Healthy and good tasting Decaf that doesn't cost a ton?

My understanding is that there are basically 4 decaffeinating processes: Swiss water, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and two chemical processes. I am looking for a good priced and good tasting roasted decaf coffee bean. Recently my doctor told my wife and I that we should only drink decaf coffee from now on. Furthermore, he even specified that we are not to buy any coffee that uses chemicals to decaffeinate it. At first it was hard for us to accept his advice because we both love our full flavored coffee, but we knew we had to make the swich.

Now we are used to drinking pretty good quality coffee and grinding our own beans for each pot. We used to only drink the Starbucks and Millstone but that got a bit expensive so then we found the Marques de Paiva French Roast Gourmet Coffee at Sam’s and started drinking that. It was almost as good as Starbucks and Millstone but was saving us a significant amount of money. When we took the doctors advice and made the switch from decaf we bought the Marques De Paiva Gourmet Decaf Organic Whole Bean Coffee (fair trade) from Sam’s Club and it uses the Swiss water process to remove the caffeine.

Let’s just say it was a shocker! I could not believe how bitter, bland and washed out it tasted. Does all decaf coffee from the Swiss water process taste like this? Does Starbucks or Millstone use the Swiss water process to decaffeinate all of their coffee beans? I have read conflicting info that the CO2 decaffeinating process is a chemical process but others say its natural. The Swiss water process claims to be the only 100% chemical free decaffeination process. Are their health risks with the CO2 process like with the two chemical processes? I just want some good priced and good tasting roasted decaf coffee beans that are decaffeinated by using no chemicals. Any suggestions? I am willing to pay between $5 and $10 per pound.

I am not an authority on decaffeinated coffee by any means, but I would have to say there are probably worse chemicals in your tap water than the chemicals used to decaffeinate coffee. I believe the harsh chemicals used to decaffeinate coffee pre the 70's, are no longer used. If there were any side affects of decaf, the FDA would require a warning label on the packaging.
If you are looking for a good decaf, I might recommend Colombian Decaf. For some odd reason, Colombian coffee does not lose much of it's flavor profile during the decaf process. If You go to Kenneth Davids website "the coffee review", and search decaf coffee reviews, you may find some good results. SWP in some cases is not the best tasting decaf on the market.
One other option for you may be to drink higher quality arabica coffee instead of grocery store coffee. There is far less caffeine in arabica than in robusta. In moderation, arabica might caffeine may not affect you like robusta. I hope you and your wife find a good coffee bean soon, no coffee in your diet could bring on added stress.

In my experiencing the water filtered decaf always tastes better than the regular (shelf decaf)

If my doctor told me to stop drinking coffee, I would go for a second opinion.

lol, I hope all is well.

Its going to be hard to find a good natural decaf for less than 10 bucks a pound.

I agree with Jackson, chemically processed decafs (Methylene Chloride) in my opinion are perfectly safe, and in my opinion most of the times MC decaf taste better than Swiss Water decaf. CO2 suppose to be pretty good but I have no experience with it. Swiss Water have made significant improvement in the last few years, before that it tasted horrible. Another water processed decaf, Mountain Water Process Decaf, a.k.a Royal Select is also pretty good.

In the United States federal regulations require that in order to label coffee as "decaffeinated" that coffee must have had its caffeine level reduced by no less than 97.5 percent.

When 97% of the caffeine has been removed only .0408 % of the coffee weight is caffeine. About 4/100ths of 1%. At this level it is labeled "decaffeinated.”

How roasters label their products is another matter. Suppose two roasters roast coffee that originally came from the same lot, and were decaffeinated together in the same vat.

One roaster labels his decaf. "97.5% Caffeine Removed." The other says his is "99+% Caffeine Free." Which roaster is not telling the truth?
The answer is: They are both right. They are both essentially saying the same thing.

Decaf should range somewhere in the 2-4 milligrams of caffeine per cup range. Currently used solvents for decaffeinating coffee include:
H2O (water)
CO2 (Carbon Dioxide)
Meth
Chloride
Ethyl Acetate
& Swiss Water Decaffeinated uses "flavor-charged" water in the decaffeinating process.

You can find out even more about what the exact process of decaffienation at TopGourmetCoffee under decaf coffee.