Healthy eating costs more. Why?

Last week, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada released a report on the costs of healthy food items, such as fruit and vegetables, whole grain items, etc... The things we need to eat properly. They found that the cost of healthy food choices is more expensive than pop, cookies, chips and other things that we don't really need in our diets.

They also found that the cost of these items varies greatly from one region to another as well as from city to city in each region. In some cases the difference was huge. For example, 6 apples cost $5 in Calgary, Alberta but only cost a $1.71 in Edmonton.

Here is a link to the story.

www.cbc.ca...

And a link to the actual study.

www.heartandstroke.com...

Also, an interesting interactive map to show the costs of the items purchased in the communities across Canada.

www.heartandstroke.com...

So my question is why? The study took into account all of the factors that could cause such a discrepancy such as cost of transportation, seasonal availability, etc.. and was able to discount all of them as the factor causing this.

I post this because it is something that I have been saying for years. They don't want us eating right. They want us chowing down on the crappy, prepackaged, high sugar and fat content foodstuffs.

So any thoughts ATS? Why is this happening? I'd like to hear what you all think about this.

[edit on 15-2-2009 by GAOTU789]

Probably because of Monsanto. All those chemicals and food engineering isn't free!

I mean is it not obviouse to people when it costs MORE to eat what nature gives than what a company provides? It makes me sad that we have to pay so much for things that are our birthright.

Well I knew somebody would ask that question eventually.

I'm happy it's a fellow Canuck

To get to you're point, the TPTB do not want us eating healthier, they want to cram us with all of this useless crap they produce and market to us on a daily basis.

Furthermore, Healthy Food is actually harder to grow and maintain now a days, ever since they began using those Geneto-Crops or whatever they are.

The soil doesn't produce like it use to, because of the chemicals and bad maintenance so it's harder to produce fresh "clean" food for us to eat.

My advice:

Get a green house, grow your own, that's what I do, and i save about ohh....1 to 2 hundred a month minimum and the food is soo much better. This can not only be used for fruits and vegetables, but for herbs and various healing plants as well.

~Keeper

There can be a variety of causes.

When my son was born and the the subsequent revelation that he may have ADHD we went organic and avoid stuff with food dye etc.


Supply and demand. : In the past such items like organic vegetables and the like did not look as good, cost more to produce, did not last as long on shelves etc. People did not buy them in great amounts and thus drove up costs. Its much much better in terms of price and quality but you still pay a premium esp. for Organic Milk

Ill bet production costs for junk food is cheap and the margins are high. Note commercials esp. kids channels. Its no coincidence that my son can recite chapter and verse about the latest Happy meal toy. Or the fact that he cannot read but can pick out sugar laden cerals by name in the grocery store. They have the money to advertise.

The rapid pace of our society demands fast food. People are ont he go and junk food stores longer thanks to all the chemicals, is easier to transport, etc.

No question about the cost of mass producing that crap that gets passed off as food Fred. Also, there was that study a while back about placing the same food in a Mcdonalds wrapper and feeding both of them to kids. The kids overwhelmingly chose the Mikky D's food as better, although it was the exact same food. I have commented before about what I think about the mass brainwashing that these companies have accomplished and what it means to our society here on the boards before.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Those threads are good reads as well.

But this study isn't really about that. It is looking at the huge difference between healthy choices from community to community. They are actually calling for a government enquiry into why this is happening because in some areas of the country, it is putting healthy eating out of reach for a lot of people and the health affects are going to be overwhelming.

I have been almost forced to start my own vegi garden due the high cost of healthy eating.

I say "almost forced" because i can buy the healthy food i want but it means giving up other cost like internet for example to afford a healthy diet.
Internet something i dont want to go without.

Now i can pop out to my garden and snack on raw veggies, but a lot of people dont have that option.

Also a lot of my friends are so conditioned by fast foods that the thought of eating raw veggies makes them feel sick,to some of them it seems to be a status symbol, eating veggies makes them feel poor or less cool.

fast food and large corperations will buy in bulk, far more than your local stores do and can buy extremely cheap,
now when you are selling fruit and vegtables they have to look perfect or they will not be sold and sit on the shelf and spoil.
Companies which produce your processed foods that use fruit and vegtables will just buy it all, it doesn't matter what it looks like because it just goes straight into large machines and chopped up, it may have spots and holes and it doesn't matter.

So the reason your produce costs more at the store is basically due to the large amount of loss due to spoilage.

Unfortunately there isn't really a conspiracy about it, just basic ecenomics.

I wish could grow my own healthy foods, but alas, I have the brownest thumb on the planet! I can't keep a house plant alive, let alone a garden. Believe me, I tried!

I too have noticed the high cost of eating healthy, and I had to give up other things in my life so that I could afford to eat the foods I want without going broke. I also go that extra mile and buy the highest quality food for my dogs. No by-product or grains, and it costs a fortune, but their health is just as important as mine and my husbands.

For now I just grin and bear it. It will save me money in the long run when I don't have to go on high cholesterol meds, or blood pressure meds. I think places like McDonalds and Burger King should be shut down. I don't care how tasty it is (yuck if you ask me), it's killing people!

reply to post by Beege24


everyone can grow plants.

First rule is to look at nature, most people kill plants due to love and not really understanding the basic needs.
buy a seedling and follow the instructions on the little tag, it will tell you where it like to be.

rule 2, don't buy plants that are inside the store as they get no sun and when you put them outside they burn.

a tomato is a great way to start as they are pretty easy to grow and remember to water well at least once a day in the drier months.

never ever give up on trying to grow your own plants, once you lose that skill you become a slave to the system.

As several members have said, growing your own food really can make a difference in your budget. I have a 1,200 square foot garden, and grow enough vegetables and herbs to feed my wife and I for the entire year. In addition, when our grandchildren come over, they love to pick tgheir own vegetables, which we then help them cook and eat. It's a great way to get children to eat vegetables. We grow several hundred (yes, not a misprint) tomato plants each year, then process the tomatoes into soups, chowders, tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes and ketchup. We grow both summer squash, which are prolific, and winter squash and pumpkins for pies during the winter months. They are quite easy to grow. All in all, we grow about 40 different vegetables and herbs. We freeze much of the food, after par-boiling them. Studies have shown that vegetables frozen right after being picked and par-boiled, have more nutrients than "fresh" vegetables from grocery stores or even markets, where you don't know how long the vegetables have been out of the ground.

In addition, there is this, which was just posted about high fructose corn syrup, which we all knew was fattening. Now there is a much more serious concern about it, and processed food:
articles.mercola.com...

Most Common Source of Calories in U.S. is LOADED With Mercury!

Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, according to a new study. Mercury was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient.

HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods. A high consumer can take in about 20 teaspoons of HFCS per day. The chemical was found most commonly in HFCS-containing dairy products, dressings and condiments.

The use of mercury-contaminated caustic soda in the production of HFCS is common.

In case you weren’t aware, the number one source of calories in the United States is high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The average American consumes about 12 teaspoons of it every day, though as the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) pointed out, teens and other “high consumers” may consume 80 percent more than that.

Now it turns out that this widespread sweetener is contaminated with the toxic heavy metal mercury!

The samples were found to contain levels of mercury ranging from below a detection limit of 0.005 to 0.570 micrograms mercury per gram of HFCS. And this was from samples of popular name-brand foods and beverages, including some made by Quaker, Hershey’s, Kraft and Smucker’s.

How Does Mercury Get Into Corn Syrup?

Although the makers of HFCS like to claim that it’s natural, it’s actually a highly refined product that would never exist in nature. Its manufacture involves an extensive process, one step of which is to separate corn starch from the corn kernel.

Caustic soda is used, among other things, to do this, and for decades mercury-grade caustic soda produced in industrial chlorine (chlor-alkali) plants has been used for this purpose.

Because mercury cells are used to produce some caustic soda, the caustic soda may become contaminated, and ultimately transfer that mercury contamination to the HFCS in your soda, salad dressing, soup, cereal, and so on.

Said IATP’s David Wallinga, M.D., a co-author of both studies:

“Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the FDA to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply.”

Isn’t it ironic that the Corn Refiners Association just recently spent around $30 million on an ad campaign designed to rehabilitate HFCS’s reputation as an unhealthy sweetener?

It’s going to take a lot more than a few TV commercials to explain away this latest revelation.

Why Consuming Mercury is a Bad Idea

Mercury acts as a poison to your brain and nervous system. This is especially dangerous for pregnant women and small children, whose brains are still developing. If infants or fetuses are exposed to mercury, it can cause:

• Mental retardation
• Cerebral palsy
• Deafness
• Blindness

Even in low doses mercury can interfere with a child’s development, leading to shortened attention span and learning disabilities.

In adults, mercury poisoning can be a serious risk as well, and has been linked to fertility problems, memory and vision loss, and trouble with blood pressure regulation. It can also cause extreme fatigue and neuro-muscular dysfunction, as experienced recently by Chicago actor Jeremy Piven.

Further, studies show that mercury in your central nervous system (CNS) causes psychological, neurological, and immunological problems including:

• Arrhythmias and cardiomyopathies
• Tremors
• Insomnia
• Personality changes and irritability
• Headaches

• Weakness
• Blurred vision
• Slowed mental response
• Unsteady gait

To make matters worse, mercury bonds very firmly to structures in your CNS. Unless actively removed, it has an extremely long half-life of somewhere between 15 and 30 years in the CNS! What this means is that consuming mercury-contaminated HFCS is probably cumulative, with the damage adding up over time.

Mercury is Not the Only Reason to Avoid HFCS

The fact that HFCS-sweetened food and drinks may contain mercury is enough to make me avoid them like the plague. But then again, I avoided them entirely even BEFORE this news came out and I strongly encourage you to take a similar stance.

Part of what makes HFCS such an unhealthy product is that it is metabolized to fat in your body far more rapidly than any other sugar, and, because most fructose is consumed in liquid form (soda), its negative metabolic effects are significantly magnified.

Among them are:

• Diabetes
• Obesity
• Metabolic Syndrome
• An increase in triglycerides and LDL (bad) cholesterol levels
• Liver disease

Fructose also contains no enzymes, vitamins or minerals, and it leeches micronutrients from your body. Unbound fructose, which is found in large quantities in HFCS, can interfere with your heart's use of minerals such as magnesium, copper and chromium.

Last but not least, HFCS is almost always made from genetically modified corn, which is fraught with its own well documented side effects and health concerns, such as increasing your risk of developing a food allergy to corn.

Slow way of killing the poor?

This is a very great thread thanks for posting.

Definately people have been brainwashed to believe supermarket food is normal food and given that it is cheaper the people will reluctantly buy it instead of the nice juicy bag of oranges for the same price.

Food prices have gone up but your better off likely to grow your own as nature intended or support local farmers by going around to your neighbourhood farms and asking them to buy fruit and veggies. Another great way to get lots of fruit and veggies is by volunteering to work on a farm picking in exchange for free food. Farmers need to jump on the band wagon for people to support them and local communities. Another idea is to look up your local community on the net for websites that promote activities in your neighbourhood and make a post for others to join you in fruit and veggie exchange or nature walks to indentify herbs etc.

Start small grow some herbs, wheatgrass, tomato plants in pots etc. Ask your neighbour to be your buddy and grow veggies and exchange them.

Put pamphlets around your town and do a street get together or fruit and veggie stall. People need to get back into the community spirit. Find people who are wanting to plant fruit trees in your area or go for herb and fruit walks with a guide to identify different plants you can pluck from the side off the road such as dill or purslane. If someone in your neighbourhood has fruit trees in their yards knock on the door and ask them in you can pick them in exchange for some money and most will want to give them away due to needing to keep the yard clean from falling fruit.

Look up and get to know about the raw food diet and green smoothies and your shopping may be cheaper. When you consider your health and how much you would normally buy on take out food and medical expenses you will realize it ends up cheaper in the end.

When your on the raw food and green smoothie diet you will notice your medical expenses will be less, your health, energy and wellbeing improved, save on beauty regimes due to looking younger, save on transport by growing your own. Just do up a list of everything that costs you money and that you dont need anymore once you embark on a healthier lifestyle. You will never regret it.

Save your life, save your community, save your earth. No challenge to big or too small is worth your health and wellbeing. It is your motivation. Write down in a note book everything you want for you and your family, community and environment, add up the costs and decide what you want for you and your family and just do it. Dont look back keep moving forward to a brighter new future and leave the past in the past.

Get the kids in the car and just drive to the farms and show the kids how they get their food and help them identify and taste fruits and veggies they like and keep buying it for them and put in in a bowl on the table so they can keep grabbing it. Put up affirmations on the fridge, house, car, bedrooms, wherever and whenever about the benefits off fruit and veggies and what it means for you.

Goodluck and best of health.





[edit on 16-2-2009 by Applesandoranges]

Transportation costs, I'd imagine. Fruits and vegetables have to be kept from damaging each other. They don't have a long shelf life. They have to be kept in more or less sanitary conditions. Processed foods can take more of a beating, and be left around on shelves longer.

reply to post by GAOTU789


Funny, I was just having this conversation with my mom. Here in NYC, good, healthy food used to be really expensive, like you're saying, but not anymore. It seems that, when the gas prices went up, everybody raised prices for everything. When gas went back down, the nicer markets in the city adjusted their prices, but the ones that serve normal and/or poor people retained the inflated prices.

End result: 3 lbs of fresh, organic string beans from France for $2.99 (at Trader Joe's) vs 1 lb of frozen, 'regular' string beans (the thicker ones) for 1.79 (at Pathmark), which comes to $5.37 for 3 lbs.

edit to add: we're in Manhattan, so a garden isn't really an option. We were, however, growing cooking herbs in window-boxes.

[edit on 16-2-2009 by HarlemHottie]

HarlemHottie

Here is a directory i found for those who live in city apartments, if your not on a budget i guess and some are on a budget:

www.rawfoodplanet.com...

rawfoodnetwork.com...

In one of the directories there is a food coop for cheaper prices on organic fruits and veggies.
There is also raw food potlucks where you make a raw dish and go to a poluck and eat form the many wonderful dishes prepared free.

[edit on 16-2-2009 by Applesandoranges]

reply to post by GAOTU789


I think part of this involves the kind of people who demand these foods. Rich people and middle class "yuppies" (always loved that term) demand organic foods. Think about the kind of person who shops at whole foods on a regular basis. They probably make a good amount of money. So the stores charge more because they understand who their target customer: the person who considers it a great status symbol to pay three times as much to buy locally grown, in season, fresh vegetables.

Not that that isn't something we should all want.

When I take salad and nuts to work and hear "Oh you're one of THOSE guys", it makes me sick. The problem is that there is a stigma surrounding "healthy" eating (which I simply call eating). The taste buds of most are not acclimated to real foods, but instead the hyper palatable salty, fatty, sugar-dense fast foods.

People also don't have time to spend an hour preparing a meal. They really don't. Between their dead end minimum wage job and wanting to relax after work they grab what's convenient and waste away.

Eating healthy doesn't need to cost more than eating badly.
Especially when you consider the huge amount of processed food that people eat.
For the price of 4 horse meat and chemical laden individual shepherds pies from a supermarket, I can make one using grass fed lamb mince, swede carrot sweet potato onion and parsnips from whole foods that will feed my family of 5 and there'll be enough left for my lunch at work the next day.
It's not rocket science. Hell, for 20 quid we get a roast dinner made with free range pork, a great stir fry the next day and cold cuts for sandwiches. That's 2 quid for a big plate of food plus free sandwiches.

reply to post by GAOTU789


Well we can all sit here and pass the buck around...
But when it boils down to concentrate, we get the market.
The producers set their prices according to what they need/want to make in profit.
Then the business sets it's prices along the same lines.
It will never be "cheaper" for good, healthy food because junk food is cheap. Period.
Cheap to produce, cheap to market, and easy to sell in mass quantities.
Health food doesn't sell as much, so to make the most money, it has higher prices.

Is there a conspiracy behind it all? Sure.
There have been 100's of studies on all things junk and guess what?
People (especially kids) love sugar, HFCS and salt laden foods.
So the market is geared towards those people.
If we allow the companies to control our habits, how will it stop?
And who allows the market to control their "needs"?

The millions of consumers.
We only have ourselves to blame.
So as individuals we must choose to be better than what controls us.

Which is why I just planted 6 more fruit trees and grow a garden annually.
I feel it's of upmost importance to be able to provide for oneself and family.
What is more important? Our health and well being?
Or our luxuries and lavish food economy?

Originally posted by GAOTU789
So my question is why?

All things being equal, why does men's clothing cost so much less than women's clothing? Basically because men are not willing to spend a lot for clothes and women are.

In any negotiation, the person who cares the least has the most power.

People who want to eat more healthy put themselves in a weaker bargaining position because they want something. They are willing to spend more to get healthier food. And therefore that's what happens.