Many times when the subject of obesity comes up, someone will mention that poor people have a greater tendency to be obese due to the "fact" that bad food is cheaper than good food. Only in some cases would I agree that good food is more expensive than bad food, and if one does a cost/benefit analysis, it really isn't more expensive at all.
Wonder Bread is much cheaper than the sixteen whole grain variety of bread that I buy, but I can eat multiple sandwiches on Wonder Bread and never feel full. When I eat a sandwich on good bread, my stomach knows it has been fed.
The good bread counts as part of a meal, whereas crappy bread is little more than two sheets of spongy cardboard to keep the contents of the sandwich from getting all over your fingers.
Some of the prices I am going to list may seem out of whack to you, but that is due to most of the food that is sold here being shipped long distances.
A McChicken at McDonald's is $1.50-$1.59 locally, if I remember correctly. For your money you get a soggy white bun, courtesy of the Wonder Bread bakery, some shredded lettuce mixed with mayonnaise, and a processed breaded chicken patty.
I buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sometimes fresh, sometimes frozen depending on who has them on sale. The MOST I will pay is $1.99 a pound, and I can usually find them cheaper. Who in their right mind pays for a nasty chicken sandwich when you can cook a much better one yourself with a little bit of time and effort?
If a person REALLY wanted prepared, breaded chicken patties, it is cheaper to get those and heat or cook them yourself over McDonald's. When I was at Safeway this morning, they had a box of four Tyson breaded chicken patties for $3.00. That is roughly what two McChickens cost, and I know Sam's Club has breaded chicken patties for even cheaper than that. I bet they are better than the ones McDonald's uses, too.
Figure ten McChickens at $15.00 to $15.99 total, versus a seven pound bag of frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts fromm Sam's Club for about the same price. Meal-wise, the greater benefit is definitely going to come from the unprepared chicken. Financial benefit goes right along with it, since I can make a lot of dishes using chicken that will stretch it even further.
French fries? Compare the cost of a large order of fries with the cost of potatoes. You will need some other stuff to turn said potatoes into fries, but if you keep a stocked kitchen, it should not be a problem.
One place the good expensive/bad cheap food comment does hold true is snack foods. I eat the healthy variety of chips, what kind depends on my mood. The thing is, healthy food in general tends to stick with me longer when I eat it and I find myself snacking a lot less, so I come out ahead financially.
So I would say it is not true in general that healthy food is more expensive than cheap food, especially if you do a cost/benefit analysis. Snack foods, yes, and fast food, but a lot of the "healthy" fast food tends to be crap when you check it out.
Instead of blaming the cost of healthy food for poor people having a greater tendency towards obesity, I would hypothesize that, being poor, they are perhaps less willing or even financially unable to invest in the kitchen infrastructure which would allow them to make the most out of their food budget. Temporary measures of eating fast food instead of buying a set of cooking utensils, spices and basic ingredients, et cetera.
Likewise, if it is a one parent family, they may simply lack the time to prepare the meals. They also may not know their way around the kitchen, so again it is easier to buy cheap, easy to prepare/pre-prepared crappy food over healthy food they have to prepare themselves.
So I would say that healthy "junk food" and snack foods to tend to be more expensive, but overall, good food is cheaper in the long run.
Wonder Bread is much cheaper than the sixteen whole grain variety of bread that I buy, but I can eat multiple sandwiches on Wonder Bread and never feel full. When I eat a sandwich on good bread, my stomach knows it has been fed.
The good bread counts as part of a meal, whereas crappy bread is little more than two sheets of spongy cardboard to keep the contents of the sandwich from getting all over your fingers.Some of the prices I am going to list may seem out of whack to you, but that is due to most of the food that is sold here being shipped long distances.
A McChicken at McDonald's is $1.50-$1.59 locally, if I remember correctly. For your money you get a soggy white bun, courtesy of the Wonder Bread bakery, some shredded lettuce mixed with mayonnaise, and a processed breaded chicken patty.
I buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sometimes fresh, sometimes frozen depending on who has them on sale. The MOST I will pay is $1.99 a pound, and I can usually find them cheaper. Who in their right mind pays for a nasty chicken sandwich when you can cook a much better one yourself with a little bit of time and effort?
If a person REALLY wanted prepared, breaded chicken patties, it is cheaper to get those and heat or cook them yourself over McDonald's. When I was at Safeway this morning, they had a box of four Tyson breaded chicken patties for $3.00. That is roughly what two McChickens cost, and I know Sam's Club has breaded chicken patties for even cheaper than that. I bet they are better than the ones McDonald's uses, too.
Figure ten McChickens at $15.00 to $15.99 total, versus a seven pound bag of frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts fromm Sam's Club for about the same price. Meal-wise, the greater benefit is definitely going to come from the unprepared chicken. Financial benefit goes right along with it, since I can make a lot of dishes using chicken that will stretch it even further.
French fries? Compare the cost of a large order of fries with the cost of potatoes. You will need some other stuff to turn said potatoes into fries, but if you keep a stocked kitchen, it should not be a problem.
One place the good expensive/bad cheap food comment does hold true is snack foods. I eat the healthy variety of chips, what kind depends on my mood. The thing is, healthy food in general tends to stick with me longer when I eat it and I find myself snacking a lot less, so I come out ahead financially.
So I would say it is not true in general that healthy food is more expensive than cheap food, especially if you do a cost/benefit analysis. Snack foods, yes, and fast food, but a lot of the "healthy" fast food tends to be crap when you check it out.
Instead of blaming the cost of healthy food for poor people having a greater tendency towards obesity, I would hypothesize that, being poor, they are perhaps less willing or even financially unable to invest in the kitchen infrastructure which would allow them to make the most out of their food budget. Temporary measures of eating fast food instead of buying a set of cooking utensils, spices and basic ingredients, et cetera.
Likewise, if it is a one parent family, they may simply lack the time to prepare the meals. They also may not know their way around the kitchen, so again it is easier to buy cheap, easy to prepare/pre-prepared crappy food over healthy food they have to prepare themselves.
So I would say that healthy "junk food" and snack foods to tend to be more expensive, but overall, good food is cheaper in the long run.
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