Speaking of eating right and processed foods, when I was about 15 or so my parents tried an experiment of not buying any prepared foods of any kind. They bought flour in bulk, baked all of our bread and turned the back yard into a vegetable garden, canned tomatoes etc. They kept up this regimen for one year and kept meticulous financial records of what they spent on food. At the end of the year my mother calculated that they had spent $40 less to feed six people than what the Government considered poverty level spending for a family of four.