There is a misconception that with all the special foods and shopping at health-food stores, this diet must be terribly expensive. It certainly can be, just like any normal diet can be: it all depends on how many pre-made and processed foods you buy. GF snack crackers are more expensive than regular snack crackers… but things like scrambled eggs and canned fruit are cheaper than both.
In fact, it’s possible to do this diet even on an extremely limited budget. TalkAboutCuringAutism.org has a simply astounding article about doing a gluten-, casein-, and even soy-free diet on Food Stamps. $319 a month for a family of four!
For us, I would say this diet probably resulted in about $75 a month more than our grocery budget was before. We do a few of the processed GF snacks, but we also rely on many non-specialty foods that happen to be GFCF, like Rice Chex and Fritos. GF flours are expensive, it’s true, but at the same time, the fact that I’m cooking my own waffles now means that we’re saving all that money we used to spend on Eggos. (Eggo waffles: $2.79/box of 8 = 35 cents per waffle. My GF waffles: about $4.50 in supplies per batch of 28 waffles = 16 cents per waffle.)
