This is from a U.S.-centric viewpoint, though insights from other countries are appreciated.
Nearly every article on the topic says healthy food is 1.5-2x+ the cost of UPFs and other foods generally viewed as unhealthy. That hasn’t been my personal experience at all, bit clearly there is more to the story – because every source on the internet contradicts my opinion.
Groceries are pricey and it’s hard to budget as a single person because of portion sizes. Even so, foods like poultry and vegetables are far cheaper to cook at home than to buy at a restaurant or (from a nutritional perspective) the frozen foods section at Kroger.
Some foods – like certain kinds of beef or fish – are either similar to or slightly cheaper to get a restaurant or frozen food item as opposed to making healthier types at home.
I guess some fruits are kinda pricey and eating healthy is a challenge in a food desert, but otherwise I’d spend so much more on UPFs as opposed to buying whole foods.
What part of the story am I missing?
In: Economics
It’s because people are lazy and use this as an excuse. Healthy food in a regular supermarket won’t cost nearly as much as their unhealthy counterparts. But, unhealthy food often tastes better to most people (salt and sugar are tasty, man), so people use cost as an excuse.
Another one I hear often is that it takes too long to prep healthy food, so they opt for quick, unhealthy options. This is also false. I’ll spend 16 hours cooking a brisket, but that bagged salad will rot because it’s too much effort to open the bag and toss it in a bowl.
Source: I’ve worked for 35 years in the grocery industry.
In the 1970s, to combat rising food prices, the US government started subsidizing corn. To incentivize growing corn, they offered to buy any unsold corn for a set price. This worked great to lower grocery prices during a time of inflation (sound familiar?) but it created perverse incentive to grow more corn than needed. The end result was scientists figure out ways to process corn into cheap ingredients for other foods. The quintessential processed corn product is high fructose corn syrup, which finds is ubiquitous in the ingredient lists of processed foods.
For more information, read the first section of In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen
Meats and vegetables are cheaper than UFP’s, BUT you need to know how to cook and it does take time. Like, literally 2-6 hours, which is not an insignificant amount of time if you have a regular job. Your evenings would be spent cooking instead of relaxing or doing other activities.
So take your salary for 4 hours per day, 28 hours per week, and add THAT to the cost of raw meats and vegetables, as “opportunity cost”. Then add 15% to your gas or electricity bill for running the stove for a few hours per week.
There’s also subsidies that goes towards a lot of these processed food by means of corn and sugar which a lot of these are high in. “Healthy food” could be much cheaper with some intervention, but the government wants everyone sick and on boatloads of medications so they can profit off of you.
As other people have said, smart shopping and cooking skills go a long way.
Healthy food is not more expensive
Cooking from fresh ingredients in season is by far the cheapest way to eat. Healthy convenience items are more expensive than average convenience items. A diet based on produce in season, eggs, meats used in smaller portions bought on sale( look for turkeys and hams after the holidays, I bought a cartload of turkeys and hams for seven dollars each last winter and froze them), large containers of oats,dry beans, rice and homemade baked goods is healthy and the most affordable way to eat. I raised six children on a tight budget this way and they were so much better nourished than most children.
Because refined carbs are cheap AF to create. The masses love them. It is simple economics.
UPF? Can we please spell it out. Thank you.
Companies realize that they can get payed for human decency. Also, they could probably cut a lot of costs by skirting the laws and restrictions of the FDA.
I think lots of articles may be considering the calorie for calorie angle. While you’re right, it can be incredibly affordable to eat whole foods regularly. That same amount of money spent on UPFS would likely sustain you calorically longer than the whole foods because they rely heavily on added fats and sugar derivatives. This perspective is obviously disregarding the nutritional imbalances you’d be left with, but I think its how many people come to this *healthy food is expensive* conclusion.
The price of fresh produce is very dependent on where you live/shop.
I’ve lived in a food desert before. You drag yourself to the nearest grocery store and a bag of apples (which are usually of poor quality in these areas) costs more than a bag of chips. So the choice is between a more expensive item, which has fewer calories, and will go bad in just a couple days because it’s not really that fresh to begin with, or a bag of chips, which is cheaper, tastes better, and will last until you eat it.
I no longer live in a food desert. The produce where I’m at now looks fresh, is high quality, and is much cheaper than it was when I was in a food desert.
If you’re able to, I recommend going to a grocery store on the edge of a food desert and see for yourself. Healthy food is legitimately more expensive there.
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