Eating cheap

I was doing some shopping today and stopped to check my choice of sour cream, which I use to add an energy boost to my salads. Astounded at leaving with 6 items having spent nearly $90 (although I do have 3 weeks worth of chicken lunches in the freezer now) I went back over my bill to see where I could save.

In particular, I noticed that of the 6 things I bought, sour creams had a huge variation in cost-per-calorie. If you’re calorie counting, it really pays to pay attention to what’s actually in what you’re buying.

In this example I’ll compare three different brands of sour cream available at new world, in 250g sizes, as well as two “lite” alternatives. I’ll include costs for pre-and post-clubcard discount.

The contestants

First up, is Anchor Original Sour Cream, sporting the following macros (per 100g):

• 3.8 g protein
• 22.3 g fat
• 3.8 g carbs (of which, 3.1 g sugars)
• 953 kJ / 228 kcal

Anchor Original is my go to choice. A 250 g tub costs $4.45, or $3.99 with clubcard – for a cost of $1.78 and $.160 per 100 g respectively. Time to check and see how it holds up…

Our other contestants are:

• Meadow Fresh Traditional
• The Collective Straight Up (squeeze bag instead of a tub – likely a premium for that)
• Anchor Lite
• Meadow Fresh Lite

Sour cream – in numbers

Here’s how they stack up:

Brand	Protein (g/100 g)	Fat (g/100 g)	Carbs (g/100 g)	Energy (kcal/100 g)
Anchor Original	3.8	22.3	3.8	228
Meadow Fresh Traditional	3.5	17.6	5.9	194
The Collective	4.2	12.3	6.8	154
Anchor Lite	4.0	11.4	4.6	136
Meadow Fresh Lite	4.4	10.9	6.7	141

That’s a pretty wide spread – unsurprisingly, the “lite” variants are just less overall, but I was very surprised to see The Collective coming in with just 68% of the calories of Anchor Original. It does have one of the highest protein counts – and protein can lead to feeling fuller, so if you’re struggling to stay within your calorie target, that might end up being the better choice.

But how much do those creams cost, and what’s the cost per calorie?

Pricing it up

In the table below, I’ve calculated the cost per calorie for each option. Where a clubcard discount is an option, the reduced cost is in square brackets []. Because the costs are very low per kcal, I’ve priced it per 1,000 kcal for readability:

Brand	Cost ($/100 g)	Calorie-cost ($/ 1000 kcal)
Anchor Original	1.78 [1.60]	7.8 [7.0]
Meadow Fresh Traditional	1.88	9.7
The Collective	1.98	12.9
Anchor Lite	1.78 [1.60]	13.1 [11.8]
Meadow Fresh Lite	1.88	13.3

That’s quite a swing. From the most expensive cost-per-calorie (unsurprisingly a “lite” variant – Meadow Fresh Lite) to the cheapest is an increase of 70%. The figures here may seem negligible, but if this applies across even half your shop, by cost, that’s a significant expense. Again, if you’re calorie counting.

If you’re always using a fixed amount of a given ingredient then the cheapest per 100 g (assuming you’re on a tight budget) will be the easy choice.

In actual fact I’ve managed to not prove the thing I was trying to set out to show – that sometimes the more expensive option is cheaper in the long run. But hopefully you’ll agree based on this, that it’s entirely possible.

Even though I knew that there was going to be a big swing in cost-per-calorie, I was surprised to find it was as much as this.

In practical terms

It’s not practical to inspect the nutritional value of absolutely every item you buy, nor is it reasonable to expect someone to do so. It would take so much time to do a weekly shop that the prices would probably have changed!

But we can change that. Talking technically for a second, it’s entirely possible to automate this. I don’t mean some pipe-dream, I mean that given a free weekend, fetching prices and nutritional information for absolutely everything in your weekly shop, and making it searchable, is entirely feasible. This is something I’d like to consider making, freely available, in the future.

Wrapping it up

I hope this was informative – and shows just how much different products that may be nominally the same can differ, and that with the right circumstances, big savings could be made with careful choices.