Cheap Food

My lynchpin example of cheap healthy food.

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            Healthy eating is continually perceived as being expensive to the point of also being exclusionary.  It is true that most healthy prepared foods are expensive relative to less healthy options but this doesn’t mean healthy foods and by extension eating well are inaccessible to Americans.  Firstly, America continually pays the lowest percent of our income on food compared to every other country on the planet.[1]  We only spend about 6 – 9% of our income on our food.  There is a values issue in this country where food is not seen as important as it should be, let alone healthy food.  Allocating more of our income towards paying for food increases our food budget which would leave more money for the more expensive but healthier options.  Even without changing our available funds though, anyone can make healthier and cheaper choices for food.  For example, at breakfast I almost always eat a bowl of oatmeal.  Rolled oats, often sold under the Quaker brand, are whole grains and very cheap.  They have the most protein per calorie of any grain at 16.89 grams per 100 grams of grain.[2]  An average size tube of rolled oats has 1200 grams of the grain in it.  That’s roughly 4660 calories in one tube of oats, of which the ALDI brand only costs $1.19.  Do the math: that’s 3915 calories per dollar, far cheaper than any fast food sandwich or junk food snack.  A double cheeseburger off the McDonald’s dollar menu is roughly 430 calories.[3]  With a few raisins, cinnamon and a dash of brown sugar thrown in before cooking the oatmeal, you can have a good-tasting and healthy breakfast that is comparatively dirt cheap.  The key take-away though is the need to cook.  If one is willing to do that, then cooking any staple food (be it potatoes, lentils, beans, wheat, rice, etc.) is very affordable, in fact it is the cheapest food available.  Many vegetables and fruit are also cheap (cabbage, onions, garlic, bananas, apples, etc.).  Saving money by purchasing these cheap staple foods leaves some extra money in the consumer’s wallet.  This makes buying slightly more expensive but crucially important vegetables and fruit (lettuce, kale, broccoli, chard, asparagus, peaches, blueberries, etc.) manageable.  I don’t see the country in as much of a food crisis as I see it in a cooking crisis.  20% of all food in America is eaten in the car, spurring on our obsession with and perceived need for prepared food.[4]  We like to pretend that our eating habits follow where our wallets can take us, but it is fact the reverse of this: our wallets follow where our eating habits take us.  We don’t like to cook and we love junk food, which is actually more expensive (as in the cheeseburger example shown above) so that’s where our money goes.  We are not hog-tied by limited funds, but we like to pretend to be.  Healthy food is often simple, and simple foods are always cheap.  As for that gourmet vegan restaurant: well, yes, that simply is expensive, but you could always cook a better meal at home…      

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[1] http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/01/america-food-spending-less

[2] http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/6454?fg=&man=&lfacet=&format=&count=&max=25&offset=&sort=&qlookup=oat

[3] http://www.mcdonalds.com/content/us/en/food/meal_bundles/dollar_menu.html

[4] http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/20090323/7-rules-for-eating