One of the mostly costly aspects of eating a high carb, raw food diet is undoubtedly the price of obtaining quality fruit.

We all like to indulge with the best possible produce but this, at times, can be expensive.

One of the easiest ways to save money on a raw food diet is to buy in bulk at wholesale markets and cut out the middleman. Always bear in mind that what you pay for fruit and vegetables at your local greengrocer or supermarket is likely DOUBLE for what they pay to their suppliers, making them hefty profits, which means that your next trip to the wholesale market can ending up saving you tons of cash.

Don’t forget also that by buying from wholesale markets once every 10 days or so, you won’t have to bother going to the shop to buy food every day(ish), which can be time liberating.

Besides saving money by buying what is in season, the other tip you need to master in order to be cost-effective when eating raw foods is to recognise which are the most expensive fruit per calories.

What does this mean? Papaya for instance can be an “expensive” fruit (well, unless you live in Hawaii or Fiji) because it gives you only 40 calories per 100g (3.5 oz.) consumed.

This means you need to eat a lot of papayas to feel full. Similar comparison applies to blueberries, cherries, and other low calorie fruits.

By contrast, eating bananas will give you 89 calories per 100g (3.5 oz.) consumed, which works out a lot cheaper in correlation.

If we consider blueberries for instance, which yield only 230 calories per 453g/ 1lb. If you get them at $3 a pound (which is a pretty good deal), it will cost you $26 to feed yourself on 2000 calories, while bananas will only cost you only $6.43 in order to get the same amount of calories.

The Top Most Expensive Fruits per Calorie

The chart below shows the most expensive fruits per calorie in descending order, at the prices they are generally sold at.

Note about the Chart:

– The first column gives you the lowest price generally found in North America (US Dollar) for these fruits, when purchased in season or on sale.
– The second column gives you the cost for 1500 calories if you purchase at the lowest price.

How I calculated the prices:

To arrive at my numbers below, we carefully weighed various fruits. For example, I found that a medium banana weighs 219 grams, but that only 138 grams is fruit.

Because there are 89 calories in 100 grams of bananas, each pound of unpeeled banana yields approximately 252 calories.

As you can see, it’s good to have an idea of the different fruit prices and the calories they provide, so the next time you are tempted to buy that big, fancy papaya at the shop, you’ll know how much you are really paying for it.

If you can’t afford to buy expensive produce, it’s OK; you can always make yourself a banana smoothie and get more calories in for your cash.

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