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This article is intended to show consumers how to save money in every area of their life by helping them to recognize the most important aspects of the daily diet, and how to properly prioritize their grocery list in order to the meet the requirements for maintaining a low-cost, healthy lifestyle that is not confined to the purchase of "sale" items, or smothered in remedies and chemicals designed to compensate for, clean up after, and ward-off the effects a poor diet wreaks on the body and the average household.

Hopefully, readers will bear with me, since I generally branch off on a few relevant side-subjects in these types of articles. Nonetheless, all of the information is essential to understanding how to reduce food costs, and is necessary to paint a clear picture of the nature of our changing markets, and their reliance on the evolution of our species in the new information age.

This article deals with basic nutrition, resourcefulness rather than reliance (avoiding sale items), reducing the need for costly cleaners and drugs by eating a healthy diet, avoiding the pitfalls of processed foods, and learning to budget a lifestyle that is based on the grocery list, instead of vice versa.

First of all, there are many contemporary articles popping up on the internet that appear to be chocked full of good advice for eating on a budget.

However, a majority of them never take into account the actual nutritional needs of the body, and instead simply offer recommendations for low cost, high fat, high calorie, nutrient deficient and sugary items that simply fill the hungry void without actually satisfying the body's requirements.

This type of diet typically causes consumers to snack in between meals, and reduces brain function, as well as energy levels. Furthermore, if consumed for long periods of time - as typically occurs once it has become a habit - this kind of diet will eventually cost much more in doctor visits, medications and various other products designed to counter its effects. The toxicity it creates, and the destabilization of the body's natural functions which occur as a result, can be both difficult and expensive to treat.

Most of the over-the-counter remedies sold in stores, such as Pepto-Bismol, Tums, various cold and flu medications, aspirin, hydrocortisone ointments and many, many others, are simply products needed to neutralize the effects of a majority of the items those same stores are offering as food.

To understand specifically where the inequities lie, and how to see the manipulation for what it is, including how debilitating it can become, I will begin with a recent article that claims to offer good advice for eating on a budget. The MSNBC article "3 meals plus snacks for $4 a day", written by Donna Freedman - and appearing in the MSN Money section - tells readers that food prices are "rising faster than they have in three decades." Now, while this may appear to be reflected in the average family grocery bill, it is hardly correct.

Gold, silver and platinum have also gone through the roof in recent years, as have gas prices, and this is basically because the dollar is falling and national priorities are in flux. But that is for another article.

The reason it is relevant to this article, is because the cost of food is also "in flux", and it based on energy costs, changing consumers, information availability, political wrangling, and a whole host of new investment instruments that are allowing stock brokers to drive the price of commodities in unethical fashion.

Therefore, this creates a sub-market for plenty of high quality, highly nutritional items that can be made available at very reasonable prices. Even when they are relegated to the "fancy schmancy" list Mrs. Freedman's article warns consumers to avoid.

Farmers markets, local purveyors, and even some national chains are realizing burgeoning profit margins based mainly on the ability to supply consumers with a direct to market product, and thus naturally prodding shoppers to choose more healthy foods.

One great part of eating a healthy vegan diet is that a green meal is perfect anytime of day, and is actually the best breakfast of all. It sustains energy levels and staves off hunger better than any breakfast full of starches, eggs and meats. It is even better than oatmeal and orange juice.

The primary objective for the consumer must be to purchase foods that are fresh, wholesome and nutritional, without breaking the bank. Thus, it is necessary to "know your food", and recognize the various food groups that each and every item fall within. This helps to broaden the selection, while maintaining equal nutrition.

For instance, rice is very high in nutrients such as niacin and amino acids, as long as it is brown rice or some other kind of dark wild rice. Therefore, while the fancy item may be too costly, there will generally be a brand that can deliver an identical amount of nutrients at a much lower price.

If one is unable to access basic staples, then fortified cereals can assist greatly in delivering essential nutrients to the body. However, if it is best to choose cereals that are low in sugar, such as Shredded Wheat and Grapenuts.

One of the best ways to reduce costs on staples - such as rice - is to shop at stores that offer them in bulk, like Mother's Markets or Whole Foods. This way, consumers can choose just how much they want to purchase, and also mix-and-match to create an even more resilient and complex variety of nutrients.

There will generally be a healthy brown rice selection priced between $1 and $2 per pound, and a wild rice selection at about $4 to $6 per pound. This allows consumers to create a mixture of nutrient-rich and delicious rice tailored to their budget.

If neither of these are either available or affordable, then a soy product such as tofu can provide much of the same nutrients. However, it is best to limit the amount of soy consumed since it is high in an estrogen mimicking plant sterol that inhibits hormonal function in women and can eventually sterilize men. Don't be too alarmed, though, it takes a lot of soy to reach an intolerable level, and the Japanese are proof that it can be consumed daily without adverse effects.

Lentils and garbanzo beans are other excellent sources of nutrition, and generally are as inexpensive as rice. At the end of this article is a recipe for a brown and wild rice, vegan lentil soup that is delicious, extremely nutritious, and very inexpensive. One pot can provide 8 to 12 servings and costs approximately $8.50 to prepare.

The Freedman article begins with a section titled "Make menus based on sales", which is terrible advice on many levels. One of them being, that it ignores the objective of sustaining the body, and expects the formula to operate in reverse - from solution to equation, rather than vice versa.

Freedman expects people to eat what they can afford, rather than find ways to afford what they can eat. And this is a dangerous way to structure the human diet.

It is best to avoid any notion of a diet based on sale items, and instead seek to understand what is required to sustain one's body according to the nutrients needed for each particular person considering the performance desired. This will allow consumers to avoid the unnecessary items that are often on sale, and budget according to what is available once the essential items have been accounted for.

The essential items are those that deliver at least 50% raw fresh green protein. This is what the body requires at a minimum. Regardless of whether a person is a vegetarian or a meat lover, the body requires the live enzymes and fresh oxygenating waters that persist among all fresh leafy greens.

A diet rich in the essentials necessary to sustain a healthy, energetic body will reduce costs for just about every other need associated with the daily maintenance of the average consumer.

A person whom does not require excessive fumigation to cover inordinate levels of body odor, or chemicals and astringents necessary to protect them from microorganisms inherent to a lifestyle that is saturated with dead flesh, or medications to combat the debilitating effects of a system clogging diet, or supplements designed to increase mental clarity due to a digestive tract that is no longer capable of delivering more than 20% of food nutrients to the body, or -- well, you get it -- is a person who is saving a great deal of money each month.

Freedman, in her attempts to constrain her diet within an imposed budget, almost completely avoids any actual vegetables during her shopping spree, and almost exclusively purchases fruits during her obviously short visit to the produce section of the five markets she patronized in her search for sale items.

Not only does she ignore the excessive amounts of sugar contained in the oranges, bananas and apples. And neglects to mention that these fruits can only sustain the body for very short periods of time that invariably end in an alcohol-rich system crash. She likely burned a significant portion of her shopping day's calories running from location to location.

Freedman also fills her basket with many sale items that are unnecessary, and run up her food costs. Mainly because she purchased according to what was on sale, rather than what she needed.

There are Butterfinger bars, M&Ms, cookies, ketchup, mustard, sweet and low, butter, mayonnaise and all sorts of over-processed, unhealthy, debilitating products tossed into her shopping cart. For anyone on a budget (or anyone at all, actually) the first things that must be cut form the grocery list are the superfluous junk foods, condiments, and sweeteners such as those listed above.

Furthermore, these consumables are expensive to produce - yet cheap to buy - and increase the cost of other more healthy, but less work intensive and thus less valuable, items. This is due to the fact that the over-processed items possess a very long shelf life, and thus they can be priced according to gains and losses expected or realized in other departments, such as the produce isle which is stocked with very perishable vegetables.

I don't mention fruits, since they can actually last much longer than vegetables due to their high sugar content. It is the really healthy foods that break down first, and for obvious reasons; i.e. there quick bioavailability to the human body.

Take, for instance, the fact that restaurants routinely lose money on items such as shrimp, lobster and steaks. While simultaneously offsetting the costs by pricing salads, soups and sides at 5, 10 and even 50 times what they are worth.

This is just one example of how an unhealthy diet, that is rich in those things the human being is not designed to eat - and in light of the fact that the Earth is not capable of producing them in high quantities, and thus their habitual use is entirely unsustainable - can affect nearly everything in the marketplace, and can drive up costs for consumers whom make healthier, more sustainable, choices.

The fact is that supermarkets are no different in this respect, and the prices of one set of consumers' items are typically contingent on how the costs can be offset by the prices attached to another set consumers' items. What is, however, most prevalent across the board is the practice of requiring that all consumers absorb the costs of waste that the entire food industry is guilty of excessively exacerbating with its lethargic and incompetent manufacturing and delivery systems. But I digress.

Eating on a budget is not as difficult as it often is made to appear. The primary inequity in the food cost equation is the consistent attempt to purchase specific items that are either popular, or simply an habitual aspect of consumers' unhealthy dietary choices.

In choosing to quit eating meat and animal by-products many years ago, I have saved thousands per year by disabusing both my body and my budget of a whole host of products that I now no longer require or desire. And while I do not necessarily expect people to take this leap of intellectual faith to the extreme that I have, it is imperative that the myths surrounding the vegan diet be completely shattered with real experimental data that is based on empirical proof that sheds relevant light on the true realms of healthy human consumption; and for the sake of all humans.

The many maladies that I was convinced were inherent within the human species, and a terminal part of growing old, have all proven to be nothing more than adverse effects suffered as a result of consuming the many inhospitable and debilitating "foods" I had been taught to eat on a daily basis in order to sustain and maintain my body.

It is, quite unfortunately, very obvious that the food industry, now allowed to pervaded the entire planet, is, on many levels, selling the vast majority of consumers a great many destructive and degrading products that are part of a consumption atmosphere that is based on audacious lies.

Food industries are currently engaging in some of the most scurrilous and unethical marketing techniques I have ever seen. Moreover, I have personally witnessed the food industry become increasingly nefarious, and insidiously destructive, over the last 35 years, as consumers have slowly had the shopping bag pulled over their heads and cinched tight with a bovine noose.

One of the more surreptitious mechanisms of manipulation that had me baffled for nearly a decade, was the denigration and demoralization of vegans and vegetarians. My puzzlement essentially stemmed from the fact that most of them appeared to be rather unhealthy in many respects. They were typically excessively pasty, too thin, suffering from colds and flues at nearly identical rates as omnivore's, and so-on.

What I finally discovered is that the average vegan was not really a vegan at all, they were merely non-meat-eaters. Rather than eat the grains and vegetables they should have been, they generally selected over-processed soy and grain products that were made to look, feel and taste like the meats they had grown accustomed to eating. I don't say "addicted to" or anything because that would be a misnomer. People are largely just rebellious in their refusal to face the fact that food can easily become dangerous when one's selections are based on how pleasing it has become to the human tongue.

The truth is that everything on the planet requires green protein. Even the carnivores are merely default mechanisms of nature that exist as they do because they have evolved that way.

The alpha male of any predatory pride - who gets first dibs on whatever the pack kills - chooses the stomach and intestines, searching for the pre-digested, raw greens that are essential to a healthy body. The poor lion would likely choose a more amenable diet if he had the opportunity. Alas, his system is specifically designed to avoid, and compensate for, the toxins in meat. Human body's are not.

However, the most prevalent myth surrounding the vegan diet is that it requires increased consumption, and is difficult to provide for. Conversely, the fact is that the vegan diet actually reduces consumption, and is supremely more simple than the omnivorous diet.

A vegan can walk into any store and purchase food to eat on the way home, providing they are capable of washing the vegetables they purchase. However, nuts, some fruits that are body efficient, and various grains are easily consumed at any time, absent any cooking or preparation.

Water is also a much more effective element in the vegan body. The average omnivorous person is not equipped to make use of water in the way that vegans are, and do not metabolize it in such a way that allows them to tap into its energizing qualities.

Many superfluous factors inherent to the omnivorous diet are also avoided, and thus increase the overall savings realized, by the vegan diet. First of all, the required elements of safety essential to the omnivorous diet are not even present in the vegan diet.

Regardless of the many infectious elements food suppliers and governments are introducing into the vegetable supply on this planet, they are not in any way inherent within the agricultural food chain.

The only way the microorganisms and toxins are being introduced is via animal fecal matter that is present in the fertilizers, and many times sprayed on foods. Or mad science that has been allowed to experiment with technology that enables bio-scientists to insert extremely dangerous proteins into the genes of plants, upsetting the biological tree of life through Genetic Modification of living Organisms (GMO), and thereby set a precedent that could deliver a global killer via the food supply.

I will shortly be posting a full analysis on the latest E. coli bacterial outbreak in Germany, that was obviously the result of GMO meddling, given the properties of gene structure manipulation that allowed this particular strain to become more hospitable to the body, while increasing its mortality rate. There is no doubt that the method was genetic, and was delivered via a phage mechanism that has allowed it to horizontally mutate.

The dangers appear to be reaching far beyond mere profits, and into the realms of research and development of bio-weapons. There is every indication that some recent outbreaks, and various wide-berth environmental toxicities from noxious and deadly chemicals that have sickened hundreds in their path, have been test runs of bio-weapons as a means of determining their effectiveness.

Furthermore, there are many indications of widespread collusion within the food chain that has suppliers engaging in activities that appear to be aimed at discrediting competitors with the deadly contamination of high yield products such as vegetables and sprouts.

The meat, milk and cheese industries have been coming under fire in ways that are unprecedented throughout their history, and are fighting back with only one objective in mind: Profits. They do not truly care just how many people are hurt as a result of their activities, or the skyrocketing health industry costs and dangerous pharmaceuticals consumers are thereby persuaded to ingest. Nor are they concerned with the fact that their activities have been proven to be expressly debilitating to the environment, as well as entirely unsustainable.

Profits, and a lack of concern for consumer health, are what have driven dairy farmers to incessantly employ hormones, antibiotics and all manner of abuses to the animals in a bid to produce more and more milk each year.

Furthermore, the cheese suppliers who are expertly aware of these additives, show absolutely no concern for the fact that their products are concentrated forms of these hormones, antibiotics and chemicals. Neither do the ice cream makers. In fact, they generally seek to bury the statistics on this and many other aspects of their industries.

Dairy products have become much more dangerous over the years, simply because of the adulterated milk supplies.

Back in the early '‹Å"80s milk was routinely killing senior citizens in Florida. An expose was released that caused the board members of the milk companies, who sat on various boards of media conglomerates and other food industry corporations, to work in tandem in their effort bury the information. They eventually had to be sued in court by two journalists just to allow the article to publish in a small periodical.

Sorry folks, this is how it is. I understand that it is not a pretty sight, but it is reality. And it is essential that humanity realize just what kind of despicable monsters are lurking in the shadows of the food industry in this world. But, once again, I digress.

What is alarming is that Mrs. Freedman actually excuses the lack of nutritional foods in her diet and/or article by stating "Note the absence of fresh greens (expensive and sporadic during this experiment) and fancy-schmancy ingredients. I eat the kind of food my mama fed me - plain home cooking on a tight budget" as if to lend some credence to her junk food and fat-rich, high calorie, low nutrient diet of charred, cheese-smothered animal flesh, fried potatoes and M&Ms.

It is rather unfortunate that she does not appear to have ever grown up, or out of, her mother's unhealthy and unsustainable habits. And therefore Freedman is just one of millions of Americans whom are resistant to the changing nature of a species that is quickly realizing the many mistakes inherent within a system that is based on the ignorant actions of previous generations.

I'll bet anyone gold bars to golf balls that Freedman is overweight and less than appealing in myriad contexts. And she likely has the medical and pharmaceutical bills to prove it. Moreover, I guarantee that she could not even run one block at top speed without getting excessively winded.

For crying out loud, the lady even purchased boxes of frozen taquitos on clearance at Walgreens, of all places, in order to stay within the guidelines of her editor-imposed budget. I hate to think what she got paid to spread her indiscriminate misinformation to MSNBC, who then splattered it all across the internet with a greasy, chicken-chili stained spatula.

Mrs. Freedman also appears to be proud of the fact that she was allegedly able to make 10 chicken thighs stretch into 2 chicken dinners, a stir-fry, a batch of chili, two chicken salad sandwiches and a pot of soup.

This intestinal deluge surely has just as little to do with the ten chicken thighs she purchased, as it does with the ability for them to fly her to the moon (of course disregarding the flatulence it must have caused).

The chicken dinners were accompanied by rice, frozen peas, carrots and an orange. The stir-fry was mixed with rice, veggies and beans, and accompanied by an orange and two cookies. The chili and soup only made two servings for her, and were either served over rice, and paired with flour tortillas, canned peaches and bread pudding, or coupled with cornbread, dried plums and rice pudding.

The meals Freedman consumed are actually near three times what I would eat as a vegan. I can typically tear through one terrifically styled salad that is half the calories and 1-100th the fat and starch she consumes, with none of the meat or its body infecting microorganisms present. But which possesses over 20 times the energizing nutrients, and body healing properties, two of her meals could ever even hope to provide.

What is amazing is that Freedman's article appears to have been shared over 3,600 times, and given a thumbs-up by 73% of the people who read it.

That is truly terrifying when one is privy to the emaciating nexus Freedman's ignorant argument is based upon, and the realization that she is likely now responsible for at least two more heart attacks suffered by senior citizens who are barely able to take one quick breath above the poverty line each month because people like her love getting paid to indemnify and tout the scurrilous profiteers who tamp down their overflowing bank accounts with these peoples' gravestones.

The vegan diet is extremely affordable and cost effective in so many ways that they are too numerous to list, and then explain, in this one article (obviously). Simply the act of eating a healthy diet contributes to the health and welfare of everyone in the nation, and sets the stage for a brighter and more sustainable future where all people are enabled, and eventually grow accustomed to, the ability to extract true pleasure from a life that is, in every way, symbiotic with the world humans are blessed to be a part of.

However, as mentioned previously, vegans are now being targeted as the nouveau crowd. And it appears that the food industries, who's very existence are threatened by this healthy practice, are employing tactics that are evolving into more invasive and odious realms of competition in this new technological age.

Some purveyors are merely attempting to manipulate the market with unrealistically high prices that are attached to basic produce which is extremely inexpensive to grow. This is primarily due to the vegan's typically unrelenting diet selections that can be easily tracked and monitored. However, some suppliers appear to have a more predatory intent in mind, where they actually seek to rid themselves of their competition, rather than find ways to match them.

Fortunately, most vegans are also highly functional intellectuals that, if they simply do their research, are capable of tenacious resourcefulness that is perfectly tailored to combat this insolence.

Hopefully the information in this article was helpful to those who are attempting to extricate themselves from the chains of an over-processed and taste-bud-centered diet that is slowly seducing large portions of the population into a veritable inculpable suicide.

Truly, Jack Kevorkian would have been proud to see what these people are accomplishing. Talk about euthanizing the terminally ill.

Death by cheeseburger, anyone?

Thanks for reading, and if you liked this article or felt it was helpful, you may want to say so by clicking the "helpful" or "like" button at the top of the page. Maybe you could even mention it to a friend, and support my efforts to educate people on how to live healthier and happier by citing the source.

I could use a few more sprout salads to fuel the writing machine.

At any rate, here is the soup recipe I promised. Eat to your health and happiness.

Saut© some fresh chopped garlic (about a quarter cup) in olive (about 4 tbsp) oil at the bottom of a large soup pot, adding some fresh chopped parsley and a little rosemary.

Cook until the garlic is slightly browned, then add the white portion of some green onions (half cup, chopped), chopped celery (2 cups) and a little salt (about 3 tsp). Stir.

Once the onions have become lucid, add about 3 cups of a domestic brown and wild black rice mixture (4 to 1 brown to black) and stir for a minute or two (the amount of rice is adjustable since this is a soup). Stir often.

Just before the mixture becomes overly toasted, add enough water to reach 3 quarters of the way to the rim of the pot. Add 5 to 8 cups of chopped greens (collards, kale, and chard are great). Add more chopped parsley, and the green tops of the onions, chopped. Turn up the heat and allow the soup to boil.

Once the soup boils, reduce the heat to simmer, and add 1 or 2 cups of lentils (2 is best, since they do not swell much). Add about 4 tablespoons more olive oil and simmer for 35 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

If absolutely necessary, add more salt, but it is best to learn to enjoy this type of meal for its array of natural flavors and powerful nutrients. The lentils will cook thoroughly and add a velvety texture. The olive oil adds a full, richness to the soup and increases the assimilation of the green, plant-based, fat soluble, extremely essential minerals (such as iron and magnesium) within the collards and kale, and delivers them to the body's flesh and organs, rather than just emptying them from the digestive tract into the blood.