Cheap Food Means Expensive Health
For a lot of people one of the inhibitors to eating well is the perceived expense of healthy food versus packaged and processed food. It’s easy to just want to buy cheap boxes of pasta and canned foods instead of spending more money on fresh produce - let alone organic or more natural forms of food. It’s very common, especially in low-income households, for people to try and spend the least they can and get the most amount of food as opposed to buying healthy food that will be better for them. Part of this is a lack of security when it comes to food - we’re always worrying about where the next meal is going to come from and that means that we tend to think that cheap, processed food is a better solution than spending more money on fresh, whole foods.
As it turns out, buying this kind of cheap, processed, corn based type of food is actually a lot more expensive than you’d think. We’ve always know the advantages of cooking and preparing healthy foods at home especially in the ways of saving money but how much does it actually cost you to spend money on cheaper processed food? It’s frightening to realize but many of the costs of eating poorly are hiding within the food themselves and not that cheap price-tag. Part of the big problems is that unhealthy food is intentionally made cheaper by subsidizes from the government hat support corn and soy production to the tune of nearly $30 billion dollars a year. These two crops become the basis for a huge amount of the foods that we eat and that translates into an extra 500 calories per person on average compared to what we at thirty to forty years ago. But that’s not all this corn and soy go to. Much of it is used to feet the cattle and livestock populations we retain for the production of meat and diary. It’s astonishing to know that over 70% of our crops in this area are used to feed animals that are used for our food. These animals eat enough food each year to feed more than the entire population of the earth - how cheap is that?
When you get down to the medical aspects of eating poorly it’s easy to see how quickly the expenses can pile up. In fact the healthcare costs that are related to obesity or over one hundred billion per year which is more than twice the amount caused by smoking. Plus people who eat poorly and end up obese cost tons of money in ares like employee absences, doctors and physicians costs, drug costs, surgery costs, and many other areas as well. While these expenses may be deferred until later they are still a huge problem when it comes to eating poorly because they only increase the problems and the issues that people will have down the road hospital care is far more expensive than opting for some fruits and vegetables instead. These are all important factors that must be taken into consideration. So would you rather pay a bit more for food in advance or suffer the health effects and the astronomical costs of health care in the long run?