What’s best for your body is worst for your wallet

By Julie Cummins

During the Eat Local Challenge last year, there was a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about how expensive it is to eat locally produced food. Some people called it elitist, even snobby. This was hard for me to swallow, because the Eat Local Challenge was heartfelt and meaningful for me. But the exaggerated words do contain a grain of truth: a local diet does cost more and is more difficult to come by than the standard American fare. What troubles me most about this grain of truth is how far astray our food system has gone.  How could eating locally grown food—something that was once a given—now be so out of reach that it’s called elitist?

One thing I’ve noticed is that it’s not just local food that costs more; it’s fresh, unprocessed, and nutritious food in general. What’s best for your body is worst for your wallet, and vice versa. I found an article by Adam Drewnowski, PhD, that studies the relationship between energy density (calories per pound of food) and energy cost (dollars per calorie). The article observes links between income, diet, and obesity. In short, the study finds that high-calorie, unhealthy foods are cheap, so people with little money to spend on food buy these foods and, paradoxically, they get fat.

The study finds that per calorie, energy-dense foods such as oils, refined flour and sugars are cheaper than fresh foods. “The difference in energy costs [$/calorie] between fats and sweets and lettuce or fresh fruit was at times equal to several thousand percent…Whereas a daily energy ration of…~2400 kcal [calories] from added sugar and fat could be purchased for under $1, the energy cost of lettuce or fresh strawberries…was several hundred times that…in fact, calorie for calorie, fresh spinach is more expensive than luxury chocolates or foie gras.”

An interesting blog post I found shows what 200 calories of various foods looks like, and calculates the price of those 200 calories. The foods are arranged in order from cheapest to priciest, and a quick glance paints a vivid picture of what’s wrong with our food system. The most affordable calories, at the top of the page, are all white and yellow foods. The green, red and orange foods—fruits and vegetables—are all at the very bottom. The cheapest food on the list is canola oil, $0.07; the most expensive is bell peppers, $3.23.

I must admit that I paused for a moment to calculate how many glazed donuts it would take to meet my recommended daily allowance of calories. I noted that I could feed myself for about two dollars a day. Broccoli would cost me closer to twenty. I wondered if I could make donuts out of local ingredients, but decided that was a proposition doomed to fail.

Getting back to the point about elitism, it seems that a healthy diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables and proteins is expensive no matter where it comes from. Why is our food system so outrageously backwards? Why does fresh food cost more? I’m not sure. But I have a theory: it’s a combination of subsidies and the cost of handling and shipping. The cheapest items per calorie are made of ingredients heavily subsidized by the U.S. government with taxpayer dollars, such as corn and wheat. Also, fresh food has more water weight, is more delicate, and is more perishable, so it costs more to store, handle, and transport.

Cheap, industrially produced food is rarely local. If it were, we’d never know, because there is no traceability in this system, no way of telling where the food is coming from. Local food that is traceable to a specific farm is more expensive because small farms can’t take advantage of economies of scale.

So unless you grow your own, it seems there are only a few ways to eat locally produced, healthy food on the cheap. You can be a good comparison shopper. You can save by doing the cooking yourself. You can work to change the economics of the food system (two words: Farm Bill). As I take on the Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge, I’ll be doing a little of all of these things.

The truth is that if we really want to eat fresh, sustainable, locally produced food, we need to be willing to spend more on what we eat. Is fresh produce really expensive? Or is processed food just artificially cheap? Americans now spend just under 10% of our household budget on food, which is less than just about any other country in the world. Not everyone can afford to pay more for food. But if a car, a cell phone, and lattes are worth the expense, how can we skimp on food that’s good for our bodies and the planet?

Julie Cummins lives in Oakland, CA and is Director of Education for the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA).

Comments

[ExPat Chef]

Processed food is artificially cheap, it is also the food type that offers the highest profit margin for the manufacturer. So, between that, and the subsidy issue, the whole food system at large is out of balance and leans heavily toward processed junk.

[mindy schulte]

This post is really fascinating. one important point for folks taking on the challenge to keep in mind is to think not only locally but seasonally. While it can be expensive to eat local products like grass-fed beef, fish, or more exotic, hard-to-farm fruits, when you buy in-season, you can often save money at a farm stand or farmer's market. You can even try free samples of most foods at the market before you buy (try THAT at Safeway!)

If you aren't very familiar with farmer's markets, you can start by asking a farmer or someone working at a stand about what's in season and tips for stretching a dollar for a shopper on a budget. You'll find that the people who grow your food are more than happy to talk with you about it!

[Marc]

Great post! I had heard that junk food calories were a lot cheaper than fruit/veg. calories, but didn't know of any real analyses. Now I do. Thanks for informing me.

I wonder if there is a "healthfulness" index for foods that could then be compared to cost per health unit....A "healthfulness" index could be a major problem, however, because how would one compare such disparate things as carrots, lentils, and yogurt, each of which have their own special benefits. The dollars per micronutrient ratio for most junk foods probably approaches infinity since they have been refined and reshaped into shelf-stable commodities, nearly devoid of actual food.

[cogresha]

I try very hard to by organic/close to home foods, but this is difficult, especially in winter. Being a vegetarian doesn't help since the food I eat must be stored for long lengths of time. I wish that all food had a better track-back system (or one at all). We should know where our food is coming from!

[jlb]

I think what is interesting to me is that we used to spend quite a bit more of our income on food--

For us, it was an eye-opener, re-evaluating just how we spend all our money as a whole--I know there's more to it than that, but it's more than a comment might provide context for...thanks for this post. It's such a good reminder--

[Megan]

Sometimes you can't calculate the value of eating locally in mere dollars spent. Think about waste levels. I'll spend 3.50 for 1/2 lb of organic local arugula that will last me 2 weeks. When I buy it at the store (product of mexico & usa!?), it costs a dollar less and is bad sometimes even before the printed expiration date. For me, because these things cost more, they are more precious to me. I make sure that I use them all. I save my veggie trimmings for stock. Meat bones, roasted chicken carcasses, egg whites... it all goes in the freezer, waiting for a sunday afternoon when I can make a big pot of stock or a fresh angel food cake. Plus, how about the health benefits? Healthy eating should equal less visits to the doctor, less co-pays, and eventually (hopefully) smaller insurance premiums. I'm so glad that my perspective has changed so much. I'm ashamed of how wasteful I used to be!!

[julie]

Lots of great points in the comments! One thing I have noticed with my local eater friends is that everyone values food so much that they are willing to spend quite a large percentage of their budget on food. For me, food is by far the next biggest expense after rent.

Coincidentally, Michael Pollan wrote an article yesterday that summarized Drenowski's work and related it to the Farm Bill. His is much more eloquent than mine!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22wwlnlede.t.html?_r=1&em&ex=1177387200&en=aff0b2f4c26eec6c&ei=5070&oref=slogin

[oyunlar]

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I hope everybody read this article.

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