Healthy Food Is More Expensive, Study Finds
We've long suspected that eating healthy is significantly more expensive than eating unhealthy, but it's now been proven by a study conducted by the British Medical Journal.
The study found that a day's worth of unhealthy food is $1.50 cheaper than a day's worth of healthy. Added up, that amounts to nearly $550 per year.
This number compares a nutritionally sound meal containing fruits, vegetables and fish with a fully processed meal containing refined carbs and meat.
Sweets, snacks and grains showed a $0.03 to $0.12 price difference than healthier options per serving. The biggest difference was seen in meats and proteins, amounting to $0.29 per serving.
Not everyone can afford to pay extra money to eat a healthy meal. So how do we deal with this?
Doug Rauch, the former CEO of Trader Joe's, mentioned back in September that he was planning to open a grocery store called The Daily Table that would sell expired (but still safe and edible) food for around $1. This includes soups, salads and packaged chopped vegetables that would have otherwise been thrown out.
Though this could help, Rauch's project will not be ready until sometime next year.
Illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, pancreatic cancer and more are linked to unhealthy food. There needs to be some way to have healthier foods available without breaking the bank.