http://news.yahoo.com/study-healthy-eat ... 51076.html

Study: Healthy eating is privilege of the rich
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP - Associated Press | AP – 2 hrs 19 mins ago

SEATTLE (AP) — A healthy diet is expensive and could make it difficult for Americans to meet new U.S. nutritional guidelines, according to a study published Thursday that says the government should do more to help consumers eat healthier.

An update of what used to be known as a food pyramid in 2010 had called on Americans to eat more foods containing potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium. But if they did that, the journal Health Affairs said, they would add hundreds more dollars to their annual grocery bill.

Inexpensive ways to add these nutrients to a person's diet include potatoes and beans for potassium and dietary fiber. But the study found introducing more potassium in a diet is likely to add $380 per year to the average consumer's food costs, said lead researcher Pablo Monsivais, an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and the School of Public Health at the University of Washington.

"We know more than ever about the science of nutrition, and yet we have not yet been able to move the needle on healthful eating," he said. The government should provide help for meeting the nutritional guidelines in an affordable way.

He criticized some of the marketing for a healthy diet — for example, the image of a plate of salmon, leafy greens and maybe some rice pilaf — and said a meal like that is not affordable for many Americans.

Food-assistance programs are helping people make healthier choices by providing coupons to buy fruits and vegetables, Monsivais said, but some also put stumbling blocks in front of the poor.

He mentioned, as an example, a Washington state policy making it difficult to buy potatoes with food assistance coupons for women with children, even though potatoes are one of the least expensive ways to add potassium to a diet.

The study was based on a random telephone survey of about 2,000 adults in King County, Wash., followed by a printed questionnaire that was returned by about 1,300 people. They note what food they ate, which was analyzed for nutrient content and estimated cost.

People who spend the most on food tend to get the closest to meeting the federal guidelines for potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium, the study found. Those who spend the least have the lowest intakes of the four recommended nutrients and the highest consumption of saturated fat and added sugar.

Hilary Seligman, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said Monsivais' research is an interesting addition to the debate about healthy eating and food insecurity, her area of expertise.

A lot of people assume the poor eat cheap food because it tastes good, but they would make better choices if they could afford to, said Seligman, who was not involved in the Health Affairs study.

"Almost 15 percent of households in America say they don't have enough money to eat the way they want to eat," Seligman said. Recent estimates show 49 million Americans make food decisions based on cost, she added.

"Right now, a huge chunk of America just isn't able to adhere to these guidelines," she said.

But Monsivais may have oversimplified the problem, according to another professor who does research in this area. Parke Wilde, associated professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, said it's not expensive to get all the nutrients a body needs to meet the federal guidelines.

What is expensive, in Wilde's opinion, are the choices Americans make while getting those nutrients.

He said diets get more and more expensive depending on how many rules a person applies to himself, such as eating organic or seeking local sources for food or eating vegetables out of season.

"The longer your list gets, the more expensive your list will be," he said.

Seligman said her list can get longer than Wilde's, but not everything is a choice. Adding to the cost of buying healthful food could be how far away from home a person needs to travel to get to a grocery store that sells a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The government also affects food prices through the subsidies offered to farmers growing certain crops, she added.

In my personal experience I spend more on groceries when eating healthy than not. However, I more than make up for that by the money I save not buying fast food.

So, the reason I posted this is because I agree more with Parke Wilde in the part that I bolded than I do with the study.

Here's a real old post I made six years ago that I'll use to try and dispute the study's argument:

viewtopic.php?p=329746#p329746

That being said, I do think that income can be a barrier to healthy eating, but not in a monetary sense. As B mentioned in the thread that I pulled that old post from, proximity to a grocery store with a wide array of food can be one of those barriers. Perhaps the biggest one I can think of, however, is time. The poor may have to work longer hours just to get the money they need to live. With reduced time in your schedule, the only way to get food may be to get a quick bite at the Mickey D's across the block. The time factor can also be aggravated by lack of transportation options, as well.

One possible way that I could see to mitigate these issues would be to make it profitable to conduct an operation that can offer healthy meals in a cheap and timely manner. Even then, there may need to be some patience involved, as the sad truth is that for a ton of people, they simply like food that is unhealthy, and the only ones that can change their habits are themselves.

Show those food prices to anybody who denies inflation. Jeez.

I need to go to that same store and see what the prices of all those things are today.

I call bullshit on this mythical no time to prepare food. If that were true tv consumption would be next to nothing for a large swathe of people. The data says that's just not true. People have time but choose to spend/waste that time on other things. It's a true lack of personal responsibility.

I eat healthy. Yes it takes time. So I spend 15 minutes chopping vegetables in the kitchen rather than flopping on my ass and watching tv. The time is there for nearly everyone, it's how you choose to spend that time.

You can bike most places within a 20 mile radius quicker than you can public transit. Yet how many fat people do you see taking the bus. They'll make excuses for not having time to exercise. They have the time but choose not to.

I'm really tired of people thinking money (from the public purse) will overcome magically overcome peoples poor decision making.

One of the common discussions among educators is the impact of sugar on children.

During a lot of the early childhood years, the brain is still developing the chemical needed for focus and longer attention span. When a child is given sugar, or (god forbid) caffeine, it acts as a focusing agent. It tricks the brain into thinking that it no longer needs to produce or develop that chemical. There's a reason so many people grow up to be adults who "need" a cup of coffee in the morning, or "need" something like a Snicker's bar partway through the workday. They need that help focusing, because that aspect of their brain was stunted growing up.

There's also a reason that the number of children diagnosed with ADD-type disorders is so enormous these days...the average modern child will take in more than twice as many calories from sugar before the age of 9 as a child growing up 30 years ago did. You give them enough sugar, and the brain just stops developing that chemical altogether, so the kid can't focus and you give him a pill to help him out. Boys ingest more sugar than girls, as well, so it's no coincidence that more boys are diagnosed with these disorders.

Now, since America's upper and upper-middle class children are among the highest scoring in the world, and the children who are in our lower economic brackets perform muuuuuuch lower, it's probably not irrelevant that America's poor children intake about 40-60% more sugar than their wealthier peers.

Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, sugar is the #1 issue in education today.

I recently made a big change in our household- we are only eating whole foods and whole grains. No meats or animal products, including eggs and fish, no refined foods and very little oil. It’s only been a few months but I have found that it is cheaper to buy good foods than it is to buy meat and dairy products. And while whole grain organic bread is more expensive than store brand white bread, it’s much more satisfying so we eat less anyway.

In the movie Food Inc. there is a family that goes to the market and shows how it’s too expensive to eat healthy foods. In their example, they point out that broccoli is $1.29 per pound but that they can get three 2-liters of soda for $5, so that’s what they do. This makes no sense to me.

I believe it is true that too many people don’t like the healthy foods. Refined foods cost more now when you buy them and they cost more later in doctor bills and prescription medication to undo all of the harm done to our bodies.

I can tell you that the milk alone has doubled in price. I should know, with two growing boys who go through 3 gallons of the white stuff per week!

I think education plays a part, too. Many people are poor because they're unwilling to properly educate themselves. And that intellectual laziness causes them to simply not realize how to eat healthily, or the importance of doing so.

I've always thought that while buying healthy food (fruits, vegetables and meat) might appear to cost more, it represents better value for money because it stretches further in comparison to buying a cart/trolley full of frozen/prepared food, simply because you can do more with it. I can't say I've ever really tested the theory in a meaningul way though.

Personally I try and avoid anything that comes in a jar, a can, a box or a plastic bag. There are exception to this but the majority of those constitute pasta, rice, cereals, legumes/beans, dairy products and crushed tomatoes which are things I consider staples.

My weekly grocery bill runs at around $100 for one person which seems like a lot but I bulk cook over the weekend and then freeze in single portions for later use. Basically I have a freezer full of food.

Also, am I the only one thinking their is a flaw in the study?


If that's the case and the unhealthy option isn't providing the same level of nutrition, shouldn't they measure how much of the unhealthy option the person would have to consume in order to match the level of nutrition being met by someone who takes the healthy option? If you have to buy and consume four times the amount of the unhealthy option in order to meet the same nutritional level of the healthy option then it stands that the healthy option is in fact, cheaper.

Except now I'm questioning my own logic. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I have found, totally unscientifically, that shopping at Whole Foods is only marginally more expensive than Safeway or Bloom and that since I am forced to actually prepare the food, I get more enjoyment (satisfaction) out of the choice and that re-enforces the desire to make the healthy choice.*

*This presumes the Whole Foods is in fact healthier.

I don't buy the time thing either. There are countless books and internet sites that have millions of healthy '30 minute' recipes. Even if you can't afford the books, the library is free. It's not lack of time or money, it's lack of good choices. We've always eaten healthy, even when I was young and we were on Welfare. Not fancy, WIC debit card 2011 welfare. Pre-WIC, here's your block of orange cheesestuff 80's Welfare. LOL.

If I don't have time to stand and cut up vegetables, I just lay them all out in front of me and cut as I eat. Yum.

I am bumping this thread from yesterday in protest of something.

I agree with both of you that the goal isn't insurmountable, and it should be expected that people take good care of their bodies. Some may just have additional hurdles to jump.

Another factor that I thought about is regional diets. From what I've heard and read, the South and the Midwest could use some improvements in that field....

Here's the thing though. Shitty food is available in these areas because the people want to eat shitty food. If these people really wanted to eat healthy food, then people would cater to those needs and seek to profit off of it. It kind of makes me sick to here people insinuate that rich people are depriving the poor of healthy food.

I agree with Tyler on the whole "time" thing too. I have limited time during the week, so I prepare food for Sunday through Thursday, on Sunday. It's really not that difficult. You can do this on ONE HOURS time if needs be. Everyone has a couple hours a week to prepare healthy food. And if you disagree, then look up stats on how much time these same demographics spend watching television or using electronics.

This topic came to mind as I stood in the grocery line 20 minutes ago. The guy ahead of me (mid-20s, smelled like an ashtray) was in line with 2 frozen pizzas. His total came to $19.74 and he pulled out his Quest card (food stamps) and paid for them. He's going to get likely 2 meals out of that. That $20 could have gone towards some relatively cheap items (pasta, rice, potatoes, etc.) and he'd have had numerous meals.

It's instances like that where I really begin to realize that healthy eating tends to be a choice and all about convenience. Not to mention, if you're on food stamps don't you want you food money to go further? The choices seem to be you either go home and throw something in the oven and eat in 25 minutes...or go home and stand at the stove / counter preparing something for dinner in the same amount of time but having to actually do it yourself. The lazy/convenient way wins out, more and more often.

Oh, and the food stamp program shits me for that very reason. We could kill two birds with one stone - put restrictions on the things you can buy with food stamps while encouraging healthier eating perhaps.

And about the smells like an ashtray remark: with cigs almost $10/pack here, and for someone who smells he like smokes easily a pack a day...ugh. He may not need to be on welfare if he can afford that nasty habit.

How's that for tying a bunch of issues together?

sometimes I wonder why I bother posting in this forum.

Are food stamps only available to those on welfare though? I saw a news report just last night that said there had been a significant increase in the number of Americans using food stamps over the last 12 months.