
The strange effects of thinking healthy food is costlier - upen
http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/8325.html
======
skookum
Often the healthy versus unhealthy discussion reduces to a home-cooked-from-
scratch versus processed/junk food discussion. Having seen how my North
American-raised Gen X/Millennial peers shop for groceries, I'm not surprised
at the perception that the healthy option is more expensive. The predominant
approach to home-cooking I see these cohorts taking is:

1) Find recipe 2) Make shopping list 3) Go to preferred grocery store and
fulfill shopping list

This is a foolproof recipe for "more expensive". To eat healthy and maintain
reasonable spending, grocery shopping needs to come _before_ recipe selection.
One needs to go to the store, buy what's on sale (which is also frequently
what's in season and thus probably more nutrient packed), and then build a
recipe around that using non-perishable pantry ingredients. The cost
difference between the two approaches will generally be at least 1.5X, and
sometimes a lot more.

~~~
nradov
Is there a business opportunity? Someone could write an app that takes growing
seasons and scraped grocery store price lists as input, and automatically
generates shopping lists and recipes as output.

~~~
jon_richards
I think the biggest opportunity is in finding a group of recipes that uses up
all the ingredients you buy in a single grocery run. If you use half an onion
for something, you need to use the other half before it goes bad. This is
especially true for perishable herbs, which usually come in large bunches and
end up only being used once.

~~~
nradov
The traditional solution is to feed that half an onion to your pigs, and then
later eat the pigs. Doesn't work too well in urban areas though.

~~~
positr0n
My modern take on that is to freeze the half onion, then toss it in the
pressure cooker when I have enough chicken bones to make chicken stock :)

------
acslater00
This rings pretty true to me. I live in Manhattan, and my wife is a personal
chef, so she has to be one of the world's foremost collectors of anecdotal
grocery price data you'll ever meet.

She's noticed a lot of weird dissonances in the way people think about grocery
pricing over the years I've known her. For example, despite its reputation,
Whole Foods has some of the cheapest prices on staple pantry items in the
city. Things like flour, sugar, eggs, butter, olive oil, milk, and rice, as
well as many of the "365" branded packaged products are actually much cheaper
than "low end" grocery stores like Gristedes or Key Food. Trader Joe's has a
reputation as a high end grocery as well, but they have incredibly cheap
produce and other perishables. If you go to Gristedes and buy a box of corn
flakes you're going to spend $4-6. For that price you can buy 24 eggs! At Key
Food you can buy pork chops for $2 / pound. Canned beans and other non-
perishables can also be incredibly cheap. With the exception of the corn
flakes, which - while delicious - is actually loaded with corn syrup -
everything I just listed is perfectly healthy when prepared at home.

Anecdotally, my mother spends an absolute fortune on nasty weight watchers
meals because she believes they are "healthier" than just cooking herself a
piece of chicken and some broccoli. My sister will eat a $3 lara bar that is
"made with real fruit!" instead of a 25c banana.

It doesn't surprise me that within the universe of packaged foods, people
think that the expensive ones are healthier than the cheap ones. But I just
wish people would figure out that within the universe of foods, the packaged
ones are both more expensive and typically less healthy than cooking your own
food.

~~~
cgvgffyv
What if you eat packaged foods because you're too scared of making yourself
sick because you've missed something very obvious while cooking that everyone
else knows about?

Are there any YouTube videos of paranoid cooking? ie they'd teach where to
look to see if you've screwed up etc.

Asking for a friend.

~~~
frandroid
Not really a problem for vegan cooking. Go ahead and cook whichever way, and
the worst thing that happens is undercooked or overcooked.

~~~
mrob
Not true. Incorrectly cooked kidney beans (and to a lesser degree other beans)
can cause severe vomiting and diarrhea, because of phytohaemagglutinin
toxicity, which needs prolonged heating to destroy:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_vulgaris#Toxicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_vulgaris#Toxicity)

~~~
nommm-nommm
Improperly washing vegetables can lead to a really bad time as well.

------
Tharre
The headline misrepresents the article completely.

Eating healthy food _is_ costlier than not caring about what you eat. However,
that does not mean that expensive equals healthy.

It's basically the same old "everything that's good is (at least somewhat)
expensive, but not everything that's expensive is good" applied to food.

BTW: why the heck are both source and journal reference links to some top
level domains?

~~~
Fnoord
> Eating healthy food _is_ costlier than not caring about what you eat.
> However, that does not mean that expensive equals healthy. > It's basically
> the same old "everything that's good is (at least somewhat) expensive, but
> not everything that's expensive is good" applied to food.

Actually, that is false and contradicting. It is perfectly possible to eat
healthy _and_ cheap. Sure, if you limit your price you end up with less
choice, but that does not mean the cheap choices are bad, or that you end up
with expensive food if you want quality. An entire industry wants to make you
think otherwise, but they're deceiving the customers. Take for example, from
the article, the following: "The key was that for some participants the
Chicken Balsamic Wrap was listed as more expensive, and for others the Roasted
Chicken Wrap cost more.". The names of products should not be misleading, yet
the industry gets away with it, 'as long as its in the product'. Sounds good?
Well, if there are trace amounts in the product, it counts. This is just one
example. Another one is right in the article: "“Rich in Vitamin A for eye
health.”" this is a fraudulent statement, a propaganda lie which stems from
WWII. The Brits used it as propaganda to convince the general public,
including the Germans, that this was what allowed them to see German airplanes
in advance (it was actually radar which did). It has long since been debunked.
Our laws are failing us here. They are supposed to protect us, but companies
work around them.

Some very healthy foods which aren't that expensive (in my grocery store, in
my country, YMMV (!!)): free range chicken eggs. Compared to a cereal, much
more healthy, and filling. Yet a fraction of the price. Another example: an
unripe banana is high on magnesium, yet doesn't contain a lot of sugar. You
may find it between other bananas which are more ripe. Frozen raspberries and
blueberries, cost about half of fresh ones, yet they'll stay well longer. You
won't find the green friends on those berries while they're in the freezer.
Another silly one is all those fruit juices. As if you need vitamin C if you
simply eat green vegetables such as brocolli. There are countless of examples
available. It does require some comparisons and it does depend on what you
believe is healthy. People don't wanna make those comparisons at 5 PM after a
long day of work, I get that. That is why I want governments to interfere. The
industry is too selfish to manage this on their own (they're for profit, and
enjoy a lack of regulations on it), and is confusing the general public with
smoke screens on what is healthy and what isn't, or like this article explains
with silly prices.

It is actually quite a fallacy, and the opposite is suggesting: "because this
is expensive, and we claim it is healthy, it is therefore more likely to be
healthy than if it were cheap. Else we would sell it cheaper." it stems from
the ridiculous assumption that expensive food means healthier food.

As for your statement: "Eating healthy food _is_ costlier than not caring
about what you eat." we are creature of habit. If your food habits are healthy
as they are, and you have done your best to find cheap yet quality food in
your grocery store then you'll be fine with doing groceries at 5 PM whilst
being tired from work. You just mindlessly buy the things you always buy, you
don't get distracted by offers, you don't have to do any research or
comparisons. You already made up your mind. It is not equal to 'not caring'
since you did once care, but it is 'careless' in a sense.

~~~
Tharre
> It is perfectly possible to eat healthy and cheap.

You seem to have missed my point entirely, so let me elaborate a bit more. I
do not claim that it's impossible to eat healthy and cheap. However,
everything else being equal, healthy food has to be costlier than the cheapest
food, because otherwise those two would be the same.

For example you named free range chicken eggs as being healthy and cheap. And
while that's probably true, eggs from egg factories will still be cheaper. So
the healthy option is also the costlier one.

> It is not equal to 'not caring' since you did once care, but it is
> 'careless' in a sense.

It's probably poorly phrased, but I meant not caring literally, as in the only
thing that matters is nutritional value per dollar spent. Thought the same
thing applies if you factor in flavor.

~~~
Fnoord
> However, everything else being equal, healthy food has to be costlier than
> the cheapest food, because otherwise those two would be the same.

Why can they not be the same? Why can something not be healthiest _and_
cheapest? And, if we ban all unhealthy food, or tax it, it is going to be not
the cheapest.

> And while that's probably true, eggs from egg factories will still be
> cheaper.

Glad you used that example! I don't know about the USA, but those eggs are
becoming more rare in grocery stores here due to pressure from consumer right
and animal right organisations.

The reverse (ie. your statement) _can_ also be true. Whole wheat bread is more
rare (and if they even do have it, more expensive). Meanwhile, white bread is
being made as if it looks like whole wheat (brown), and as if it contains
whole wheat (either none, or barely). In this example, you are absolutely
correct (at least, here, I don't know about US for example). But, that reverse
is not true by _definition_. It is not a _law_. I would agree with you, if
you'd argue that it is more _likely_. IMO, that is due to lack of regulations
which stems from lack of political willpower to bother.

~~~
smallnamespace
Having just visited Japan, one thing that struck me is that Japanese consumers
by and large refuse to buy low quality crap, so stores generally don't stock
them (including groceries).

Having really discriminating consumers is probably the one way to make sure
stores stop selling unhealthy things. Regarding laws though -- consumers and
voters are largely the same group of people. If they're not discriminating
enough to care about not buying something, it's unlikely they'll vote on those
preferences too.

~~~
Fnoord
> Having just visited Japan, one thing that struck me is that Japanese
> consumers by and large refuse to buy low quality crap, so stores generally
> don't stock them (including groceries).

Would be interesting to look into the _why_ and/or _how come_.

> Having really discriminating consumers is probably the one way to make sure
> stores stop selling unhealthy things. Regarding laws though -- consumers and
> voters are largely the same group of people. If they're not discriminating
> enough to care about not buying something, it's unlikely they'll vote on
> those preferences too.

It is difficult to change a habit for an individual, and the same is true for
a society, but if we can change the habit of some individuals we can change
enough momentum to change society for the better. Its not that nobody cares;
consumer right movement does care, for example. My point is that we don't have
to change the habit of every single individual. We need enough people who do
care. At the very worst, we'd need 51% of the population, but likely much
lower will do.

First we must understand the why and how come though. I think there are solid
reasons for that being how it is though. They're kinda intertwined/related to
each other.

1a) Brand loyalty. People don't like change, they like to stick to what they
know. This creates easy brand loyalty. This also has the disadvantage that
newcomers [in the food business] have a harder time to achieve market share.

1b) Abundance of choice. Choice is great, too much choice is not. Clear
choices, with clear pros and cons are informational . This also affects #1,
and once again means even less space for newcomers.

2) Contradicting information / lack of consensus. For one, we still haven't
reached a consensus of how something like diabetes is developed, we still as a
society fail to combat obesity.

3) Time constraints. You can' expect hard working people who spend their free
time to construct a diet for them.

4a) Lack of stimulus for the industry. For a variety of reasons the industry
gets away with serving & selling low quality food. While becoming ill from
food is short-term, ill from diet is long term. The blame is shifted towards
the lifestyle choice of the people. Some self responsibility is fair, but not
all.

4b) Lack of direct feedback. As briefly explained in 4a the user does not
receive direct feedback over the cause and effect of their lifestyle choices.
Some food choices do give direct feedback, but the user has learned to ignore.

4c) Addiction. Adding to 1a and 4a/b, there is a clear benefit to having
people becoming addicting to your food, so that they keep coming back. This
also makes it difficult for newcomers, since people tend to get back to their
product. Even if yours is better. Note, I'm a former cigarette addict, so I
know how difficult it is to overcome an addiction.

How can we solve such a complex issue? Well not overnight, but for starters:

Re 1) These cannot be easily solved. Or at least, I don't see how. As long as
these exist this gives us a disadvantage. However, globalisation has given us
even more food choice, including some healthy ones, and something like drones
allows us to order less common but healthy foods more easily (even though the
local grocery store may not carry it).

Re 2, 4) This can be solved with legislation, but also with proof hunting.
This phenomenon has some momentum due to the fake news debacle in US election.
Computers can aid us here.

Re 3) Here, too, computers can aid us. I have some ideas on software which
could aid us specifically with this aspect of the problem, see [1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13215767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13215767)

------
nimos
Time/ability is a big factor when it comes to what people eat. Throwing a
frozen pizza in the oven is fast, easy and requires no extra dishes. You can
even just use the box it came in is a plate, so I've heard.

Being comfortable in the kitchen is important too. If you have to go looking
up recipes and following them exactly that can make cooking at home a lot
slower and tedious.

It's easy to point out things like dried beans and cheap root vegetables but
those only really compete on the cost perspective, convenience and ease are
just as important IMO.

~~~
VLM
Consider that a banana is both easier to unwrap, faster to unwrap, cheaper,
and healthier than a granola bar... So are carrots and they don't even need
unwrapping (although I'd rinse off a carrot before eating it)

Or at the very bottom of the hierarchy, below the bags of salad you dump in a
bowl you provide, there are salads sold already in a plastic bowl, simply
break the seal and eat them. Usually you have to tear open a plastic envelope
of salad dressing but its not that hard. They're still cheaper and more
filling than a big mac.

Food is a multidimensional problem. The opposite of a big mac is probably not
a Rutabaga or a cactus leaf or a bag of uncooked unseasoned rice.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
The opposite of a Big Mac is a Wendy's burger. I always used to joke that
McDonald's sucked all the joy out of their burgers and sold it to Wendy's and
other fast food places to keep their profits up.

Of course, I haven't had a Big Mac in about 25 years... maybe they're better
now.

~~~
Havoc
> I haven't had a Big Mac in about 25 years... maybe they're better now.

10/10 optimism

------
CJefferson
Having lost about 50kg, I feel happy talking about this.

It's much more expensive to eat healthily, and in general more expensive food
is healthier, so people are just running in reality.

To be exact, you can eat cheapily and healthily, but it is very boring. If you
want an exciting and healthy diet, that gets expensive. No ready meals, and
things like prawns and raspberries (two of my favourites) are great low cal
options, but not cheap in quantity.

~~~
arkitaip
For single-person households, cooking becomes even more expensive because
you're buying these fairly large food packages and have to throw some of it
away because it goes bad.

~~~
kaybe
If this is an issue, you can buy frozen vegetables (unprepared) which can be
as good as fresh if the fresh stuff is not very fresh. Those last forever, and
you can reseal the bag easily. Flour, rice, noodles only go bad if you get
moths. Spices can lose some taste, but you can just use a little bit more.

If you pay a lot more as a single-person household, you have an excellent
opportunity for improvement on your hands.

~~~
sedachv
> Flour, rice, noodles only go bad if you get moths.

They can develop mold, which sometimes is not noticeable, but will attract
booklice. I have had that happen to a bag of rice. There are also rice
weevils.

~~~
kaybe
Oh, and I didn't consider climate. In a region with high humidity and
temperature this might be a bit more difficult.

------
gh1
When people have to judge something, but they have no expertise to actually
judge it, then they use price as an indicator for quality. People use price as
indicator when buying clothes, jewellery etc. all the time. Isn't this the
same effect, but applied to food (where healthy is considered to be correlated
with quality)?

~~~
vinhboy
Agreed... I feel like this study is going to be misused to mock people who
choose healthy food. But the reality is, we all make those kind of decisions
based on limited information.

I can walk into a Best Buy right now and laugh at all the people wasting money
on perceived better electronics because of price.

------
speeder
To keep myself healthy I need large quantities of protein.

And it is ridiculously expensive, at least when compared to corn and mandioca
that grows on my yard and potatoes that are very cheap.

People tend to think that "healthy" food is just thr opposite of junk food.
The problem is that potatoes can be infinitely cheap, but it won't be healthy
to eat only potatoes. An actual healthy diet with all nutrients can easily be
very expensive, even more so when corporations manage to distort prices (I
once lived in a place where the cheapest source of clean water available was
soda. When compared to juices or milk even Coca-Cola, that was the most
expensive soda, looked like a great deal)

~~~
3131s
I also eat an athlete's diet and when I lived in the US it was very expensive.
Going to farmer's markets helps a lot, where I would buy cauliflower, sweet
potatoes, beets, kale, carrots, squash, eggplant, and more.

Since I try to get around 60% of my caloric intake from fat and protein,
that's where most of the expense came from. For fat, there are a small number
of fruits like avocados, durian, and coconuts and those tend to be more
expensive / hard to find, most nuts are expensive, cow's milk isn't very
healthy and never sat well with me before exercise, but the best and cheapest
option is probably to just included some healthy oil in your cooking. For
protein, chicken is good and not too pricey, fish is good but expensive, red
meat should be avoided above all, legumes are cheap and great tasting if
prepared well, tofu and eggs are cheap and high in protein but it's typically
recommended to not consume them in large quantities, coagulated cow's blood is
awesome but good luck finding it outside of Asia!

I stand firmly on the side that it is expensive to eat truly healthy food,
especially if you live in a food desert, and especially if you have specific
nutritional requirements like that of an athlete. Plus, a huge factor is that
to eat cheaply, you have to cook, and as the HN crowd should know, time is
money. The time preparing, cleaning up, buying food, and actually learning how
to cook is significant but worth it.

------
amelius
Interestingly, this also holds for cat food. People are often willing to pay a
premium price for the food of their pets, while in the end they and their pets
get to eat low quality processed stuff.

~~~
schreiaj
Ok, I'll bite. I hate giving my cats wet food because, frankly, it smells
dreadful. But I know it's better than dry food for them. Any suggestions/links
about how to prep food for cats? Bear in mind I actually have no idea how to
prep meat as I don't eat it myself.

Also, those people that try to feed their cats/dogs "vegan" or "vegetarian"
are terrible human beings and don't deserve their furry friends.

~~~
halleym
I've usually heard that dry food is marginally better for cats, since it's
better for their teeth. Otherwise, nutritional content is the same.

~~~
Sgt_Apone
My vet told us to alternate between wet and dry servings. Cats are designed to
get water from their meals and it helps for cats that don't like to drink
water on their own. Dry food helps with their dental hygiene like you said
though. Nutritionally I think they're more or less the same.

------
jrs235
Isn't the largest expense of eating healthier related to the time to prep the
food (and cognitive load to think about food prep) rather than the direct
monetary cost?

~~~
humanrebar
Well, the money isn't nothing, but this is a huge cost that most of these
comments are absolutely ignoring. People in poverty aren't typically brimming
with time, energy, and structure.

------
lintiness
"There are certainly categories of food where healthy is more expensive, such
as some organic and gluten-free products, Reczek said."

there's basically zero evidence organic or gluten free are "healthier".

~~~
coldtea
If you have celiac disease, there is 100% evidence that gluten free is
healthier.

~~~
cujo
And people with celiac are benefiting enormously by the generic diet trend of
eating low gluten/gluten free by the masses who have nothing wrong with them.

A quick google search shows 86% of people who are think they're gluten
sensitive, aren't. That's nearly 90% of the stuff in the "gluten free" section
of your grocery that's being bought by people who are just wrong.

So for 9/10 people buying gluten free food thinking it's healthier, there is
no evidence. lintiness is speaking to that.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
Eating a gluten free diet often means avoiding junk foods such as bread,
pasta, etc. So those people might be wrong in that they aren't gluten
sensitive, but they're probably right that their diet improved their health.

~~~
hx87
Wouldn't, say, a Paleo or Atkins diet be even better for them if bread & pasta
were the source of their problems?

~~~
DiabloD3
Atkins no, Paleo yes.

------
threepipeproblm
Healthy prepared foods are, of course, more expensive than junk prepared
foods. But healthy and less-processed foods can be cheaper than junky prepared
foods. With Taco Bell being the notable exception.

------
maxerickson
Healthy food does cost a lot more. Fruits and vegetables cost much more per
calorie than flour, oil and sugar.

A $6 bag of apples has less calories in it than a loaf of Wonderbread.

$2 of broccoli has less calories than a $0.30 can of soda.

~~~
pc86
Where are you getting soda for $0.30 a can?

~~~
cschneid
That's $3.50 / 12pack - which is probably the average around here (non-sale
price of $4, sale of $3, or best at $2.50). This is pepsi line at a Krogers,
so name-brand product & store.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Wow, that's cheap. Name brand soda (specifically I'm talking about Coke) is
$6/12 pack normal price here. I'm not sure who buys it at that price though
because it goes on sale all the time. The most common sale I see is 3 for $9.

Generic soda is obviously much cheaper.

------
the_gastropod
It's a little ridiculous that the "source" is just a link to the top-level
domain for Ohio State University.

------
snarfy
A lot of people, myself included, equate healthy food with perishable goods.
Perishable goods do cost more. Frozen or canned veggies are cheaper than fresh
veggies.

~~~
astrange
Some frozen food (like peas) are fresher than "fresh veggies" because they
were frozen earlier.

------
scythe
It doesn't help that people like to project their personal way of life onto
what should be a generally mechanical question. Eat x and y and z, don't eat
[meat/grains/something else], complete with extra-pompous "most people in the
world eat..." (I assure you the speaker doesn't), when look, if you go to
Popeye's, the cashier asks if you want French fries or onion rings or coleslaw
or green beans, and you'll almost never see anyone get the last two. Coleslaw
might have a bit of mayonnaise on it but it's a damn lot healthier than
potatoes which have had their nutrients partially removed by soaking and are
drenched in partially oxidized peanut oil. This is relevant because _the
healthy options are the same price and all you have to do is say the word_.

The culture of dieting is seriously broken. One of the only things worse than
being fat is being openly trying to lose weight, because everyone knows how to
help you (lol). The typical way a person responds in the above situation is "
_well_ , I'm already eating fried chicken" because we're either "being good"
or "bad" and as we keep making it harder to be good we get a worse overall
balance. People are unable to put one foot in front of the other because we
always make it about running the whole race at once. A myopic and frankly
wrong obsession with reducing the quantity of meat (irrespective of its
preparation and toppings) doesn't help, because it ensures that "approved"
diets are guaranteed to be unpleasant.

So that's what they pay for: a certificate that says "your food is healthy",
because either it's _Mark 's Daily Apple_, or it's Popeye's. And this entire
discussion is like that: many ways to 'reinvent' the way you cook food at home
(yes, I can make a shitty curry with a can of coconut milk too), little
recognition of the many small changes that can be made _without_ reorganizing
your entire life.

------
whack
I think it goes beyond just food. People have it ingrained in their heads that
"you get what you pay for." Which naturally leads them to the conclusion that
"if something is cheaper, it must be worse." In a perfectly rational and
perfectly informed utopia, this might be true, but certainly not in our world.
There are plenty of companies that provide worse goods at higher prices, and
they get by on the backs of marketing/brand-name/ignorance. I've often found
that 10 minutes of googling can get you recommendations that are strictly
superior to what the average guy ends up buying without thinking twice about.

------
tmg505
I recommend going vegan. Cheap an effective. Thug Kitchen is really good
starting cookbook if you can ignore the language. Also you need to be okay
with spending time on food preparation.

I'm a reformed meat eater.

------
SteveWatson
Why does HN link to so so many sites with popups?

