The common objection to this way of eating is that it's expensive. Parts of it genuinely are — teff, fonio and kamut are speciality prices, and out-of-season fruit always will be. But the base of the approved list is some of the cheapest food in any shop, and most people overspend on this diet for reasons that are fixable.
Here's where the money actually goes, and how to eat well from the list without it.
The cheap core
You can build most of a week from these, and none of them are expensive anywhere:
- Onions — the base of nearly every savoury meal on this list.
- Mushrooms — the cheapest way to make a dish taste substantial. Any except shiitake.
- Kale — cheaper by the bunch than the bagged salad, and it keeps far longer.
- Courgette and squash — bulk, cheap, and they take on whatever you season them with.
- Cucumber — volume for almost nothing.
- Chayote — very cheap at Latin American and Caribbean grocers, almost flavourless, and excellent as filler in stews.
- Garbanzo beans, dried — about a third the price of tinned. The single best value protein on the list.
- Quinoa — the cheapest approved grain, and it drops further in big bags.
- Apples — the cheapest approved fruit almost year-round.
- Frozen berries and mango — cheaper than fresh, always in season, and better in smoothies anyway.
- Hemp seeds — the bag looks expensive and the cost per serving isn't. Two tablespoons is a portion.
- Sea salt, cayenne, oregano, onion powder — four seasonings that cover most cooking.
Where the money leaks
Buying tinned when dried is a third the price
Garbanzo beans are the main one. A bag of dried chickpeas costs about what three tins cost and yields far more. Soak overnight, simmer 60 to 90 minutes, freeze what you don't use in its own liquid. This one change is worth more than any other on this page.
Shopping at health food shops for everything
This is the big one. Caribbean, Latin American, West African and South Asian grocers carry burro bananas, soursop, nopales, key limes, chayote, fresh burdock, ginger, chickpea flour and often teff and fonio — frequently at a third to half of health-food-shop prices, sometimes less.
Use the health food shop for what you genuinely can't get elsewhere: kamut, spelt pasta, hemp seeds. Buy everything else where the people who cook with it shop.
Buying out of season
Fresh berries in winter are several times the price of frozen and worse in a smoothie. Melons out of season are expensive and flavourless. Seasonal fruit plus frozen covers the year for a fraction.
Buying the speciality grains weekly
Teff, fonio and kamut are the expensive ones. Treat them as occasional rather than staples. Build the week on quinoa and rye, and use the others when you fancy them. They keep six months or more in a sealed jar, so buy them in a bigger bag when you do buy.
Wasting fresh produce
The most expensive food on this diet is the food that goes off in the drawer. Greens and herbs are the usual casualties. Cook them earlier in the week and keep the sturdier vegetables for later.
Buying prepared versions
Ready-made hummus, bottled dressings, packaged snacks and cold-pressed juices are several times the cost of making them, and most carry garlic or something else off the list anyway.
The habits that do the most
Cook once, eat four times
A big pot of quinoa and a big pot of chickpeas on Sunday turns weeknight cooking into assembly. This is the habit that decides whether people sustain this way of eating at all, and it happens to be the cheapest way to do it.
Build meals in four parts
A green, a grain, a fat, and something raw. Kale, quinoa, avocado, cherry tomatoes. Once you think in slots rather than recipes, you stop buying single-purpose ingredients for one dish.
Make the cheap things taste expensive
Salt properly, use acid, and finish with fat. Sea salt in the cooking water, key lime at the end, olive oil over the top. A bowl of onions, mushrooms and quinoa costs very little and tastes like a meal if you do those three things.
Use the freezer
Cooked grains and beans freeze flat in bags. Overripe burro bananas peel and freeze for smoothies. Vegetable trimmings make a stock base. Frozen produce is cheaper than fresh and doesn't spoil.
Grow the expensive small things
Fresh herbs are the worst value item in any supermarket. Basil, oregano and thyme grow on a windowsill for almost nothing. Cherry tomatoes grow in a pot.
A cheap week
One shop, built entirely from the cheap core:
- Bag of dried chickpeas, bag of quinoa
- Two bunches of kale, bag of onions, punnet of mushrooms, three courgettes, two cucumbers
- Bag of apples, bag of frozen mixed berries
- Bag of key limes
- Hemp seeds, jar of tahini
- Grapeseed oil, olive oil
- Sea salt, cayenne, oregano, onion powder
That gives you: chickpea and kale stew over quinoa, roasted chickpeas, chickpea scramble, courgette and mushroom bowls, berry and hemp smoothies, apples with tahini, and cucumber salads — enough variety for a week without repeating a meal twice in a row.
If money is genuinely tight
Follow the cheap core and don't worry about the rest of the list yet. Onions, mushrooms, kale, courgette, chickpeas, quinoa, apples and frozen berries is a perfectly good way to eat, and it is most of this diet.
Adding burro bananas, soursop, teff and sea moss makes it more complete and more interesting. None of them are the foundation.
Common questions
Is this diet more expensive than eating normally?
The base of it usually isn't — cutting meat, dairy and takeaways offsets a lot. What pushes the cost up is buying speciality grains weekly, shopping only at health food shops, and buying out of season.
What's the single cheapest meal on the list?
Chickpeas and kale over quinoa, cooked from dried, with onion, sea salt and cayenne. Pennies a portion at scale.
Are frozen fruit and vegetables acceptable?
Yes, and often better value and better quality than out-of-season fresh. Check nothing has been added.
Do I need sea moss?
Not to follow the nutritional guide. It's food rather than a requirement.
Is bulk buying worth it?
For dried grains, beans and seeds, yes — they keep months in sealed jars somewhere dark. Not for anything fresh unless you'll freeze it.
What if my area has no speciality grocers?
Quinoa, wild rice, rye, kale, onions, mushrooms, courgette, apples, cucumber and frozen fruit are in every supermarket. That's already a week. Order the rest online occasionally in larger quantities.
Next
- The grocery list, aisle by aisle
- Chickpeas: cooking from dried, and what to make
- The eight approved grains, with cooking times
- New to this? The beginner's guide
Stop guessing in the aisle. The Ackaline app scans any product and tells you whether it's approved and why — useful when you're comparing two cheap options and one has garlic in it. Free to start. The full system, with batch cooking and a week of meals, is in The Alkaline Healing Blueprint.
For education, not medical advice. Restrictive lists can leave gaps — vitamin B12, iron, calcium and omega-3 are worth attention. Talk to your doctor or a dietitian before following one long-term.
