Eating Skinny COSTS more than Eating Fat

Ok, I got this comment from my boss today when I went to the store and stocked up on healthier foods.  Does anybody else agree with this that it costs more to eat healthier than it does to eat fattening foods?   Just wondering

Maybe today it costs more, but down the line it will be considered a bargain when you compare unhealthy's people's medication costs and need for community care, you will be glad you looked after yourself now.

I agree with that statement very much. In fact that is one of the problems facing our country today. Most of the inner city is plagued with this problem since lower income households cannot afford to purchase only healthy foods they rely on the cheaper, more convenient fastfoods/processed foods to sustain their familieis. In fact the number of fastfood eateries in urban inner city areas is much more concentrated than other regions since these places target low income households who don't have time or the resources to shop wisely for their family. In south central los angeles there are more fast food restaurants than any other part of the country and a markedly higher obesity rate in adults and children. The rampant availability and inexpensive feature of these foods makes them more desirable to these familis and unfortunately builds bad habits from an early age that are hard to break.

In a way, yes, it does. Things like white bread, hamburger, and potatoes are CHEAP. HOWEVER, in the long run, you PAY though INSURANCE, SICKNESS, DOCTOR VISITS, etc.! Is your HEALTH not worth paying a little more NOW?

PLUS, if you're SMART you can find bargains. I am a SUPER bargain shopper and I eat VERY HEALTHY. I don't spend a lot of money! I don't work and TRUST ME, I DON'T want to spend ALL of my life savings!

i guess it depends how much. i eat half of what i used to. i dont think its more expensive unless you buy diety foods like baked chips or SF cookies etc. if you eat real food. it costs less.

i eat hamburger, potatoes and well i hate white bread..blek. so that didnt change.

i dont eat all the $$ junk food as much as i used to.

veggies are cheaper than doritoes.

mmmmmm...cool ranch....

I think it depends on your perspective.

 For example, someone who thinks that it's easier and cheaper to buy junk food than healthy food may look at it like this: It's cheaper to buy a 200g packet of chips, than to buy a kilo of apples.  Well, considering that the price of a kilo of apples here is roughly $4.50 and if you were to buy a kilo of potato chips, it would actually cost you about $17.50, it doesn't quite equate.

It often does work out much cheaper to buy fresh or frozen vegetables and some meat and cook dinners at home than to eat fattening foods.  But it's all a matter of how much effort you want to put in too.  Some people are just too lazy to cook for themselves, especially when there's a McDonalds less than a kilometre up the road. 

  Since a lot of "healthier" foods are fresh foods you will have to consider in the cost of keeping the fresh food fresh. one reason why it is more expensive.  All you have to do is eat an apple that looks fresh but is almost mushy inside to realize why one NEVER buys an apple coner stores.  After such an experience with a red delicious apple, I decided that junk food bought from such places at least tasts as "fresh" as it ever gets.

One way of keeping costs down is to comparison shop and buy specials.  Harder if you are not a "binge" eater- eating the same food for a few days. Some people have to have different foods every day.  I know it is suggested one eats a variety of foods every day but I imagine in pre refrigeration days people did not have a choice and yet ate enough variety to live to be very old people. I'd consider eating  peaches for a week, then pears another or plums the next.etc as been a reasonable enough variety for humanity that only in the last couple of generations has access to refrigeration.  

 

 If you look at the price of that delicious looking chocolate eclair and then looked at the price of two yellow kiwi fruits all of a sudden fresh as a treat becomes very reasonable price.  Even better when you count the calorie costs.  The eclair might be OK if you spent an hour every day walking to and back from work, but the kiwi fruit is an easier choice if you have to reduce calories anyway. Now that eclair is an instant gobble down while one may have to wait till one gets home to peel that kiwi.  Bananas are about the only fresh fruit that requires no great need for sanitary eating methods.

Really I suppose it depends upon that persons perspective if eating healthier costs more. A good restaurant will cost more in time and money than a fast food place.  If you a have a fridge, freezer, stove and an oven; sticking that really nice frozen pizza into the oven may be as fast as waiting for delivery or heating that frozen lasana for a meal and its clean up takes as long as finding a parking spot, ordering a meal, eating it, paying for it, and then leaving to get home.   I must say eating organic might be expensive depending on how much of a mark up it is. Like my 70 + year old aunt who already is the longest breast cancer survivor of her oncologist said to those who praised Whole Foods and such organic sources (when organic was EXPENSIVE), what benefit will I really get?  Another matter if you are a young girl planning to have healthy children one day. Lack of folic acid, other vitamins and other foods can have an affect on your child at a stage when you might not yet even be sure you are pregnant. Nutrition affects both you and your fetus. If male, eating healthy all the time is NOT a big deal for his child's development.

Remember each person is different. If say supposing you have a family history of early death from high colesteral levels, eating "healtier" may be as nessary for you as someone with type 1 diabeties.

 

Find out why your boss thinks the way he boss does. If half seriously jokeing because some one in the family insists on organic, one can fully understand his comment. Otherwise it just may be he is truely ignorant of how not healthy, not eating healty can be.   Some people just do not have the background- nutrition is  not taught in school, just like finincial realities ( like how much it costs to pay off a high intrest loan) are not taught.

 

One of the reasons I love calorie count is at junior high I spent hours in home economics learning to figure out nutrition values of a meal.   I knew very well I could NEVER impose such displine on my life on a daily basis if I had to figure out food values manualy with pen and paper. Calorie Count makes it so easy, is easy to be put out because it still  does not have featuers you want- SPOILT!

Yes it does cost more, I do think its worth it, but for the rest of the month im on a REALLY tight budget - (half my wage this month has to cover BOTH me and my boy) It would be so much easier if i could buy a Mcdonalds for lunch but instead i spend ten times as much buying salads and fresh fruit. Im losing the weight though so i am not complaning, plus it tastes soooo much nicer!

actually on the radio today was that a few cities/jurisdaictions in the LA area are proposing an impass on new fastfood places for a couple years because the those same areas are poorer and have a higher concentration of fast food versus other...

as to the expense of healthy.....I could grab two junior bacon cheeseburgers, bigie fries and a biggie drink for less than 5 bucks.  Even "healthy" frozen food in the grocery store has high sugar or sodium even thought the fat or carbs is low.  the only way to control all that is cook myself and besides plain beans there are few meals i can make for less than 5 bucks.......bearing in mind that I also live in Los Angeles.....

I agree with most of what has been said here.  Fresh food, particularly food that doesn't sell in large volume, is going to be more expensive than high volume foods with long shelf lives, thanks to a bunch of additives that your probably shouldn't be ingesting.  On the other hand, it doesn't take a lot of food to make up 2000 calories.  So, for example, the whole grain bread that I like costs 4 bucks a loaf or about $0.20/slice.  Store brand white bread can be had for $0.05/slice or less.  But 2 slices per day is plenty.  So the good bread costs me $0.40/day.  It is more expensive than the white bread but it isn't expensive.  Meat and fish can run $10.00/lb.  If I limit myself to 4 oz per day, that's $2.50/day.  Of course, I can find cheaper meats -- chicken, turkey, ham, perch, cod, catfish, tilapia (which my wife refuses to eat).  Beans are a real nutritional bargain, if you are willing to invest the time and energy in preparing the meal.  Whole grain flour is not that expensive on a per serving basis, if you are willing to invest the time and energy in preparing the meal.  In season fruits are usually on sale where I shop so they can be a bargain.  I do use Healthy Choice meals from time to time and I buy them on sale.  The catch is that I have to be ready to settle for a 300 calorie dinner or supplement with a salad.

It seems to me that the question as posed requires some consideration of how much time and energy a person is willing to invest in seeking out good buys and preparing meals from basic materials.  It may also depend on resources.  It may also depend on whether you are talking about an individual or a family or a large family.

I don't really see this. Recently I started eating a lot of salmon - so I suppose that is an added expense but I buy that as a large fillet costing me about $3/day.

Likewise I'm eating 150g Spinach a day. So I go through that quickly.

Still none of this seems particularly expensive, especially when compared with microwavable meals or eating out.

Other than that I just eat the same things I always eat. Chicken, pasta, sandwiches.

Now if you are eating prepared low-calorie foods like Lean Cuisine, specialty products like Ezekiel Bread or pre-packaged portion controled cookies then sure it's way more expensive. However there's little reason to think these make you significantly skinnier than just eating regular stuff.

If you're eating out and find salads expensive. Try looking at the published nutritional info put out by a few top Fast-Food places. Pick out one or two items from each that are within your calorie allotment - sure they may be higher in fat than the salad ( but not necessarily - salad dressings almost entirely determine your caloric take and they can vary hugely) but hopefully eating out is the exception not the rule anyway.

Now that I think about it, eating out is cheaper too. Since a McDonalds grilled chicken snack wrap and a Diet Coke is cheaper than any of the other meals with fries.

nods

The thing that gets me is the "healthy" food in restaurants.  WHY are salads so expensive?  You go to an Applebees or Chilis or something, and all of the salads are $10+, while the burger is $7.  I hate that!

In a burger, they can disguise cheap meat with cheese and sauces, in a salad, they have to use a higher grade of meat.

I buy alot of frozen food. Frozen veg are just as good for you as fresh and lasts longer. I also get tinned fruit, in the juice, such as pineapple or mandarin. If im peckish for something sweet i choose them! :)

I dont agree really....unless your eating all the store packaged diet stuff. for me natural foods like potatoes and fruits vegetables and frozen veggies , even pasta or dry beans are really affordable. a big pot of split pea, or brown rice with black beans, fruits...tofu is like a dollar. When I was eating fatty foods I spent way more.

I agree with this to a certain extent, but like a few people said ? it does depend on the individual. Also, like the cost of getting fresh veggies/fruit every couple of days needs to be taken into account.

However, for me personally I have been drinking less, (only drinking ?hard? about once a 3 weeks) and eating virtually no junk, i.e. biscuits/crisps/candy. So if by eating ?skinny? you mean only buying ?proper? food, on average it must cost less, imho!

One thing that I've noticed but not really discussed is:

People tend to eat fast food everyday maybe even two/three times a day.   That means Breakfast, lunch & dinner.  When you add it up . . it's really not that inexpensive.  Sure a bag of apples cost more then 1 Mc.D's biscuit but if you figure out the cost of 7 biscuits <7 days a week> the costs add up pretty quick. 

Also have been thinking that obese people might actually be malnourished.  Their bodies keep telling them to eat in hope of receiving the nutrients it's craves.


fuzzy math
Karak

I used to think this way too, but you really have to become a bargain hunter. Read the circulars for your local grocery store and any supercenters that are nearby. Buy produce that's on sale and in season. Right now I've been buying plums and pluots, but soon I'll be buying pears and apples, and in the winter I buy clementines and tangelos. Bagged salads, carrot sticks, and other veggies go on sale all the time. I buy what looks good and is on sale, and I make meals based on that. I also don't buy more than I can eat before it will go bad, because that's just wasting money. I stock up on Special K, Lean Cuisines, and frozen vegetables when they're on sale and clip coupons for them, too. I buy store brands instead of national brands for almost everything, because half the time they're made by a national company. I belong to Costco, and even though it's $50 a year, you can consistently get chicken breasts for $2.79 a pound and lean ground beef for $1.99. If you are single, and you buy a package of 12 chicken breasts, you can have 24 meals for about $16. That's almost a month of lunches or dinners! Many grocery stores sell the big "value packs" of meat too. Buy it on sale, go home and split it into the portions you want, and freeze it. But above all, spending even a little more money on healthy food is better than saving a little cash and paying for it on your waistline.

I think siayae is on to something here.  I believe the big "cost difference" results when, instead of actually changing eating habits, people try to buy the exact same "junky" things they were eating before, just in "low-cal" or "low-fat" or other specialized packaged varieties.

Sure it's going to be more expensive if you buy sugar-free or low-fat cookies and ice cream and TV dinners, instead of regular.  But not necessarily more expensive if you skip the cookies and ice cream this week, as in make those things a treat and not a staple of every shopping trip; and invest in a package of boneless skinless chicken breasts and some fresh veggies that can make 2 or 3 meals. 

 

 

I've managed to keep my grocery prices about the same - as long as I remember to buy produce only as it's needed, and eat it before it rots!  When it comes to convenience foods, I definitely notice the cost difference - regular hot dogs are often on sale for $1/pack, regular burgers $5/24 patties... lean meats are NEVER that cheap, but hey, at least they taste better in addition to being healthier than the cheap stuff.

Treating myself has definitely become more expensive.  A carton of berries is more expensive than a chocolate bar.  Sushi is more expensive than Chinese food, or pizza, or a fast food meal...  Last weekend I realized that what I spent on one meal's worth of sashimi was the same price as the pick-up deal for two large 3-toppings at the pizza joint near my apartment (and they make delicious food!).  Oh well, I guess I'm worth it!