Corner of Bourbon & Division

I think part of the issue is the mainstreaming of foodie-dom, where people simultaneously use "eating well" to mean "eating a delicious, restaurant-quality, home cooked meal out of fashionable ingredients" and "getting all the nutrients you need." You can't do the first on a tight budget. You just can't. There are some few foods for which it's possible to both cut costs and improve quality by cooking from scratch: Home-baked bread, even organic, is both cheaper and better than store-bought if you buy your flour in bulk. Rice, dry pasta and dry beans bought in bulk are cheaper than Kraft Dinner, or for that matter meat. Other than that kind of thing, the only way you can save money by eating more nutritiously is to *only* look at the prices when you're in the produce aisle. We would not be able to eat organic produce if we did not fill up on big sacks of onions and carrots, which are the cheapest organic foods going, and use the more exciting stuff very sparingly.