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 our local San Diego 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 in 2021 to $83.10 in 2025 (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.