bad grocery advice

Most advice on this is useless. "Shop the perimeter" is actually wrong, since frozen and canned are in the middle aisles and that's where the best value in the store is.

Here's what's actually cheap.

Protein Per dollar

This is really important since protein is more expensive than carbs, and what matters is the price of it per dollar more than just the price:

• Dried beans, around $2 a pound, which is roughly 45 grams of protein

• Canned beans, $1.20 to $1.80 a can, about 20 grams

• Peanut butter, around $4 a jar, 7 grams per serving

• Canned tuna, $1.50 to $2 a can, 20 grams

• Milk, about $4 a gallon, 8 grams per cup

• Tofu, $2 to $3 a block, around 40 grams

• Whole chicken, cheaper per pound than breasts by a lot

Compare that to a protein bar at $2.50 for 10 grams and the gap is obvious.

Frozen vegetables run $1.50 to $2.50 a bag and don't go bad in four days, which matters more than people admit. Produce you throw out is the most expensive produce there is.

They're also picked and frozen at ripeness, so the nutrition holds up fine against fresh that spent a week in a truck. Frozen berries beat fresh on price by a wide margin most of the year.

Overpriced: Pre cut fruit and vegetables, individually packaged anything, protein bars, bottled smoothies, and drinks with health claims on the front. (Anything labeled as a superfood.)

Store brand is almost always the same product, sometimes literally from the same plant, at 20 to 40 percent less.

Cheap staples: Rice, about $1.50 a pound. Oats, around $4 for a big container that lasts weeks. Bananas, under a dollar a pound. Potatoes, under a dollar a pound. Frozen vegetables.

That's most of a functional grocery list and it's not expensive.

This list is boring, and that's the actual problem with eating cheap and well. It's not that people don't know rice and beans are affordable. It's that cooking takes time, the same meals get old, and a lot of people are shopping tired after work.

Pick two or three swaps and keep them. Frozen vegetables instead of fresh you won't finish, store brand instead of name brand, a bag of beans instead of protein bars. That's most of the savings without changing how you cook.