I'll have to frequent Whole Foods more. My wallet vibrates when I get within 20 feet of the door, but like d33na, I'm eating less of higher quality food and need to remember that my overall budget hasn't increased very much. Joining a CSA this summer has really helped.
That's what we're doing, eating less, but higher quality.
We buy grass-fed beef, but we eat less of it - maybe one or two meals with ground beef, and one steak every two weeks. Sometimes they have their grass-fed ground beef on sale for $3.99... so sign up on facebook or on their website to get their sales flier. They had organic cherries for $2.99/lb one day!
For chicken, we can't afford pastured, but we try to at least buy organic. However, they sell boneless skinless thighs! They're $2/lb less than the breasts, so we buy those. Trader Joe's has the organic ones for the same price as non-organic at Whole Foods.
We buy 1.5lbs of wild caught salmon every two weeks. It's frozen at Trader Joe's for $8.99/lb... and usually fresh is around 11.99/lb at Whole Foods...but they have it on sale a lot for 8.99-9.99.
They also sell ground turkey thigh...they had it for $2.99/lb one week. I've been subbing a lot of ground turkey and chicken in some things. Even though it's conventional, it IS freshly ground right there.
I think the trick with Whole Foods is to watch the sales. Trader Joe's has great prices on nuts though, so it's worth checking that out.
We spend an ENTIRE DAY dragging three kids to 4 different places to buy our groceries for each 2 week pay period... and we spend about $300 for that... $100 in meat, $100 fruits & veggies, $50 dairy/bacon, and $50 on "other" like nuts, sauces, condiments, etc. That's for a family of 4... so you figure 14 days, 3 meals, 4 people... that's not bad.
Oh, and I pay $3.50/dozen for my farm fresh local eggs...it seems like a lot for eggs, but when you consider how many meals you can get out of them, it's one of the cheapest sources of protein and so good for you!