However, it really does depend on what you are buying and eating. Buying basic vegetables and grain products like rice or pasta is not expensive right? It really depends what it is you want to eat. For example, it’s not necessary to eat sea vegetables to be vegan, there are people who don’t like them and can still be vegan, so they are not compulsory. If you do want to include them in your diet then yeah they’re going to be harder to get and will cost more. If your idea of being a vegetarian consists of buying a bunch of veggie ready meals from the supermarket, then yeah that’s gonna be expensive.
As an example of expensive vegan-friendly food, I have a liking for Mochi but I have to order it online and it costs £5.49 for six pieces, which is basically six very small portions – I could easily eat the whole packet at once! I find that to be really expensive for what it is and the amount you get but I don’t need to eat it, it’s just something I’ve taken a liking for.
The UK is fast becoming a processed society too or it might already be there. I just tend to steer clear of the processed foods/convenience food aisles in the supermarket, but I am definitely a minority. I go food shopping tonight so I’ll have a look around but mostly I don’t see many trolleys with fresh produce in them – not because it’s expensive, but because people would rather eat a microwaved dinner or think they don’t have time to cook from scratch.
Basically if you want to eat fresh, natural home cooked vegetarian meals, it’s cheaper. If you need to run around looking for specialty hard to find ingredients then that’s going to bump the price up. Quorn and other meat substitutes are expensive, and I’ve never been keen on them – it always seemed a bit strange that someone would want to eat something that looked and tasted like meat but wasn’t meat.
One of my reasons for becoming a vegetarian in the first place (all those years ago) was to save money! So please don’t think that it’s an expensive way of eating. It can be very cheap and very nutritious at the same time, it’s just that some products that you may want to eat can raise the prices a little especially if you’re on a budget. The alternative is of course, to dig up a bit of your back yard and start growing your own!
