Diet Costs

Here are a selection of various food price increases over the past year from the Cattle Network.

Eggs +28%, milk +15%, Cheese +11%. A handful of items have dropped: carrots, cucumbers, oranges, tangerines, and pears.

Most diet books contain a large selection of meal plans and recipes. Often, these recipes contain exotic ingredients and expensive foods.

Forbes have compared the costs of a number of popular diets based on the cost of each food listed in the meal plans.

Here is a summary of the findings:

By now, we all know that for our health, we should try to eat a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables. And that it's best to avoid lots of processed convenience foods.

But a new study suggests that eating healthy is getting more and more expensive. This led one of the researchers, Dr. Adam Drewnowski, to declare: "The gap between what we say people should eat and what they can afford is becoming unacceptably wide. If grains, sugars and fats are the only affordable foods left, how are we to handle the obesity epidemic?"

Is the high cost of healthy food becoming a major contributor to the world's obesity problem?

The British Food Standards Agency have just released their findings from a large survey of low-income households. They conclude:

The findings were unexpected as many believed a lack of cooking skills and access to good food prevented poorer households from eating healthy.

Not so.

Business site Bankrate compares the cost of losing 30 lbs (13.5 kg) using 5 major weight loss programs.

What is the real cost of using NutriSystem, Weight Watchers, LA Weight Loss, The Zone Diet or Jenny Craig?

New research has highlighted three barriers to eating healthily; income, education level, and perceived price of healthy food.

Forbes has compared the cost of a number of popular diets. Weekly sample menus were gathered for each of the 10 diets, and food prices were obtained from Fresh Direct (see methodology).

The median weekly cost came to $85.79 per week. Apparently the average American spends $54.44 on food.

When you move from traditional (i.e. carb-heavy, processed, fast, or fatty) foods to more healthier ones, you notice a change in food costs. Fruit and vegetables cost more than donuts. A McDonald's salad costs more than an entire Big Mac combo.

These costs can make us frustrated - "Why does it cost so much for good food?". Perhaps it's not so much that healthy food is expensive, but that many processed foods are very cheap.