In conjunction with this, I will also be going through and doing as best as I can a cost-benefit analysis and a compare-contrast between the food items I am buying compared with before. I feel this will be an interesting way to see if the usual excuse "healthier food is more expensive" is valid or not.
Hahaha. Having just read the big debate in the hot dog/cancer thread, this post makes me chuckle.
It will be interesting to see what your analysis comes up with. I will say this, though:
I am probably better off financially than a lot of people on this forum, since most are college kids. Being older, with a steady job and all that, I know it's comparatively easy for me to purchase and eat healthy food. However I still have to struggle and weigh the costs of everything in my budget (food, utilities, mortgage, car payment, insurance, blah blah blah). Given this I still cannot afford the most healthy food I want. I want very badly to eat only organic, free-range, grass-fed meat. It is certainly available in abundance where I live, but it is still 2-3x the cost. I could afford it if I made big adjustments to my budget; i.e. if I sold my car, among other things.
Let's actually take that as an example. If I got rid of my (super fuel-efficient) car, it would free up (car payment + insurance + gas) probably about $5-6k a year. That is money that could easily go into my food budget to pay for super-meat. I could buy a bike instead.
I work 40 miles away from where I live. So if I biked there, I would have to allow at least 4 hours for my commute (according to what Google tells me). This is one way. So I would be spending 8 hours a day at work, and 8 hours a day getting to/from work. I also would be consuming obnoxious amounts of calories and therefore would have to eat more, thereby making my food budget go up (could I still afford the awesome meat then? Maybe not.)
Okay, so I could sell my home and move to the community where I work. Definitely. The cost of living is cheaper there, it would make biking or running to work a breeze, I would save a lot and then could afford super-meat.
Except that the only place to purchase super-meat is back in the city I currently live in, 40 miles away. The supermarkets where I work are all national chain places that sell industrial meat. I suppose a once-a-week trip in to buy groceries would be okay, but then I'd have to have a car. I would save on gas, surely, but the monthly payment and insurance costs would effectively eliminate my "meat savings" from having sold the car.
Also, given certain others of my values that are as strong as my value on healthy living, I would not be satisfied living in the town where I work. There are certain things I need in my life (access to cultural events, music, dance, etc.) that are difficult to quantify and non-negotiable for me. They are essential to my quality of life and what is important to me, so that I would have a lesser quality of life living in the town where I work (where these things aren't available), even if by doing so I could eat super-meat.
What it boils down to is a CBA. Yes, I
could make adjustments to my life to eat exclusively the finest organic, small farm-raised, grass-fed, free-range meats from my local area. But in doing so I would have to make sacrifices in other aspects that contribute as much to my quality of life as healthy food does. Since I have access to these kinds of foods via my local farmer's market and the many "slow food" restaurants in my area, I can make them a big part of my diet, but I cannot afford to make my diet exclusively that, without cutting out other things I value from elsewhere. So I make compromises. Certain foods (eggs & milk always, some meats when I can afford them) I buy direct from small family farms, or from reputable, "green" national producers. Fruits and vegetables are a mix of industrial and organic, depending on what's available and what the price is. It is definitely easier for me in the warmer months given the climate where I live.
But, healthy food of the type you're advocating
is more expensive. There is no need to really do a study to figure that out. The long-term costs of this food vs. health care costs over a person's lifetime can make a good argument, but one that only matters if the person is in poor health. I can maintain my health with a mix of industrial and organic, by making individual choices at the supermarket, so I try where I can, but the level of sacrifice I would need to make to be able to have such an ideal diet is not worth the margin of benefit I would get out of it. In other words, it's a point of diminishing returns.
These things are not linear, they are complex systems: cut out a cost in one place to free up money in another has effects in yet other areas of life. Cut out a cost in another place to free up money for healthier food can provide great benefits, but are those benefits worth the sacrifice necessary to attain them. For me, it's not worth it. I am a huge advocate of slow food, 100-mile diet, and related ideas. I do what I can to help them along and have sacrificed a lot of modern conveniences compared to the average American to make them a part of my life. But I am not in a position to comfortably make them the whole of my life. I know very few people who are. If you are one such person, who can name exactly where every single food item in your kitchen comes from, you are exceedingly lucky.
For someone to say, "healthier food is more expensive" and use that to dismiss healthy eating out of hand is silly, I agree. But very, very few people can afford to eat the kind of optimized diet you advocate. Yes, a massive shift in the economy is necessary, and that needs to be consumer-driven. But it won't happen overnight. It would impact SO many other factors if American families just all woke up one morning and shifted the bulk of their monthly budgets to food. It would have far-reaching negative impacts to go along with its positive ones. Take heart in the fact that the change is happening, even if it's happening more slowly than you might like. People ARE starting to eat better, and are making the sacrifices where they can. Most health-conscious people take the statement, "Healthier food is more expensive" and change it to, "Healthier food is more expensive, but I am willing to pay the extra money in certain areas where it makes sense in the larger picture of my life to do so. However I cannot afford, not without great sacrifice that I am unwilling to make, to make a complete shift to 100% super-food. Not yet."
