Chef Paul: The cost of eating healthy…
May 13 2011
According to a recent study “the cost of feeding two adults and two children a diet that meets the requirements of the Canada Food Guide is $171 a week, down from $187 a week last year.” But when you factor in paying for necessities such as housing and clothing, families with low incomes or on social assistance may have nowhere else to cut their budgets than at food stores. And that’s not right.
Because of government subsidies to Big Agriculture, it is less expensive to buy pre-made unhealthy convenience foods or to buy fast food. Corn crops are subsidized to such an extent that corn sugar in all its guises shows up in almost all products from soda pop to beef feed to batteries!!!
But the true cost of eating healthy is not only felt in the pocketbook but is also in our general health. It’s easy to see the price of a packaged frozen dinner and compare it to the cost of making the same (without the sodium, fat and other additives) meal from scratch, but is that truly an accurate comparison? If you were to factor in the cost to your health; the cost of missed work days because of illness; the cost of diabetes drugs should your unhealthy diet bring you to that point, then it’s obvious that eating healthy is cost effective.
Eating healthy also means eating more vegetarian meals which are usually much less expensive to prepare than the meat and potatoes fare. Eating healthy also means portion control…if you’re going to be a meat and potatoes kind of family then cutting down on the portion sizes will save you money. And as this recent article (http://politicsoftheplate.com/?p=864) we posted on our Facebook page attests, eating local, healthy foods does not cost more than your local grocery store.
So, is the “high cost of eating healthy” just yet another excuse? If you want to make a change in your eating habits you need to make a commitment. Does it mean one less coffee shop visit a week? Does it mean cutting out the digital cable subscription? We need to assess our priorities here…the latest HBO series or good health? You decide!
