Cost per calorie - Healthy food vs. Junk

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strickland8052
strickland8052 Posts: 105 Member
in Food and Nutrition
There was a discussion started about if obesity and poverty are related. That forum is getting really long, so I thought I'd start a new one with a different view of it.

I once saw two pictures that demonstrated what 1500 calories can look like. One picture was just a hamburger, fries, and a coke. The other picture was filled with nuts, lean meat, low fat cheese, whole grains, fruit, and veggies. I know this picture was designed to show how you get to eat more when you eat healthy, but let's look at the cost of these things.

You can spend about $3 for 1500 calories at a fast food chain.

OR

You can buy groceries so you have 1500 calories of healthy stuff, so let's figure out how much that would cost you.... I eat 1500 calories a day of healthy stuff and spend about $150 a week for two people. That equals to about $10 a day, or $10 for 1500 calories. That is three times the cost of fast food, when divided by calories.

Sure if you eat fast food three meals a day, then you eat more calories and spend about the same that I do. BUT, do poor families really eat fast food three meals out of the day, every single day of the week? I doubt they eat breakfast at all.... kids might get free lunch from school (also usually junk) and they might get non perishables from a food bank sometimes (also processed junk usually).

Am I missing something? Maybe I'm spending too much on groceries?

What do you think?

Replies

  • JoRumbles
    JoRumbles Posts: 262 Member
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    I find it pretty expensive to eat healthy, fresh food.

    Today I bought £8 worth of fish, plus £2 for asparagus, about a pound for carnaroli rice. £2.50 for the miniture bottle of white wine to cook it in. £0.80 for fresh herbs. Plus a few other ingredients thats about £14 for one meal for just 2 adults.

    Other meals are cheaper, of course. But McDonalds would have been less than that.
  • joshpass
    joshpass Posts: 82 Member
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    nobody can convince me that healthy food is cheaper. People say that but it just doesn't work out that way. I know because I used to be a fat *kitten*, ate everything in sight and it was bad food. I now eat as healthy and clean as I can (without doing organic grass fed...that would even be way way more expensive...) and my bill is a lot more now than it was when i probably ate 10 times as much calories.
  • luziferl
    luziferl Posts: 82
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    As sb. who has lived in Germany, Austria and the UK so far I have to say that eating healthy in the UK is by far the most expensive and difficult one.

    They offer so much (sorry...) ****ing **** here which is very cheap - so why not buy that instead?
    Veggies and Fruit are by far cheaper in Germany, so are dairy products. this may only be because we are on an island here :D But its really expensive here to eat clean and healthy and also there are so many temptations :(
  • CoachReddy
    CoachReddy Posts: 3,949 Member
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    i eat between 3,000 and 4,000 calories a day almost entirely "clean" and I spend about $60/week for just myself.

    that cost is going to go down even further once I start getting my CSA shares from a local farm. :)

    that said, it is still cheaper to eat at mcdonalds every day than it is to eat fresh, real food, calorie for calorie.
  • luziferl
    luziferl Posts: 82
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    As sb. who has lived in Germany, Austria and the UK so far I have to say that eating healthy in the UK is by far the most expensive and difficult one.

    They offer so much (sorry...) ****ing **** here which is very cheap - so why not buy that instead?
    Veggies and Fruit are by far cheaper in Germany, so are dairy products. this may only be because we are on an island here :D But its really expensive here to eat clean and healthy and also there are so many temptations :(

    as I got **** anyway - they offer really a lot of -S-H-I-T here is what i meant :D
  • maracuya23
    maracuya23 Posts: 122
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    Cost per calorie is going to vary enormously depending on:
    where you live (is it remote or very high rent, therefore necessitating higher transportation/ overhead costs to stock stores?)
    what season it is (is there local produce available?)
    whether you prepare most foods from scratch (eg, cooking beans from raw as opposed to purchasing canned)
    whether you buy in bulk
    whether you need to buy specialized foods or are conforming to any kind of strict diet that requires specialized foods

    Living in a remote area or very expensive area with a limited produce-growing season is going to result in a much higher grocery bill than living in an area known for abundant local produce most of the year, and easy access to lots of kinds of bulk foods.

    Edited to add: Though, if eating healthy foods improves one's health to the point they don't need various medications that are often a result of bad diet, the net cost might balance out. (medicines + junk might be equal to or less than just healthy food)
  • durshley
    durshley Posts: 73 Member
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    If you reuse a lot of the food it isn't so bad, but buying expensive veg like asparagus for one meal obviously is a different matter. Like a 12 carton of large eggs will last me through several dinners and lunches, a bag of spinach will last about 4 meals, courgettes i'll use half per meal, etc etc. Yes it can get boring using the same ingredients but if I were to have a veggie omelette every day for dinner it'd work out less than buying McDonalds!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    I don't find it to be cost prohibitive...I spend about $10-$15 per day eating.
  • mrydavis
    mrydavis Posts: 32 Member
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    It really depends where you live AND the time of year. I live in a farming community when at home and a college town when at school. Food is much less expensive at home because you can buy it straight from the farmers. Beef, eggs, veggies, etc that come directly from small farms. My dad's nurse brings farm fresh eggs (yes, they're brown haha) to his office for him and they're $0.50 for a dozen. However, going out to eat is a little more expensive. When down at school everything is mostly from the big companies so it is more expensive, so eating fast food is cheaper. Buying strawberries in December is going to be twice as expensive because they're not in season, so the stores get smaller shipments (we never buy them in the summer because we have a strawberry patch and it's AWESOME).

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