Thrift Week 2022: The Ecofrugal Manifesto

It's been 12 years today since I first decided to revive the celebration of Thrift Week on my blog. Over the years, I've used this week of posts to highlight many different aspects of the ecofrugal life. I've done roundups of my favorite thrift-friendly websites, books, local thrift shops, and recipes. I've challenged myself with a week of vegan eating and a week of local shopping. I've discussed ways to ditch disposable goods and live more sustainably in general.

This year, I decided, it was time to take a step back and look at the big picture: the ecofrugal lifestyle itself. So for Thrift Week 2022, I'm presenting the Ecofrugal Manifesto. Each day will feature a different key principle of the ecofrugal life, one of the most basic guidelines for reducing your burden on the planet and the burden on your budget at the same time. Thus, the entire week will provide a complete crash course in how to live ecofrugally. And I'm starting with...

Ecofrugal Principle #1: Eat Plants

Eating less meat and more plants (veggies, grains, beans, etc.) is a perfect example of an ecofrugal two-fer. Eating plants is indisputably a more sustainable choice; plant-based sources of protein consistently have a lower carbon-footprint than animal-based sources, and with a few notable exceptions (such as nuts), plant foods have a lower water footprint as well. And in general, plant-based foods are also cheaper. A 2021 Oxford study found that for people in high-income countries, a fully vegan diet is the most affordable way to eat, cutting food costs by up to one-third over the typical diet. A 2018 study and a 2020 survey likewise found that meatless diets are cheaper overall than diets with meat.

Mind you, this is not the same as saying that plant-based foods are always cheaper than animal equivalents. Plant foods designed as substitutes for animal foods are almost always pricier. For example:

• Skim milk typically costs around $3 per gallon at our local supermarkets. Almond milk, our preferred nondairy substitute, costs $1.79 per half-gallon at Lidl, or about 19 percent more. (Notably, our homemade almond milk is significantly cheaper than the real thing, but it's lacking in vitamins and calcium.)
  
• The plant-based butter substitutes we typically use in baking, such as Earth Balance and Country Crock Plant Butter, typically cost us around $3.50 per pound. The pound of real butter we bought recently at Lidl for use in my birthday cake (a chocolate brioche, for which Brian was unwilling to trust the butter substitutes) cost $1.64, less than half as much.
  
• Shredded mozzarella cheese costs $2.49 a pound at Aldi, and we can often find the good stuff in block form for only $1.99 a pound. Our homemade vegan mozzarella costs about $7.46 per pound, roughly three times as much. And most store-bought alternatives (which aren't nearly as good) cost still more.
• Impossible Burger costs around $6.29 for 12 ounces, or $8.39 per pound, at Target. That's nearly 25 percent more than real ground beef at $6.79 per pound.
• We recently got a coupon for $1.50 off Just Egg, a plant-based egg substitute, at our local Stop & Shop. But when we checked the price, it was $6 for a container equivalent to eight eggs. Even with the coupon, that works out to the equivalent of 56 cents per egg. The Certified Humane eggs we buy at Lidl are $2.39 per dozen, or 20 cents per egg — and that's pretty pricey as eggs go.

It's these plant-based animal substitutes that give vegetarian and vegan diets an unjustified reputation for being pricey. But these substitutes aren't an essential part of a plant-based diet. If you focus on recipes that are naturally plant-based, or adapt meat-based dishes by simply leaving out the meat rather than using a meat analogue, your meals are likely to be cheaper and also more satisfying. Plant-based diets are only costly when they're really meat-based diets without the meat.

Moreover, if you eat a naturally plant-based diet most of the time, you'll save enough money that you can afford to splurge on these animal substitutes once in a while. That's what we do: our diet is mostly plant-based recipes like the ones covered in my 2018 Thrift Week (mushroom barley soup, pasta fagioli, skillet kugel, stir-fry with tofu), plus a smattering of animal food substitutes (faux mozzarella, Gimme Lean beef) and just a few real animal products (eggs, canned tuna). And if you need proof that this is a frugal way to eat, consider this: according to the 2018 study I mentioned above, "the daily cost of food for a healthy menu plan can be as little as $6.5 per day," yet our food expenses over the past year were a mere $4.50 per person per day. In other words, our healthy, mostly-plant diet comes in at around 70 percent of the USDA's estimated minimum, even with the occasional splurge.

In short, if you want to do just one thing that will save you money and reduce your ecological footprint at the same time, eating less meat is about the best choice you can make. (And if you want to do six more things toward the same goal, stay tuned for the rest of this week.)