Cheap junk food and obesity

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  • tequila09
    tequila09 Posts: 764 Member
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    lets be real it is because we are lazy. before i would rather go through the drive thru value menu and spend 3 dollars on dinner or lunch or whatever instead of going to the grocery store once a week and buy food for the week which would have come out to the same cost.
  • ErinBeth7
    ErinBeth7 Posts: 1,625 Member
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    To me, in my opinion, it seems as though the reason the majority of our nation is obese, is becuase the cost of junk food is so cheap and healthy food is so expensive! If we are trying to create a healthy America, cut the costs of healthy foods!!!! Lowerclass (and even some middleclass) Americans cant even afford healthy foods from the market, therefor they are buying whats cheap....JUNK FOOD!!!! We should not have to pinch our wallets for a healthy lifestyle! Some may agree and some may not agree. Id like to hear some of your opinions.

    While I do have to agree that healthy foods can be quite a bit more expensive, there are ways eat healthy and not spend the money. I myself have been eating healthy foods (I never buy junk foods...no sugary, fattening snacks) and only buy ingredients to cook my meals. I typically spend $100 on one trip to the grocery store. That lasts me a couple weeks, at the least. Although, this is just for me. I am single and live alone. I do realize that others might eat more, thus have to spend more.
  • kdruga
    kdruga Posts: 35
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    Even if you want to use that argument, moderation is the real issue here. Those who choose the 'cheaper' junk food do not have to over indulge just because it's more convenient. I do splurge from time to time and have some chips, but it's when a person makes that the main component of their diet that they become obese.

    Also, yes, going to Whole Foods and buying all organic foods and produce can be expensive. But even Aldi has good produce at very reasonable prices. You can get healthy foods at reasonable prices anywhere. Saying that they're too expensive is just an excuse.
  • Leiki
    Leiki Posts: 526 Member
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    A pound of broccoli is 99cents. A celery stalk is $1.49. A bag of Doritos is $3.99.

    notsureifsrs.jpg

    Yes, a lb of broccoli may be 99 cents, but who eats broccoli, plain? You need to cook it. That requires a kitchen. Some low income people don't have that. Maybe you nuke it with salt-- another 50 cents. Does that fill you up? It get boring if all you eat is broccoli all day. I'm lucky I have people to share food with, now. When I lived by myself, I found myself living off of 10 for 10 yogurts, a 99 cent loaf of low fiber "wheat" bread which hardly counted, deli meat and romaine. I wouldn't be able to finish it all, and most weeks, I threw away half the food due to mold.
  • Meloonie
    Meloonie Posts: 144 Member
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    To me, in my opinion, it seems as though the reason the majority of our nation is obese, is becuase the cost of junk food is so cheap and healthy food is so expensive! If we are trying to create a healthy America, cut the costs of healthy foods!!!! Lowerclass (and even some middleclass) Americans cant even afford healthy foods from the market, therefor they are buying whats cheap....JUNK FOOD!!!! We should not have to pinch our wallets for a healthy lifestyle! Some may agree and some may not agree. Id like to hear some of your opinions.

    I agree with you. I live in the UK and here it is so much cheaper to live on junk food. It is cheap to make because it is full of rubbish and therefore they can sell huge amounts at a low cost for the consumer, usually on 'buy one get one free' type deals, and of course this is where the supermarkets make their money, so they push the junk food like drug dealers push drugs.

    I could quite easily feed my family of three for less than £50 a week if I only bought junk (processed throw in oven type) food and a small amount of fruit like many people I know, but I choose to buy everything fresh and usually spend over £100 a week on my small family.

    I think its easy to say people are just lazy and can't be bothered to eat healthily and cook from scratch. I think that yes to some degree that is true but I feel that this creates a viscious circle - it costs more and takes more effort therefore its easier to just buy whats convenient and costs less, along of course with the bad food scripts that most of us have been brought up with.
  • neverstray
    neverstray Posts: 3,845 Member
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    Wow. There some big misinformation in this thread. You must not have studied what has happened in the food industry over the last 50 years, which sort of started with McDonalds. Interesting stuff. Cheap crappy food is cheaper. Way cheaper. You can't compare a celery stock to a bag of doritos. You have to look at the whole lifestyle of eating and preparing food and how that calcuates out. It's way cheaper to eat crap food than it is to eat healthy. The reason people say it all the time is because it's true. It's killing me right now.

    What I am referring to ablve is that it was a very calculated and purposeful move for these large companies to put the farmers out of business by only selling to them and not to us, that way they control the market. Well, it didn't work so well for a variety of reasons, but the push was for the junk food companies to make the food cheaper than the farmers can make food and put farmers in a situation where they have no choice but to only sell food to them for them to process and sell to us. this is all pretty well documented in books and videos if you don't believe me.

    So, yes, it costs more to buy fresh food than processed food. That's life. There are ways around it though. Like I can find whole chickens on sale for $3.
  • Fairysoul
    Fairysoul Posts: 1,361 Member
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    Fresh veggies are a crap ton cheaper. Seriously, I get three bags full of fresh veggies from the Sprouts Farmers Market for usually about 40 bucks. I'm lucky to get one bag of groceries from walmart for less than that. Go online, look for weekly ads, and plan your meals for what's on sale. It's amazing how much a person can save, if they just take the time and effort to prepare accordingly.
    Thats what I do!
  • delilah47
    delilah47 Posts: 1,658
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    Totally agree with OP.

    And.. if you are overweight, you can't use pasta and spuds as fillers to make up for the expense of fresh foods you buy.
  • ErinBeth7
    ErinBeth7 Posts: 1,625 Member
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    Shouldn't part of Obamacare be making it so everybody has to buy healthy food, and the government should provide either a tax break/credit/subsidize healthy foods to decrease costs? I think it should. I mean, if we're talking about preventative measures, what more can you do to cut health care costs than to encourage a healthy eating lifestyle for every American?

    I like this idea (but not Obamacare). Hiker282 for president!!!
  • Quasita
    Quasita Posts: 1,530 Member
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    Really, per ounce cost of junk foods is usually a fair amount higher than per ounce regular food, and most produce. People use this excuse a lot, and maybe at one point in history, it was true, but manufacturers and marketing people have been paying attention. If you haven't noticed yet, look how much costs on junk food have risen over the last 10 years. A 20oz soda used to be 69 cents... Now it's nearly two dollars... Here in Nebraska anyway. The costs are going up and people keep buying because that's what they have become accustomed too.

    I do believe that more food education is needed in many places. In the US specifically, I think that if you are getting food stamps, you should have to take a course in healthy eating, and if at the end of the year, they audit your purchases, and it consists of more than 30% of "junk" foods, then your benefit should be reduced until you prove you can make better choices. When I worked in grocery, we would see people claiming that 15 boxes of little debbies at a dollar a piece were cheaper than eating healthier foods. Well, the fact of the matter is, if those 15 boxes disappear in a week, and a bag of carrots for 2 bucks lasts just as long, which is TRULY cheaper?

    People that subsist on junk (I used to be one of them, not gonna lie) justify the purchases by the price but if they are like I was, they might buy 3/$1, but they are all gone by the end of the day.

    After I changed how I shopped, my grocery bill dropped about 40 bucks. I now view the ads online, make a list, and utilize electronic coupons, as well as avoid "danger zones" in the store. Life is a heck of a lot easier when you take accountability.

    I also think, OP, that when you talk about costs, we're talking cost to the consumer, not necessarily cost to the farmer. Fact of the matter is, the farmer is gonna get paid no matter what. If Farmer A grows corn, the junk food industry could try to far undercut their cost of growing it to buy the corn for Cheetos, sure. However, if more people were educated on the importance of fresh food, they'd direct buy from said farmer, and he wouldn't have to resort to taking a cut. The problem is that the big junk food companies buy SO MUCH of it that what's left for fresh distribution has to be cost rated higher to compensate, which in turn comes down on consumers... but it's not usually a high mark up unless you buy organic by the time it gets to the store.
  • Psychoanalytic
    Psychoanalytic Posts: 261
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    A pound of broccoli is 99cents. A celery stalk is $1.49. A bag of Doritos is $3.99.

    notsureifsrs.jpg

    Yes, a lb of broccoli may be 99 cents, but who eats broccoli, plain? You need to cook it. That requires a kitchen. Some low income people don't have that. Maybe you nuke it with salt-- another 50 cents. Does that fill you up? It get boring if all you eat is broccoli all day. I'm lucky I have people to share food with, now. When I lived by myself, I found myself living off of 10 for 10 yogurts, a 99 cent loaf of low fiber "wheat" bread which hardly counted, deli meat and romaine. I wouldn't be able to finish it all, and most weeks, I threw away half the food due to mold.

    Then that's your bad for not learning about easier ways to eat healthy when flying solo, and also your bad for buying more product than what you could consume before it went bad. God forbid someone has to go to the grocery twice in one week to save money by not throwing away food gone bad.
  • Lose_It_Leo
    Lose_It_Leo Posts: 91 Member
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    Not really exactly a response to the question but it made me remember that the USA have classified ... wait for it... PIZZA as one of your five day!! Seriously.. what will they think of next? I've never heard anything more ridiculous... Only America would try and find an excuse to make pizza healthy. Don't get me wrong if the pizza is made properly and you put enough vegetables on it then yeah it could be, but we all know the vast majority of pizza is rammed full of crap.
  • Lift_hard_eat_big
    Lift_hard_eat_big Posts: 2,278 Member
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    Either OP is a troll, or has never gone grocery shopping a day in his life.
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
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    I think it's more that people don't know how to eat healthy. So many people think it's all about salads and salmon, both of which can be pricey. But there are a lot healthy foods that are just as cheap or cheaper than junk food.

    Dried beans, brown rice and barley are always inexpensive. Many staple vegetables such as carrots, onions, potatoes and cabbage are too. When in season many other vegetables and fruits are as well. Frozen fruits and vegetables are also good deals.

    Many people list the $1 menu at fast food restaurants as cheap, but I have never seen a deal on burgers that couldn't be made more cheaply at home. Even if lean hamburger is $5 per lb that would make 4 qtr lb burgers. And it's never that much where I live. A pack of whole grain buns for $2.50 (or white as you'd get at the FF place for $150) and you'll have 4 buns left over. A slice of tomato and onion will only add a few cents more. 2 big potatoes will make more french fries than you'll get on the $1 menu and you can control what type of fat you use. So instead of $8 to feed 4 people each a tiny burger and trans fatty small fry, you can serve them a big healthy burger and healthy fat fries for the same price or less.

    You might not get a tuna steak, grilled asparagus and salad of baby greens cheaper than junk food. But you can eat healthy on a budget.
  • aallison85
    aallison85 Posts: 97 Member
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    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/is-junk-food-really-cheaper.html?pagewanted=all

    Interesting article about this exact issue. Check it!
  • atrjohnson
    atrjohnson Posts: 77 Member
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    I think it depends on where you live and if you know how to cook and eat a certain way. One of my co-workers moved here from California and she could not believe how much more expensive fresh produce turned out to be. Simply put, one grapefruit is sometimes $1 depending where in the city you shop. The city we live in has areas that do not have a reputable grocery store. I had a student that saw one of my veggie snacks and asked what vegetable was that because she had never seen one. As an obese woman people are often surprised that I know what a vegetable is but my mother was a vegetarian for many years until she added fish and chicken back into her eating routine. Some people have never been taught how to cook vegetables or prepare a proper meal. Some do not have access to a decent grocery store. There is not one easy solution to problems with obesity.
  • aallison85
    aallison85 Posts: 97 Member
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    Love the burger example above! Thanks! Perfect explanation!
  • abyt42
    abyt42 Posts: 1,358 Member
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    I try to buy from the outside of aisles of my market, and then get creative. Steel cut oats in the crockpot one night makes instant breakfast for me for the whole week (actually, 8 days). So, while the container of oatmeal costs 3.50 cents, that's for 20 1/4 cup servings, or five+ weeks of breakfast (or dinner, or lunch...)

    There is a value to seasonal eating, too, and to membership in a CSA, and, in my case, to using my crockpot to make meals ahead of time. I only WANT to cook on weekends. Weeknights, I want fast meals that I can eat over the kitchen sink (or sitting down, but, honestly, when I'm on my own, I'm a stand at the sink kind of girl.)

    However, I've also brought students of mine home in their senior year of high school and taught them how to chop onions, cook omelets, bake bread.... there are a whole lot of reasons, outside of cost, that people eat what/when/how they eat...
  • Quasita
    Quasita Posts: 1,530 Member
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    A pound of broccoli is 99cents. A celery stalk is $1.49. A bag of Doritos is $3.99.

    notsureifsrs.jpg

    Yes, a lb of broccoli may be 99 cents, but who eats broccoli, plain? You need to cook it. That requires a kitchen. Some low income people don't have that. Maybe you nuke it with salt-- another 50 cents. Does that fill you up? It get boring if all you eat is broccoli all day. I'm lucky I have people to share food with, now. When I lived by myself, I found myself living off of 10 for 10 yogurts, a 99 cent loaf of low fiber "wheat" bread which hardly counted, deli meat and romaine. I wouldn't be able to finish it all, and most weeks, I threw away half the food due to mold.

    My roommate and I eat broccoli plain all the time, raw, no dip. And if you are spending 50 cents on salt for a couple florets of broccoli, you really need to check you sodium consumption. A canister of table salt costs like $1.50 and lasts forever.

    When I lived by myself, I ate greek yogurt, high fiber bread, lots of fruits, lots of spinach... You learn as you go how to get around the mold factor. You take more than one trip to the store. You make smarter choices. If you can't do fresh, you do no salt added canned and rinse it out. You only use half a loaf of bread at the time, and put the rest in the freezer for next week. Just because you didn't make these adjustments doesn't mean that everyone has these issues. Perhaps if someone had sat down and taught you some tricks, you wouldn't have wasted so much?
  • delilah47
    delilah47 Posts: 1,658
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    Which is more expensive....

    spending $20/week extra on groceries OR cancer?

    I've heard that cancer treatments and/or obesity related meds are REALLY EXPENSIVE. Even the co-pays cost quite a bit.
    So it's your call.

    Also - there ARE ways to eat healthy and not spend a fortune on it.

    If you don't have the $20 you don't the $20. So, it's not really a poor person's choice. And if you are not educated in healthy cooking you don't have a clue where to start. Healthy cooking on a budget takes planning and creativity. I've seen both sides of the street. When all you can afford is cheap meat and canned veggies, it's hard to get creative and it all tastes the same anyway. And as I stated in an earlier post, you buy some chicken then fill up the plate with rice or potatoes or pasta. Some people say the veggies are cheap, but not cheap enough to fill your plate with the healthy portions recommended by the USDA. Something like 1/4 meat, 1/4 starch, and 1/2 veggies.

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