Photos courtesy of Scorpions and Centaurs and Martin Cathrae.
One thing I hear a lot is that eating healthy is too expensive. People are constantly saying that it is more affordable to eat at a fast food joint, than it is to go out and buy vegetables at your supermarket. This argument is used a lot in poor communities that seem to be equally burdened with poor health. Recently, Los Angeles passed legislation that limits the number of fast food restaurants from opening, citing the inexpensive fast food as the cause of the health problems in the community. Also, a scene in the outstanding documentary, Food Inc. highlights the story of a family who bypasses the vegetables in the grocery story in exchange for hamburgers at a national chain, because - as the family explains, "they can't afford healthy food."
So what's the deal here? Is fast food cheaper than buying vegetables? Is it more expensive to eat healthy than it is to eat unhealthy?
This article will be the first in a series of articles that will end once-and-for-all the excuses people give when it comes to not living a healthy life. I'll show you just how simple and inexpensive eating healthy can be. Help me write these articles by letting me know in the comments below the most common excuses that you hear.
Daily Caloric Requirement
To start off, let's take a look at the daily caloric requirements of the average adult male in the U.S. A quick Google search shows:
Plugging this in to a daily calorie calculator, for a 30 year male, we get 2300 calories. This is with a sedentary lifestyle chosen (probably the average choice, if you ask me). Note, the figures aren't really important, we just need a daily calorie number, so we know how much food we need to consume.
So we know we have to eat 2300 calories a day. Let's see how much it'll cost to get this amount of calories using a typical fast food restaurant meal vs buying healthy groceries.
Fast Food Restaurant
For the fast food meal, let's go with the oh-so popular, Big Mac Meal. Let's take a look at how many calories you get with a typical meal.
According to McDonald's nutrition facts:
- Big Mac, 540 calories.
- Small fries, 230 calories.
- Small drink, this is hard to say, because some people may buy diet drinks that have no calories. So I'll just leave it blank. Besides, even if the calories are included, most people would buy this as part of a meal.
- 770 total calories.
That means you have to buy three Big Mac Meals in order to get close to 2300 calories. Now, I haven't stepped into a McDonald's in a long time, but Google says the price of a Big Mac Meal is around $7.50. So multiply that by three and it will cost you a total of $22.50 to get your total daily calories fulfilled at a McDonald's.
Supermarket
Let's look at some healthy options you can buy at a grocery store:
I got these numbers by searching Google for sale prices at Albertsons. Of course these prices may vary, but if you shop with coupons, buy things on sale and buy in bulk, then I'm sure you can find even better deals.
These groceries are just an example and is pretty indicative of what I would consider healthy food items. I've stopped eating land meats so I wouldn't buy chicken anymore, but I still buy the rest of these items. I also buy fruits and vegetables, but didn't include them here for simplicity's sake. There are a ton of other great vegetable and fruit options you can add into the mix.
So let's see how much we can get for $22.50?
- Let's buy one jar of peanut butter, 2.98
- Let's buy one gallon milk, $3.29
- Let's buy four dozen eggs, $3.96
- Let's buy 3 pounds of chicken breasts, $8.45
- Let's buy 4 avocados, $3.12
- Let's buy two pounds of broccoli $0.98
That's about $22.78 total. Close enough for me. Okay, how many calories does that give us? I'm using the excellent food tracker, MyPlate to get the calories. Here's the breakdown:
- One dozen eggs = 840 calories
- One gallon of milk = 2400 calories
- One 40oz. jar of peanut butter = 6690 calories
- Four avocados = 1100 calories
- Two pounds of broccoli = 306 calories
- Three pounds of chicken breasts = 1440 calories
Add all of these calories up and that gives us a total of 12,776 calories. Let's divide that by 2300 calories to see how many days that can potentially feed the average U.S. male. The answer? About 5 and a half days worth of calories.
Fast Food Vs. Supermarket
$22.50 at McDonalds' will give you 2300 calories worth of food that will last the average U.S. adult male one day.
$22.78 at a grocery store will give you 12,776 calories worth of food that will last the average U.S. adult male around 5 and a half days.
Results
Well, all of that is great and dandy you say, but how do I know what kind of results I can get from eating peanut butter, chicken breasts and eggs all day? Well, I'm glad you asked. Take a look at my before and after photos, where for 90 days, I mostly ate nothing but chicken breasts, eggs, peanut butter, broccoli, avocados and grapefruit. During those 90 days I spent an average of $20-30 a week in groceries! Along with a weight training program (mix of p90x and weights) here are my results:
Other costs:
If you're still not convinced that you can eat healthy for far less money than you can eat fast food, then I'd like you to think about something far more important - let's take a look at what I consider are the true ultimate costs of unhealthy food - that go beyond the price of any meal itself. Let's consider these statistics (2007 data, according to the CDC):
- The leading cause of death in the United States is heart disease at 616,067.
- Stroke is the third leading cause of death with 135,952.
- Diabetes places on the list at number five with 71,382 total deaths .
What do these three diseases have in common? Ask any medical provider and they will tell you that an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle along with poor diet is the #1 risk factor for acquiring these diseases. In fact, if you take a look at the rest of the list, I think it's safe to say that an unhealthy lifestyle can be included as a risk factor for the majority of them.
Am I the only one that finds this incredulous? Here we are, complaining about the rising costs of health care when the majority of the top ten leading causes of death is attributable to an unhealthy lifestyle! That means, they can easily be preventable, or at the very least - postponed (as age is also a risk factor).
I don't even want to look up the statistics for the health care costs associated with these diseases. I use to work as a pharmacist. I know the majority of prescriptions are filled for these medical conditions. It doesn't take a genius to see that we could lower the majority of the costs of our over-taxed health care industry by taking simple, inexpensive steps that will help prevent these medical conditions in the first place.
Spread the word
So there you have it folks. The next time someone gives you the excuse that eating healthy is too expensive, show them this article. As far as I can see, it is orders of magnitude more expensive to eat unhealthy.
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