Study: Healthy Food Costs More and Is More Prone to Inflation

Yet another reason to set ourselves up so we can grow our own here in West Contra Costa County. . .

A study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association averaged the cost per calorie of more than 370 food items from the shelves of a Seattle supermarket. The authors determined that you can get your entire caloric intake for a day (2,000 calories) for just $3.52 if you choose unhealthy foods, while it will cost you $36.32 to eat only healthy foods. What is more, the cost of healthy foods increased 19.5% in just two years, while the cost of unhealthy foods dropped by 1.8% during this same time period. Learn more at the link below.

http://www.rwjf.org/programareas/features/digest.jsp?c=EMC-ND138&pid=1138&id=6878

Thoughts. . .
(1) Looking at numbers like this, it is no surprise that low-income communities have much higher rates of obesity and diabetes. It costs so much more to eat a healthy diet.

(2) The federal government invests billions of dollars annually supporting a food system which favors unhealthy food products. It is not surprising that unhealthy products are so much cheaper. (Recently, the Democrats are just as responsible for this state of affairs as are the Republicans).

(3) As the price of oil continues to rise, the cost of fresh produce can only rise with it. Transporting and warehousing fresh produce requires a huge investment of fossil fuels in our current food and fuel system. Even thought lots of attention has been paid recently to diet and the need to increase access to fresh produce, I think our food system is only becoming more unhealthy because it is so depedent on long-distance transportation and the price of oil. As the cost of oil rises, healthy food will only get more and more expensive if we continue to import all of it from outside our community. Growing a significant amount of healthy food right here in our own community has the potential to both improve the quality of our food supply AND insulate us as a community against some of the effects of inflation and oil price increases. Oil supplies are only dimishing and worldwide oil demand is only increasing. NOW is the time to develop our community's ability to grow some of our own food if we hope to retain some control over the quality and cost of our future food supply.