Over and over I hear people say that it's less expensive to eat junk food than it is to buy healthy food. I don't buy this excuse. I just don't. And I don't buy junk food either.
Each time I go to a grocery store I am disgusted by what manufacturers are trying to get us to believe is "food". Really, no wonder there is such an obesity problem in North America, it's all crap being served and disguised as "convenience" and "time saving" and even falsely stating that it's "healthy". Plain and simple, it's junk and it's costing us - financially, environmentally and health wise. People will argue with me on this one, but a fact is a fact and if they choose to be worse off financially and health wise then that's their choice.
When I go out and about, I continuously observe people. I can't help it. And my mental calculator is always ticking away. My conclusion - junk food is simply more expensive.
The main reason I say this is because junk food is a 100% waste of money. 100%. It is a cost you don't ever ever ever "need" to spend. Ever. Think of the billions that are spent on soda alone. Billions! What if North Americans applied their soda money to debt instead? Billions of dollars!
Another reason why I say this is because even if you buy junk food, you still have to eat healthy food to survive and too feel good. So you are actually buying and consuming even more food than you need to. Yes chips are cheap, but they are not a meal. So your grocery bill slowly creeps up and up and up. And your health and wallet don't benefit.
And then there are the health, weight and emotional implications of junk food. These implications can be large-scale like the costs to manage preventable health problems like Type-2 Diabetes or they can be subtle like a mom in a busy mall with a screaming/crying/flailing four year old who just had a soda at the Food Court. This mom thing is so scary to me, because many don't connect the behaviour and emotional problems that can be avoided by being more careful about what we feed our kids.
Then... honestly, the stuff doesn't even taste that good! A store bought cookie vs. home baked from scratch? No contest!
It's a fact that living on the path of junk food use is just setting people up for issues and even more scary is that the solution for many health and behaviour problems isn't to correct the diet, it's to provide a pill.
Yesterday evening my little one had karate class. After class, we see the parents and children head out to either the restaurant next door, the coffee shop next door to get a "snack" before dinner. The average spend on a "snack" is $5.00 minimum per person for usually a cookie and a hot chocolate. No nutrition. Kids are likely to be wired for hours and then crash and hey likely won't want their dinner (which leads to food waste). And, they are completely negating the exercise the kid just had in karate class!!!
We have a tradition of getting a "snack" too. After karate class we go next door to the grocery store and we get a banana. Usually $0.33. Then we walk to the library, play some games, choose some books and a movie and then head home. Equal amounts of "convenience", equal amounts of "time" together yet we actually spend substantially less money and get more nutrition. We also won't have arguments about eating dinner later and we won't have hyperactivity issues. If dinner is shunned, at least I know that healthy food was consumed so I can let it pass.
None of this would be a concern to me if people really knew what "moderation" is. They don't. They hide behind this word as a means to justify their spending. "Oh, we don't do this all the time" - I call BS. You may not go to that particular place, but you go somewhere else. If it's not a cookie, it's a muffin, it's a donut, it's a candy bar, it's fast food, it's something else. I grew up with blood sugar issues and my Dr. told me about "moderation". Do you know how often moderation should be? One sweet treat a week. That's not one cookie and a hot chocolate a week - that's either or. Could you imagine the amount of money people could save if they lived by this more real definition of "moderation"?
I almost was in tears the other day when I over heard a woman tell her kid that they "couldn't afford" blueberries. He was begging for blueberries ($2.99). The kid was screaming for healthy yummy food. (Now granted, I don't know their situation or if he'd actually eat the blueberries.) But in her cart she had two cases of diet soda, a pack of individual pudding snacks, candy bars, paper towels, cookies, crackers among other things. Really? You "can't afford" blueberries? You can't use a towel instead of paper towels? You can't drink water instead of diet soda? Again, I don't know the situation, but as an onlooker - WOW!
This is typical of the shopping carts I see though. Junk junk junk fills the cart before people get to the produce section and then the total is already high so a few dollars for fruit is just "too much". I wonder what would happen if people started their shopping in the produce section instead?
100% complete waste of money. 100% complete waste of health. 100% complete waste.
