Low tide at Broken Glass Beach.

If you ever spent time with me shopping for food you'd get to hear me rant about the common myth that eating healthy food is too expensive. But since only my immediate family is saddled with that burden, I'm going to share the love right here.

Now, as I've mentioned, we tend to buy a lot of our staples in bulk, which definitely lowers our cost-per-meal, but, the truth is, if you're willing to go the route of grains and beans, even shopping at the grocery store is pretty cheap. Also, we've started using more dried beans (rather than canned) which cuts their cost in half. One other thing: we're actually at a disadvantage in that we only have one grocery store. We compensate for this deficiency by buying food through a co-op and a farmer's collective. Kind of gives you a bit of that off-the-grid feeling, so, in the end, it's a net positive. Plus, as everybody knows, local is better.

Pulling myself back from that digression, what I would simply like to do here is point out the cost of a typical meal in our household. Keep in mind that it costs a family of four about $22 to eat at McDonald's and that our meals are quick and easy to prepare. OK, so last night's ingredients:

Quinoa .50
Beans .65
Spinach .99
Diced tomato 1.25
Garlic .15
________________________
Total: $3.54

And we had leftovers!