I have an ongoing debate happening with an overweight friend about the cost of healthy eating. She contends that the poor can't eat healthy meals because it costs too much. That fresh fruits and vegetables are not in the budget where pasta and starchy foods are affordable. I don't find buying fresh veggies to be expensive. Fruit can be because I live in a northern area where most fresh fruit is imported putting the price up for part of the year.

I contend that buying a smaller quantity of good, fresh, healthy food is better than stuffing yourself with pastas, breads and junk food. I truly think a lot of it is mindset on how much you need to eat. Her thought is that it isn't her fault she is overweight because of her poor diet not that she makes poor choices.

Even if you had to live on cheap pastas, etc there has to be some ability to control portions. It can't be cheaper to eat a whole bag of pasta rather than eating a healthy amount of veggies and low fat meat.

Anyone else have any thoughts? I have to admit I've never had to live on a fixed income but that's another story when it comes to work ethic......


33colors.com

I have found that eating healthier is more expensive. Just look at the dollar menu at McDonalds.. pick a couple things off of that menu and you have dinner for 2-3 bucks. You can't get much cheaper than that!

Also, in terms of grocery store shopping, organic food items are way more expensive than non-organic. The organic stuff is healthier because no chemicals are in those foods. I went on a week long diet a little while ago where I ate nothing but organic foods because I wanted to clean out my body from all the chemicals that I've eaten. I found myself spending a lot more money on food that week than I had during the rest of the entire month!!!

I can definitely understand how organics cost more just based on pest control alone. I only had one tomato plant and the pests wreaked havok on it. By the time I finally broke down and used a pesticide that worked, the plant was a lost cause.