Is a vegan diet cheaper than eating meat?

The objection

“Veganism is for people with money. Fake meat and oat lattes cost a fortune, ordinary people can’t afford it.”

The answer

Some vegan products are expensive, and on those the objection has a point: in a 2023 study using prices from five UK supermarkets, plant-based alternatives to meat cost significantly more than the meat products they copy [7]. Nobody has to buy them, though, and the foods a cheap vegan diet is built on cost very little. In the US in September 2026, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ official average prices were $1.67 a pound for dried beans [2], $1.12 for long-grain white rice [3] and $0.99 for white potatoes [4], against $6.79 for ground beef [5] and $4.20 for boneless chicken breast [6]. Those are prices as sold, so the beans are dry and the meat is raw.

Is a vegan diet cheaper than eating meat?

In richer countries a vegan diet can cost less than eating meat if it is built on grains and pulses rather than ready-made substitutes, though not every study finds a saving. A global model by Marco Springmann and colleagues at the University of Oxford (2021) costed diets in 150 countries at 2017 food prices [1]. In upper-middle and high-income countries, nutritionally balanced vegan and vegetarian diets built on whole grains and pulses cost 22 to 34% less than current diets, and versions heavy in fruit and vegetables 17 to 27% less [1]. Grains and pulses cost less than most animal products, and meat was the largest share of food costs in those countries, at 32 to 34% [1].

Leaving out meat explains only part of that saving. The model sized each healthy diet to the energy needs of a moderately active population, while current diets came from UN estimates of the food available in each country, which the authors used partly because they capture overeating [1]. A healthy flexitarian diet from the EAT-Lancet Commission, with a little meat, dairy, eggs and fish, also came out 12 to 14% cheaper than current diets in the same countries, a smaller saving than any of the vegetarian or vegan diets [1]. In low and lower-middle-income countries, where staple crops are the biggest share of current food costs and meat about 11%, the result reversed: every healthy diet modelled cost at least 18 to 29% more than what people eat now [1].

Trials that priced what people actually ate point the same way, though both were funded by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a US nonprofit that campaigns for plant-based diets. Among 244 overweight adults in Washington, DC, between 2017 and 2019, the food eaten by those put on a low-fat vegan diet for 16 weeks cost about $0.90 a day less than a control group’s, roughly a tenth of the $9.31 a day both groups started on, though the 95% confidence interval ran from 7 cents to $1.73 (2023) [8]. The control group had been asked not to change their diet, costs were worked out at US Department of Agriculture prices, and the biggest savings were on meat and dairy [8]. In a 2019 US crossover trial with 62 adults, food costs were 25% lower on a vegan diet than on a Mediterranean diet (2024) [9]. The volunteers may not be typical [8][9], and the 2023 trial left supplements out of its costs [8].

Not every study agrees. A 2021 New Zealand model built fortnightly shops for a family of four from the lowest prices at the country’s three largest supermarkets in spring 2019, and a vegan diet meeting the EAT-Lancet planetary diet came to NZ$789 a fortnight against NZ$584 for the current diet [10]. It needed larger servings of pulses, nuts and seeds to meet protein needs, and dairy alternatives cost more than dairy; the healthy diet with meat also cost more than current eating, at NZ$637 [10]. In Germany, a 2022 study that priced children’s and teenagers’ food diaries at 2021 supermarket prices found vegans’ food costs slightly higher than omnivores’, though not significantly so, with vegetarians’ the lowest [11].

Is veganism only for people with money?

US polling does not show veganism as a habit of the well-off: in a 2018 Gallup poll of 1,033 US adults, those earning under $30,000 a year were the most likely to say they were vegetarian, at 9% against 4% of those on $75,000 or more, and the vegan shares, 4% and 2%, differed too little to be statistically significant [12]. A budget-eating leaflet from the children’s diabetes dietitians at University College London Hospitals (UCLH), an NHS trust, points the same way: it says meat and fish can often be the most expensive part of a meal and suggests some meals each week without either (2026) [13].

How do you eat vegan on a tight budget?

Build meals on dried and tinned pulses, rice, pasta, oats, potatoes and frozen vegetables, and treat ready-made vegan products as extras. The UCLH leaflet is aimed at families of children with diabetes and includes fish, eggs and meat, but several of its tips suit a vegan budget: value brands of dried foods such as rice and pasta, which it says are just as nutritious; oats, which are cheaper than breakfast cereals; and frozen fruit and vegetables, which are cheaper and cut waste because you use only what you need [13]. It suggests swapping half the meat in a bolognese, chilli or shepherd’s pie for a tin of cooked lentils, adding a handful of dried lentils to vegetable soup for protein, batch cooking enough for another day, and planning meals with a shopping list [13]. The NHS website says vegans have few sources of vitamin B12 and may need a supplement, with breakfast cereals, unsweetened soya drinks and yeast extract fortified with B12 among the foods that supply it (2026) [14].

Do taxpayers subsidise meat?

Taxpayers do subsidise meat: in 2017 about a fifth of the world’s public support for farming went to producing meat and a tenth to milk and dairy, according to Springmann and Freund (2022) [15]. That support, not counting trade measures such as tariffs, came to USD 233 billion, of which meat took 22%, dairy 10%, fruit and vegetables 24% and staple crops 22% [15]. Their modelling found that shifting up to half of that support towards foods with health and environmental benefits, such as fruit, vegetables and other horticultural crops, could cut greenhouse gas emissions and improve health without reducing economic welfare [15]. The 2021 Oxford study also counted hidden costs: when the health-care and climate costs linked to each diet were added to its price, the healthy diets became more affordable still in its projections [1].