I’ve been thinking a lot about this. It does seem to be more expensive to eat healthily — & then I think about the kinds of stuff on store shelves, & it becomes clear: refined & lower quality food is simply cheaper to produce. Never mind the consequences down the line: higher levels of disease, higher health costs, etc. I start wondering if maybe the highest cost for cheap & poor quality foods is just in packaging them prettily & spinning them through advertising so that people will buy them.
But at least we still have the choice to evade paying high health care costs for ourselves personally, by eating well now.
But what a minefield we have to go through to do that. Chemical inputs into the soil like pesticides & fertilizers, factory farms & antibiotics, refining & packaging, hydrogenation, pasteurization, homogenization, genetic modification (& the lack of labeling on that latter item) — how can one even find a healthy bite to eat, in the face of all that? Much less take it up to the cash register to pay for it….
When Jon & I started our low-fat, higher carb diet, we learned this immediately. If you don’t have the $$ to pay for more meats, fish and veggies, you eat the boxes of crap from the grocery store shelves. I try to now shop only the outside bits of the store and stay away from the middles.
Yeah, I read a book once back in the ’80s on nutrition that advised exactly that: shop on the peripheries of the store. Outside what I now call “the packaged zone.”
It’s interesting hearing about a “low-fat, higher carb” diet, as this is exactly the opposite of what I’m doing — moderate carbs & higher (but still moderate) in the good fats.
Yep, better food costs money, but is still cheaper than expensive healthcare, like emergency room visits for gall bladder attacks, low glucose instances, etc…
The best food you can get though is in the summer months through your local farmers. It supports you by accessing cheaper foods, supports local farmers, who will see us through food shortages when they come from collapse of modern day agriculture and its dependency on oil and other non-sustainable activities, like dependence on mono culture rather than diversity.
It is also good to have a good network of friends from such relationships. Food and nourishment is tied to community in profound ways. The commuity starts with the decision to really nourish yourself. I think there is widespread confusion on this one point. Nourishment. What is it, where do we get it? Give yourself a hug today!
Lastly, don’t worry, be happy. In the famous words to a favorite song of mine by Bobby McFerrin.