Why aren't healthier foods priced lower than junk foods?

Healthy eating does cost more in my opinion. Try buying organic. I am in training for a competition and I need to eat 4 oz of protein 5 times a day. Try buying organic protein. Are you kidding me? So expensive. Organic veggies, 3 x the price of regular. I understand what you are saying, the stores have the bad stuff on sale all the time. Even our farmers markets in Florida are not cheaper than the store. And I cook all 6 meals at home, every day and trust me. My grocery bill has doubled since eating healthy. Maybe some people on this blog have a different version of "healthy" than I do.

I spend a couple of days/evenings a month cooking meals from the Hairy Dieters Cookbook. I cook the whole recipe, whether it's 4 or six portions, whatever. I usually choose about 5 recipes. When cool, I portion them all off and freeze. I am a single person and I save a lot of money doing this. I live in Germany at the moment and, unlike the UK, many of the supermarkets don't have the option of buying 1 or 2 onions, or peppers, etc. at a time (and I can't get to the markets during the working week). You need to buy bags of veg - so at least I can use all the veg, without waste, and I know what's in my meals. I just defrost and reheat. I would like to make and eat more fresh food, rather than freezing, but I generally don't get home from work until 20.00-21.00h and the last thing I want to do is cook. I save the luxury of fresh food for the weekends.

This way, I have a proper meal every evening - instead of arriving home and eating the first rubbish I find because I'm hungry.

They will have no problem doing what? Metting the basic micronutrients to sustain life? I haven't seen anyone suggest that isn't possible.

RDI of protein might sufficient for maintenance of lean mass when eating maintenance calories, assuming the person lives a lifestyle of basic light activity, but it will not maintain lean muscle mass for all levels of activity. The more muscle you damage, the more needs repairing.

Different goals, different values in food.

It's not about "basic needs", adequate vs. optimal doesn't exist for vitamin and mineral intake - you're given daily values (DVs) and tolerable upper levels (ULs) for a reason, and it's not just "possible" it's almost downright impossible to not get more than RDI every day if you're eating a varied diet... as I said in another thread, we store the majority of vitamins our body needs in fat cells and in the liver. The only vitamins we need worry about getting every day are C and B vitamins.
So, take the standard breakfast of oatmeal... it contains the B vits folate, niacin and thiamine (B9, B3, and B1). Add milk, (B12, B6, B2, more B9, B3 and B1) and you're already close to 50% of your recommended intake of water-soluble vitamins (most of these B vits are required in amounts of approx. 1mg).

Add a navel orange (88% of your RDI for vit C), which also contains B9, B6 and B12. Looking at maybe 400 calories of food. Not to mention all of the other fat-soluble vitamins and minerals these foods contain.

I could go on, but I won't... It has nothing to do with goals. It's about eating, and eating a varied diet, period.

You also keep adding tangential caveats. As I said earlier, I believe RDI protein is too low and people should consume more... especially if they're training in a manner that will cause muscle growth. 50g per day is fine for people who don't really do much hard exercise.

Oatmeal, cow's milk and an orange is not a very balanced breakfast. I can't imagine wasting that many calories on a huge chunk of carbs and almost no protein, but, to each his/her own.

Yes, carb phobia. That must be it :laugh:

It cracks me up that people visit a website that's headline is:
"Lose Weight with MyFitnessPal
The fastest, easiest to use calorie counter app."

And uses the selling point:
"Eat whatever you want"

Then wonder why others focus on calorie counting and have different ideas of what "healthy eating" is.

Could it possibly be because the "calorie counters" and people who are eating "whatever they want" are the ones using MFP as it was intended and designed?