In recent months, alarm bells have been ringing about an obesity crisis. We are all, the argument goes, digging early graves by eating too much high fat/ salt, easy to cook convenient food. We should be eating more fresh fruit and vegetables and exercising more.
Whether the obesity crisis being bruited around is just scuttlebutt or real is an issue for another day. Certainly there are those who, not without good reason, are sceptical of the evidence. I want to focus on the price of healthy eating.
At a recent visit to the supermarket, I compared prices. For the price of a large salad for one, I could buy enough frozen and tinned food to feed a family. If selected carefully, ensuring to buy the supermarket’s cheaper own brands, they could probably last several suppers. We could be philosophical and argue that we should not put a monetary value on health. However, such an argument would be dishonest. Money may not be an issue for some, but for families on benefits or low pay, the first priority is to fill their stomachs with food.
And yet I cannot understand why fruit and vegetable are so expensive at the large supermarkets. Someone somewhere is making a killing and it certainly is not the farmers. At my local grocery store on the Stratford Road, fruit and vegetable are extremely cheap. Even exotic fruits, such as figs, papayas and mangoes, are fairly cheap. I often wonder why there is this huge discrepancy between the prices in my local grocery store and the large supermarkets in the area. (The fruit in the supermarket is often attractively packaged, whereas in the local store you have to select and pack your own fruit. But in the age of choice, selecting your own pieces of fruit isn’t a bad thing).
Healthy eating is a good thing, irrespective of whether obesity is a real issue or not. Urging the food industry to reduce the content of unhealthy ingredients in packed food is a good start. But if we are serious about healthy eating, the price of fruit and vegetables has to be looked at.
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