“Ultraprocessed foods linked to heart disease, diabetes, mental disorders and early death, study finds”
I read Yahoo News every day - short, informative articles of interest. Yesterday CNN reported on the above caption. And I’m like, “duh!” It’s unbelievable that this is just coming out. First time I’ve seen it in a major headline anyway. The sad reality is that many people cannot afford “real food.”
I can’t remember where but I did read about that yesterday.
My reaction was about the same. Well duh!
I believe one can afford whole foods if they would only try. I personally think it’s just an excuse to not even try because they prefer the junk.
I lived in California for a couple of years back in 79-81. I wasn’t making much but I managed to feed myself on 20 dollars a week for groceries. With that 20 dollars I could by a large cut of cheap meat and some vegetables. Nothing processed and nothing canned, just fresh vegetables and meat. I could make a stew, chicken and dumpling stew, chicken and rice ir just eggs. I would make one big meal on Sunday and then eat one meal a day from that for the rest of the week. I didn’t eat a lot but I ate good. I walked to to grocery store to save gas and I had washed my clothes in the bathtub to save money.
If you want to do something bad enough you can find a way to do it.
I saw where people were whining and crying about there being no food in the grocery stores during the plandemic but it’s funny that when I went to the store I had no problem getting all the groceries I wanted. There was plenty of meats, whole vegetables, rice, dried beans, eggs and cheese. What there wasn’t was bread, cereal, chips, canned goods, luncheon meats, frozen pizza or frozen food, ice cream and canned goods. So I believe it all comes down to choice and not availability.
If one doesn’t have to have a keto constraint in the diet, I do think eating whole, unprocessed food inexpensively is possible. It would require cooking a lot of dried beans (not from canned, too expensive) and really following grocery store food ads. But this would really only work in the US for those who don’t live in food deserts.
I made a taco stew a while back for a family gathering. By the time I bought the meat, the canned beans, canned tomatoes, and some cheese and avocados for the topping I was shocked at how much the total came to. Food is pretty darn pricey now.
I am with the others.
I only know my country and I have my own personal things but normal, simple food sounds the cheapest, processed stuff is usually more expensive…? Maybe not always but then it’s mostly useless, it couldn’t satiate me or it isn’t nutritious so no point in eating it.
If I was SUPER poor for a while (I am quite poor but still have like $5-$6 a day for food - but it’s Hungary so the currency is different and many other things as well -, WAY less for anything else actually, food is my priority… And that’s plenty on carnivore, meat can be very affordable and quite useful without zillion addition, vegs are usually expensive while being useless joy things probably no one can satiated with, I mean the normal lowish-carb things here, not the starchy ones, grains are somewhat expensive at this point while being useless to me, I would just get hungrier…). Only gluten (expensive but protein rich) and dry legumes (cheap for its value and satiation level) could win over my carni food, partially. So I would eat meat, eggs, little dairy, legumes and gluten (and fruit from my garden) if I had a super little food money for a while (not long term, just kill me then). And maybe some extended fasting, I have some fat to lose…
I see that “oh they are poor, can’t do better” but I almost never agree. I see this when people “cook” something horrid. Poor people still can cook some traditional food looking thing, cabbage, split pea and chicken frame costs almost nothing… One can make a subpar but not super bad meal from those. Or maybe even a nice satiating meal, it depends on the person. Many people, even poor ones just can’t figure out what is worth it, they have some weird ideas and use too expensive ingredients sometimes… Like butter or pasta. Especially in the worst war times, our neighbour’s situation very seriously affected our prices for some food groups for some reason. Then we got the unheard of, borderline miracle things: the prices dropped for those food groups. Of course they still stayed higher than before but it was our normal high inflation, not the sudden doubling of prices in a year. Even our inflation isn’t THAT high, not even for the worst groups.
But I digress, sorry.
I am pretty sure I could eat cheap using normal ingredients (I mean, not processed. but I use processed items, they are useful, I am very choosy and the amount is small though as I just don’t desire more) in many places of the world. I would need a bigger budget in some countries where meat is very expensive. Some places have availability problems. But people just can’t spend their money well, it’s everywhere… I am pretty good at that I dare say. But thankfully never had to test how good I really am. I would lose my will to leave below what I have (that’s quite nice. I can’t afford ruminant meat but it’s not a problem. and I do buy a bit every 2 months or something. fish is similar, other seafood is out. but pork, my absolute fav is affordable 
well, my fav items are. in the right place, on sale).
IDK how things are elsewhere but we have so much so great sales that I almost exclusively buy food on sale. Green ham is an exception but it had a goverment price cap and it just… Stayed there. Yay. But turkey is even cheaper and super tasty… I am glad I don’t need to buy expensive and useless plants anymore, it spares me time and effort as well 
But one can buy cheap vegs, we only buy that kind (no matter how much money we have, it makes no sense to pay more for vegs that we need in bigger amounts than for meat that is actual good food all alone, protein, satiation and everything). My SO couldn’t afford a carnivore diet but he couldn’t do low-carb anyway and a carby food satiates him very well and longer term. He buys plants smartly and enjoys his food. So it’s individual.
Personal sensitivity and extra rules can make our diet pricier, of course. We are lucky.
What I don’t get why people consider food expensive even when their income is high enough that food cost is a teeny-tiny part of it. They must have a reason, at least sometimes. Whatever.
I have not much problem with the prices of my food. I do have problems when it comes to certain items but they are luxury items so I can live without them just fine.
The really expensive thing is restaurants, probably (couldn’t afford one since many years and never was into it much. it’s fun here and there but I normally prefer my own cooking). Or buying ready to drink coffee, oh that can be pricy. Or overprocessed overpriced snacks. Yeah, there are some outrageous prices but as long as I can get my staple items on okay prices, I am fine.
Yeah, that happens to us too. But we have big city shoppings (multiple supermarkets, buying food for weeks) and I just can’t update inflating staple food prices in my mind… Prices are 100 times bigger than in my childhood… The ones I remember (ice cream and crescent roll).
But I have read in the carnivore topic a few times how quickly prices can go up in the US too. So I easily can imagine getting a shock sometimes.
I wrote this in too many words again. Sigh.
We don’t all live in welfare states. Given the choice between paying for health insurance and good food, I decided for keto at age 70, 6 years ago. I couldn’t afford the insurance now anyways.
My food budget doubled as a ketovore, but I haven’t needed a doctor in 12 years. Hella rather spend my money on steak than pills!
I watched a documentary a while back about the effects of ultra-processed foods and the reasons our supermarkets are flooded with them. They are usually cheaper, engineered to be highly palatable and in some ways addictive, zero food prep and very quick to cook, and many come with extremely misleading advertising on the packages. I totally get why a large percentage of people, especially in the west, regularly buy and consume them.
My local supermarket still has a fresh meat section but there is no longer any meat sold in the frozens section, not even bags of chicken portions and drumsticks for goodness sake. It’s bin after bin after bin of ultra-processed garbage. Scary stuff!
Definitely. There are so many costs associated with chronically poor health. My food budget is higher now, but miniscule versus my overall life costs prior to eating this way
I saw in your other post about how much meat costs in New Zealand. Is there a shortage there or it is part of the anti-meat agenda?
We had someone on the forum several years ago who mentioned he was saving thousands of dollars a year from no longer having to pay for medication after he started keto. Higher food cost can certainly come out cheaper in the long run.
I think food has gotten very expensive. I bought a hunk of cheaper beef (one of the many “rounds”, like bottom round) for my lunches and I also make a chunk for our dinner. $5/pound, about 9 pounds = $45. Steaks were on sale at $10/pound, so I bought some of those too. Lean ground beef was on sale for $5/pound, and I bought that because my wife is doing some PSMFs (protein sparing modified fasts) and she wanted lean meats.
$5/pound for beef is a cheap as it gets.
Chicken can get cheaper, as can pork.
But I spent over $200 because I bought a lot of meat.
In addition to a greater quantity of meat, I changed the quality I buy, which drove up the price a lot - i.e. I went from chicken and ground beef when those could be had for $1.50-$3.00 per pound, to grass fed steak which was probably $8 at the time and now closer to $14, so a double whammy. But I don’t regret it.
I also eat a lot of beef, although I tend to buy normal beef, as grass-fed can be too expensive even for me.
Food prices never was a big problem for us with a semi-decent income, of course one needs money for other things… But it’s easy enough to eat well from not very much money too, thankfully. People apparently can afford overpriced and unnecessary stuff as well, I see that all the time… Obviously it’s a complex thing, different countries, different attitude and whatnot… I only almost lost it when the already somewhat expensive dairy doubled its prices… It went somewhat down, I appreciate that.
Fortunately the less carbs I eat, the lower my food cost gets 
(Of course, if I had more money, I would spend a bit more. But not by much.)
So if I take my financial state seriously, I better stay close to carnivore. I can’t afford much plants. Plants are expensive for their worth. Especially for people like me who can’t get satiated by carbs, in the contrary. The cheapest sustainable diet for me would include a few plants in bigger amounts but only the protein rich ones. That is a quite tiny selection. For other people, it may be very different. My SO can’t afford low-carb but he feel awful on it too while he is thriving on high-carb (on a healthy version for him, obviously) so it’s fine.
There is no cheaper beef here so poor people don’t eat it. We have other meats and I am so grateful that they are affordable, very delicious and work for my body. I have a wide selection below $6/kg, of course I try to buy cheaper meat when possible, $6/kg is a bit pricy (but my fav is there and it is worth it, I just can’t afford it all the time without giving up my dairy, tea, coffee and the like as those are pricy for their low value. I mean, they aren’t strictly needed but I still want them so they are still worth it to me). But occasionally I go a bit even higher.
Most people are bad at using their money well. And heavily processed things are expensive compared to the cheapest normal items so it doesn’t even make sense to buy them instead of normal food… But it must be very different at different places. I read and see how messed up things are in some places. We have plenty of overprocessed, bad food but even more simple ingredients and other normal items. I suspect the ratio is different in some countries.
High quality food can get pricy but it depends. The beef farm here has the same prices as the supermarkets (not here as the local supermarkets and local butchers don’t keep beef. Hungarians barely eats ruminants, too expensive. even if one has the money but not a ton of it, they just choose a way cheaper and more easily available option most of the time). The pig farm has a bit higher prices - but they sell very little meat, they smoke it up, making wonderful stuff. Eggs went crazy but I always buy them from okay source as far as I can tell… There are codes, they don’t tell everything but what can I do? There aren’t enough people with home-raised hens around here anymore so I use the greengrocery’s and check the code. The eggs are quite nice.
I am all for going high quality if one can afford it. Not everyone can. Sometimes there is not much wriggle room. But most people can make their diet better without spending more. Or they have enough to spend more but they can afford and it may easily be worth it. We have money to spend it and make our life better (of course, we should have enough savings too, for safety). So not buying good food when we can sounds odd to me. Spending insane amounts on money on food one can buy for a fragment of that price is odd to me too but people are weird, not rich or very busy ones do these things too… But spending very much money on bad food (what people normally do)? That is quite tragic. (Spending money on damaging our health and I mean much alcohol and smoking, so clearly toxic, that is something I never will fully understand. I kind of do how it works but it’s nothing like me.)
That sounds pretty good. When I ate the typical SAD I would spend a lot more than that every time I went to the store and get little for it. Getting pure nutrition holds more value now for my money.
Yes, I agree. Pretty much every ounce of food in my basket is now actually Fuel, not packaging, preservatives or processed carby treats (and a lot less liquid, too. The only liquid I regularly buy is cream, which I also consider fuel.)
Good way to look at it. There is definite value for what we are purchasing. I don’t think processed foods are as economical as they are made out to be.
Lightly processed food can be pretty good and useful But the overprocessed things with long problematic ingredient lists? I don’t buy those since ages, they stopped being okay on my woe very long ago.
And it’s easy for me to see if a food has a good price per value. I usually use the protein content but of course it’s not the whole picture. But a very big part of it. Fat is cheap (I can even add fat calories without needing to pay more. fattier meat, done) and I don’t need much carbs. But I need my protein. In a way that it is satiating, that is quite important too. I couldn’t live on chicken even for a day.
These topics about prices nowadays made me want to have experimental cheap days (enjoyable ones of course)… We will see. I can’t put another restriction on me right now, I will be happy if I can quit coffee, it is surprisingly hard for me. But it lowers costs… I do it for other reasons, though.
$200 for a shopping isn’t a problem if we get a lot of good food It’s very easy to spend this much, it’s not so much money when one buy food for a longer time…
Dilution of the USD via the government printing money nonstop is the biggest problem to the devalued dollar.
Someone once suggested, “If the government is going to print money, they should send it to the citizens to use first.” Why do THEY print it AND get the privilege to use it first?
Food for Thought. . .
Interestingly, it turns out it’s actually banks that expand the money supply, by extending credit in excess of their actual assets. This is generally considered a good thing, especially by borrowers. As Yanis Varoufakis points out, the main feature that gives any currency its value is that citizens can pay their taxes with it.
The other benefit of fiat money is that it insulates the populace from the harsh effects of price fluctuations of the metal or metals used as currency. This was seen when U.S. silver coins or gold coins would alternately disappear from circulation as their relative value fluctuated. Not to mention the hoarding of copper pennies when the price of copper went so high at the end of the last century. Through all of this, the value of the paper dollar always remained stable.
The U.S. Treasury has an excellent article about the history of U.S. currency and monetary policy on its Web site. One of the surprising things I learned from it is that the U.S. dollar was always fiat money, right from the foundation of the country. Its value has always derived from its being “legal tender for all debts, public and private.” Moreover, the question of how much hard cash banks would be required to maintain on hand was always a vexed one. Farmers always hated tight money and would agitate for looser credit, and the banks had various dodges to fool the bank examiners into thinking they had more hard cash on hand than they actually did (quite a humorous story, actually).