Organic food prices drop in NC / cost of canned vs. dried beans

It's another surprising month at Cook for Good. Organic meals on the Cook for Good plan now cost an average of $1.75 per meal, down from $1.88 last month and even lower than the $1.79 in January. All prices are from Raleigh or Durham. That's despite upgrading several ingredients: the organic basket now includes organic versions of cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, hot sauce, and couscous. Regular meals are up 3 cents to $1.15 on the average. You can go green for $0.60 a meal or 52% more total for the month.

I also did a little experiment weighing beans to see if dried beans are really the bargain I thought they were. Yes, indeed! Details below the fold.

Prices -- For the Cook for Good Top 20, the total cost for the regular servings would be $3.32, down from $3.51 last month. The green servings would be $5.27, up from $4.90 in part because I was able to find organic cheddar cheese instead of just rBGH-free cheese.

On the organic side, prices fell dramatically for oranges and sweet potatoes. Prices for lettuce, milk, and crushed tomatoes also fell, while broccoli and kale were up. On the regular side, prices for peanut butter, tomatoes, carrots, and milk fell, while olive oil, flour, sugar, and green peppers were up.

Beans -- I used to only use canned beans, so I know the sinking feeling you get when you open a can of beans and find out that it's mostly liquid. Once I learned how easy it is to cook dried beans and how much better they tasted, I only kept canned beans around for emergencies. Last week, I started wondering how the price of canned beans compared to home-cooked ones. Turns out there's a big difference.

One pound of dried black beans makes 34 ounces or 5 1/2 cups of drained and rinsed beans. To make even comparisons, let's look at one pound of drained and rinsed black beans costs (using current prices):

• 55 cents for a pound of home-cooked, regular black beans.
• 79 cents for home-cooked, organic black beans.
• $1.71 for canned Bush black beans, a national brand. (A 15-ounce can contained 9 3/8 ounces or 1 2/3 cups of drained and rinsed beans.)
• $2.24 for canned Harris Teeter's Naturals organic black beans, a store brand. (A 15-ounce can contained 8 1/2 ounces or 1 1/2 cups of drained and rinsed beans.)

So if you cook your own beans, you'll get better tasting beans in delicious broth for about a third of the cost of canned beans. (The broth from canned beans tastes metallic so most people just rinse it down the drain.) Home-cooked organic beans cost nearly $1 less a pound than regular canned beans. You control the amount of salt used, too.

Consider too the energy savings from not making the cans and from not shipping the cans, labels, and water. The can and label weighed 2.2 ounces and the water weighed 5.6 ounces for a 15-ounce can of beans. This means that 45% of the weight of a can of beans is packaging and water.

Have a delicious day!
... Linda