables: $2,578.32 in 2021 became $5,706.36 last year.
In 2021, we started buying meat that was humanely raised by farmers and ranchers using regenerative agriculture practices. We spent a lot in this category, almost $2,500 on raw beef and chicken (the previous year, we spent about $1,500). The following year, 2022, we dropped our meat expenditure down to about $1,000 by eating a lot less of it, and more dried beans.
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