I hear people often say that eating healthy is expensive. At first, I agree. It seems as though healthy food is more expensive than say, a box of twinkles, 6 pack of ramen, 4 boxes of macaroni, frozen chicken nuggets and 24 pack of soda. I don’t even know how much that costs anymore, but probably about the same as a bottle of kombucha with chia seeds and a salad.
The problem with this is that the focus is on quantity and not quality. I’d even make the argument that health food isn’t expensive. It’s actually fairly priced. It’s the other foods that are inexpensive. Cheap. Poor quality. There is a long term cost to consuming “cheap” foods in excess that needs to be accounted for. Have you ever stopped to ask why these “foods” are so cheap?
I think some assume that companies that produce the healthier foods are greedy and want to put a high price tag on “health” foods because they can. In reality, I believe they try to make them as cheap as possible given the extra time and work needed to produce the quality foods. Whereas the companies that manufacture cheap foods only focus on the bottom line, make the foods as cheaply as possible, and sell them at the maximum amount possible before people stop buying them. I would be willing to make the claim that the markup on the cheaper foods is much larger than the more expensive healthier options.
Does it cost more money to eat healthy? Maybe. But that’s entirely up to you. You can eat healthy on a budget. But you’ve got to change how you think when it comes to food. You need to change your relationship with food. Instead of living to eat, you must learn to eat to live. It is there you will find that you don’t need to eat nearly as much food as you think you do.
Granted…I’m speaking mostly to Americans here. Food supply and demand varies greatly from country to country. And quite honestly, I’ve never had to follow a strict food budget.
Another example of something similar that I thought of the other day. Health Insurance. I can’t even begin to count the number of people who have said that the cost of their insurance skyrocketed under "ObamaCare". They said they paid as little as $50-100 before the ACA and then they paid upwards of $500 a month or more on healthcare. Wow! That's a hefty price increase. But everyone always wonders why it costs so much and rarely do I hear anyone ask why it did cost so little before. They are only focusing on one thing, the high price tag. Maybe the lower price wasn't sustainable. Maybe it was to cheap and you were being duped into thinking it was such a great deal. Maybe at the same time it was costing others an exorbitant amount. Maybe the new cost was equal across the board and should have been that much the whole time. It just seems expensive since you were used to being undercharged.
Everyone always thinks the people that charge a high cost for things are just trying to get rich. They aren't. They are charging a fair amount for a quality product or a service.
Here's another one for you. When you buy a box of tissues at a grocery store for $1.50 or you buy the same exact box of tissues at the hospital for $8. Why does one individual packet of tylenol cost $15 when you are a patient at the hospital?
Interesting that I bring up the hospital part. Because if you continue to eat unhealthy meals simply because they are cheaper, that's where you'll end up. There is a connection between the food industry, health care industry and pharmaceutical companies. I promise you that. The cheap, poor quality foods are emotionally satisfying but destroying our physical selves. And it seems as though many in the health care field start out with the best of intentions but for whatever the reason it becomes fixing the symptom instead of curing the disease. It's what can we treat it with instead of how can we fix it.
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