Why’s unhealthy food cheaper?

February 2, 2016 Ashley 0 Comments

So, I came across this thing about feeding costs in my feed today:

It was interesting, seeing as it wasn’t directed at anyone specifically. But, being the writer that I am, charged to article generate (on fitness, no less), I took it as a sign from the literary deities above. This would be my prompt of the day: why is a puck of bovine squished betwixt buns cheaper than Thumper’s dinner? Really. Why isn’t healthy eating as affordable as bad food? Well, like any other reply you’d get out of a woman, it’s complicated. The answer is that it is… and that it isn’t… and that we the consumers are partially responsible.

Granted, if you find yourself in McClownVille, perusing the dollar menu, you’re going to pay more for nutritious food. But you ultimately spend more on the crappy kind – because you’ll buy more if it in the long run. Think of it like the freebie a dealer gives to someone, knowing he’ll be back for more. Likewise, you’ll keep coming back for more once you’re hooked. Why? Well, first of all is something dubbed the “bliss point”. The bliss point is something infused into foods to make them snack crack. The perfect combo of salt, sugar, fat, flavoring, and whatever other elixirs they’ve got going on in that secret sauce. Think of your fat-kid fixation, and I can guarantee, it’s got this element built into it. Add in the fact that there’s zero nutritive value, and of course you’ll keep coming back for more. Your brain’s delighted, but your body’s not getting what it needs. So, you insanely keep returning to this non resource to get what the first burger or bag of chips was missing. It’s the whole basis of Pringles’ “once you pop, you can’t stop” tagline. And the reason we’re obese as a culture.

But this is the secret behind fast food.

That full body high you get when that first bite hijacks your taste buds and thus brain.

Which is great for the food pushers. They don’t want you buying the salad. There’s nothing addictive about healthy, balanced diets. So, they make the empty un-food all of a hundred pennies, while the the salads are prepped to be as unappetizing as possible. (Making you think all salad sucks. Plus, once you’ve had food heroin, it’s tough to make the move toward minimalistic bliss of au natch veges.) Truth is: fast food joints don’t make dough off your healthy diet. Their income comes from you getting good ‘n addicted to foods formulaically concocted to have that ideal “bliss point”. And they’ve been smart about the pricing too. Because, although salads can be healthy, their salads aren’t large enough (and they don’t have sufficient variety) to either satiate you or meet your nutritive needs. Where the grease of your healthless, pink sludge patty might at least convince you that you’re full for a few hours, the XS smattering of iceberg leaves leaves you twisting your bowl like Oliver Twist, begging for seconds. Which nobody can afford. So, you go back to the to faux food. Whether that’s at Burger King or the shelves of Food Lion.

So, yeah. Shame on the foodmakers.

That said, though, we can only finger wag for so long before we start taking some responsibility.

I mean, we are still paying for it, right?

Now, before your hackles get defensively raised, hear me out.

Because there are a couple’ve things at play here. First’s the fact that we’re aware we’re being duped when it comes to our dollars and diets alike. And that’s a biggie. We’re aware. We know we’ve been tricked. In a way, if we’ve fallen prey to junk food, we’re no better than anyone who’s gotten addicted to anything else. Yes, indeed, research has shown that food can and does have a druglike impact on the brain. But, like any other addict aiming to recover, they have to first admit it’s a problem to be nixed. Which becomes a problem itself. Few want to do that (because: denial). It’s easier and tastier and cheaper, so people keep eating it. Which leads me to my second point. And that’s that only two of those things I just listed are true. Yes, it’s far simpler. Yes, it tangos with my tongue. But, no, it’s not necessarily cheaper. I mean, sure, it’s cheaper than the meager greens you can buy from the other side of the same menu. But aren’t we forgetting we something? Don’t we have options? A burger’s not cheaper than buying ingredients from my local grocery store so I’ve got healthy makings for the week. And even if we could nitpick and say that it’s ultimately a bit more to buy everything we’d need to feel full or feed our fams, I can pretty much promise you this:

A diet of cheap food is not cheaper than the medical bills it’ll cost you for a lifetime.

I’m not here to chastise anyone. I’ve been guilty myself in the past. Kicking an addiction is effing hard. Even harder is the part that comes before where you actually acknowledge you’re hooked on something – in this case non-food. That you’re using empty batteries to fuel your days because it “tastes good”. Which is truly just another version of “feels good”. Which is what makes drugs so alluring. But what both have in common is that they elevate you just enough – only to let you down. With empty calories, that comes at a full body price, filled with long term maladies. It’s a problem. It needs to be avoided. So let’s cut the shiz together here. You wanted an answer to why bad food’s cheaper. And the answer’s this: we can’t keep blaming the dealer if we’re still stopping by his crackhouse for a fix. We’ve acknowledged who the bad guy is. Sitting around and hoping he’ll stop being bad isn’t realistic. Time to detox our cognition and accept our role. The problem is a food rule of supply and demand. The secondary problem? We the eaters. We’re voting for the chump candidate with our dollars every time we choose the bad food. Whatever our excuses may be, we contribute to it.

So, the options on my solution menu are as simple as In ‘n Out burger’s:

We can post protest on Facebook, be angry clicktivists, and complain our way into a few “likes”.

Or we change what we spend our change on… knowing the cost of our nosh’ll change soon, too.

Time to kick the habit, says I.