Ouch, that grocery bill stings!
Sweet rolls, deep-fried chips and sugar-laden candy and cookies can be had for a song. A tomato and a pint of berries? Fork over part of your retirement plan, please.
I don't think you need a fancy study to tell you that eating healthy can also eat up a huge chunk of your budget. But, there's a study available that gives you those very same facts. What's worse, it shows that junk food is actually getting cheaper.
Researchers went shopping at big chain stores and did some cost calculations using 372 foods and drinks. What they found is disheartening. When compared calorie to calorie, all of those low-calorie, vitamin- and mineral-rich foods you're urged to eat were much more expensive than the junk options.
Let's say you wanted to bag up 1,000 calories of fruits and vegetables. It would cost over $18.00 for those 1,000 calories. Now ring up a bag of high-calorie, nutrient-void foods—less than $2.00 for the same amount of calories.
The average price of those healthy foods also increased by about 20 percent in just the two-year period that the researchers were conducting their survey.
Compare that with the junk food, which saw a 2-percent decrease in cost during the same time frame. The researchers noted that these junk foods are actually able to ride out inflation. They conclude that this is why those with the least money to spend also have the highest rates of obesity. They're getting quantity, but certainly not quality.
It's not right, but I can't say I'm too surprised. Our government needs to be put on notice: stop the ridiculous subsidizing of industries whose products are killing us. And just remember, government subsidies come right out of your pocket from the taxes you pay.
If healthy foods were instead subsidized, maybe we wouldn't have an obesity problem, or staggering heart disease and cancer statistics, or the general refrain of an entire population saying, "I'm tired all the time."
That bag of cheap, over-processed garbage may look like a great savings. I'm waiting for the study that shows what that same "inexpensive" bag costs us in terms of health care, overall loss of productivity, and the lives put on hold or lost altogether due to preventable disease.
Where are the bean counters when you really need them?
