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Comment by hanniabu | Hacker News Reader

Unhealthy foods are cheaper than healthy foods, partially due to sugar subsidies. This is what happens when corporations run the government. They lobby for things that are beneficial to their bottom line rather than what's better for the well being of the population.

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Processed unhealthy foods are cheaper than processed healthy(er) foods.

Beans and grains are cheap. Staple fruits and vegetables are cheap. Chicken is cheap (especially dark meat). Eggs are cheap. You can feed a family of 4 a very healthy diet for ~$100 a month if you're willing to put in the work sourcing and cooking.

That's the crux of the issue, though. Food deserts combined with a lack of nutritional and culinary knowledge - maybe a lack of time to prepare healthy meals - is what's killing the average American diet, middle class and below.

Side note: if you raise your kids on hot dogs, chicken nuggets and soda every day then you will possibly ruin their palette for life. We now have people that find drinking water disgusting, because all they've ever drank is Diet Coke.

Lack of knowledge is one prt, but also convenience plays a big role. Cooking is considered a household chore, and life should be easy. The neighborhood store doesn't offer raw ingredients to cook, and you need weekly planning to stock up on this when you drive to the big store outside of town. You get everything processed and sugared up right around the corner every day.

> convenience plays a big role

No government regulation should be imposed on the country as a whole so that some people can find things more convenient. If people can't be bothered to put some effort into being healthy, I'm not sure why I should care if the "gap between rich and poor American's health is widening" or not.

Edited to remove judgement.

You may have missed other parts of this conversation where people point out how corporate interests have had great success in getting the government to promote and subsidize unhealthy foods (see: corn subsidies, the food pyramid, subpar food labelling, cheap junk food in public schools).

The government (at various levels) should certainly have a role in ensuring a healthy population. But if nothing else, the government (at all levels) should be sure not to promote and fund profoundly unhealthy habits over healthy ones.

> The government (at various levels) should certainly have a role in ensuring a healthy population.

Lifestyle choices are not a function of government even if those choices result in shortened lifespans, poor health, poverty, or other "negative" outcomes. These are not externalities and are no business of society. You might say that sick people cost the society money. But the answer to that is not that people are sick, it's that someone has decided to spend money on those people. Of course this approach doesn't put more power into the hands of control freaks, so it'll constantly be fought.

> But if nothing else, the government (at all levels) should be sure not to promote and fund profoundly unhealthy habits over healthy ones.

Agreed. Government should not feed false information to the people.

> The government (at various levels) should certainly have a role in ensuring a healthy population.

this is an opinion. to the extent that the government publishes nutrition recommendations or information, it should of course be accurate, but I really don't want to see what the government actively "ensuring" my health looks like.

Not allowing toxic chemicals in your food, for example, and establishing monitoring and penalties to accomplish that. Not allowing companies to lie about what's in the food they sell you, as another example.

Yeah this is the wrong take, buddy.

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.

I'm not aware of any government regulation to enforce convenience. If given a choice, most people will choose instant convenience if they are not aware of the long term effects of this decision. Hence the lack of education part.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I have a few friends on the poverty line. They all live in houses and apartments without access to a working kitchen. Many rented rooms don't come with kitchen "privileges." In addition they work 60+ hours a week making time consuming food preparation less practical.

The result is a lot of cheap pre-packaged food and fast food.

Exactly. I have loved ones who have lived without functioning kitchens, refrigerators, cars, home climate control, etc.

Some folks work ludicrous hours per week at multiple jobs. Telling them to put in more effort in shopping, exercise, cooking, and dishes is missing the problem entirely.

Cheap, gross pizza is a thing, and you just have to pick it up. IIRC a Costco combination pizza will provide enough calories for a largish adult for two days, and is $10. No oven, no kitchen, no gadgets, no cooking required. It'll even probably still be fine to eat day two without refrigeration. Ditto all sorts of other dirt-cheap gross pizza joints, not just Costco. Math works out almost as good. Or cheap frozen pizza on clearance (talking like Totinos or store brand here, not even anything as fancy as Freschetta) if you got a freezer and an oven.

It's also incredibly unhealthy if you ate it regularly, but hey. Cheap, tasty-enough calories hitting every "food group" from the good ol' pyramid. Though arguably not fruit, I guess.

[EDIT] I'm always confused when folks talk about healthy, fresh food being a slam-dunk price win over bad food. I can only assume they are not familiar with what's actually out there, in the bad food universe, and are just looking at how expensive full-price Frosted Flakes are or whatever. I find it damn hard to compete with $5/day/person like that Costco pizza, without resorting to a bachelor's rice-n-beans-n-whichever-veggies-were-about-to-go-bad diet.

Costco pizza is great, but poor people don't shop at stores that make you pay just to shop there. They don't buy in bulk because even when it would be cheaper in the long run they don't have the money for the investment or the space to store what isn't being used. Often they don't live in areas where a costco is even anywhere near them. Those in food deserts don't even get regular stores. When time is factored in (prep time, clean up and number of shopping trips required) bad food is unquestionably less expensive.

Rice, beans/lentils, basic veggies, eggs, milk, and chicken are all cheaper than the gross pizza you're describing, and much healthier. Throw in some spices, and it'll taste better, too.

Sure, the Costco pizza's just an example because I happened to be contemplating their calorie-including menu while standing in the grocery checkout line the other day. That's expensive junk food and happens to actually have some vitamins in it, hidden amongst the grease and fat and colon cancer. Check out pop tarts for some real WTF junk food cheapness. Neighborhood of 10,000 calories in a box of 48 "pastries" (24 2-packs), depending on the flavor. Around $11 if you don't catch it on sale and buy the real deal instead of an off brand. Zero prep (can optionally heat, don't have to, microwave's about as good as a toaster so equipment's flexible if one or the other's broken or missing) and keeps forever.

I'm not advocating junk food, mind you. I just don't get why people say it's expensive and so poor people must only be saving time with it, at best. Sure, it can be expensive, if you're running around buying name-brand potato chips or something. It can also compete with bargain-hunter, ultra-penny-pinching healthy cooking, though, on a strictly price basis, while conferring other benefits (health not among them). Depends on what you buy.

Incidentally, the canonical junkfood-diet meat to accompany rice and beans is hot dog, not chicken. Easier to cook, comes pre-ruined so you can't accidentally ruin it during cooking, competitive with even very cheap chicken on price, keeps much longer.

Heh I mean I know it can be cheap. I think people just mean that the way many people do it isn't - McDonalds, Coke, chips, etc. But yeah, my freshman year roommate lived off of pop tarts for the whole year, since they were so cheap. He got saving on them down to an art, with coupons and timing bulk buys. He developed a pretty terrible chronic illness at some point later on, probably not related, but I've always wondered.

Good tip on the hotdog, that actually sounds kinda tasty.

Tastes change with time. Speaking from personal experience, I'm not an extreme of the archetype you think of (always eating chicken nuggets and drinking Coke as a kid), but that was still a large portion of my diet. For some reason, bitter foods are far more palatable to me now, than they were then. Some people find certain green, leafy vegetables, to be bitter, for example. But I love it all now! If you eat enough salads, you kind of get used to eating salad. With enough time, I find myself craving them like I would have wanted McDonald's.

> Beans and grains are cheap.

Side note: grains are not a healthy food.

I hate to be that person, but the statement "grains are not a healthy food" is a pretty bold statement. I'm not sure that the best evidence available supports that claim.

Whole grains aren't unhealthy as part of a balanced diet. Bread or rice makes vegetables more palatable, adds some protein, carbs, fiber, and minerals. Carbs are vital if you're doing physical labor. Grains are more calorie dense than veggies, cheaper, and store longer, than veggies - all big pluses for low-income households.

>Carbs are vital if you're doing physical labor.

Physical labor usually means long duration but low intensity exercise, which you can do just as well on a fat-based diet. Carbs only improve performance for short duration high intensity exercise (e.g. sprinting/weight lifting).

Carbs are vital? I've been living for 7 years on a sub-20g net carb diet. I'm relatively active and participate in several century bike rides throughout the year. I don't seem to be missing out?

Actually, carbs are the only macro-nutrient your body can completely do without.

I feel utterly miserable performing heavy exercise on insufficient carbs. People have different physiologies.

Considering how difficult it is to conduct reliable experiments in human nutrition, and the wide variety of conflicting results, this is a dubious claim. I'm fairly confident that traditional grain-based diets are better for you than a diet based on modern processed/junk foods. Grains do contain anti-nutrients, but it's uncertain if they're a serious health risk, and it's possible to reduce the levels with fermentation (e.g. sourdough).

What, you're too good for Brawndo?

Yes! During a time when I lived off of about $10k/year in a HCOL (including renting a room in a shared house) I ate plentiful beans, rice, cheap vegetables and chicken. Lots of cheap and healthy options if one is interested.

I grew up on a poor diet and eating various (not all) veggies seemed bland. It only took about 2-3 weeks of clean eating (no meat, minimal sugar/salt) to "reset" my palette to where everything natural started tasting delicious.

Absolutely not. Don’t perpetuate this BS. Calorie for calorie and pound for pound healthy foods are far cheaper and more nutritious than whatever crap people are reaching for on supermarket shelves or drive thru windows these days.

People have had their sense of taste hyper-stimulated for so long that they have grown a distaste for most “healthy” foods, to their own detriment. If every bite isn’t orgasmically delicious they are unlikely to eat that food again.

Well, pound for pound, and calories for calories, a pound of vegetables is more expensive than a pound of 85/15 beef. And a 2L of Coke is even cheaper (and heavier and calorific)... So, there’s that as a starting point.

> And a 2L of Coke is even cheaper (and heavier and calorific)...

You can buy a 3L of Best Choice Soda with change you found in the parking lot, making it basically free. Coca Cola, what is this, the Hamptons? ;-)

A pound of 85/15 beef is like $6 at my supermarket. You can get a pound of frozen peas for $1.

Calories for calories, beans (NOT from a can, dry beans in a bag) are also like 20% of the cost of beef.

Or maybe sugar would be cheaper without government intervention? The U.S. government also maintains a minimum price for sugar via tariffs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Sugar_Program

Their are several kinds of sugars. White sugar (Sucrose) is more familiar as a granular sweeter, but industry has no problem working with a cheaper liquid.

According to a Google lookup, unhealthy foods are cheaper at about $1.50 per day. Also if people cut back on quantity consumed it may be adequate despite being unhealthy food. I think most people eat too many calories per day for the amount of physical activity.

A bit pedantic perhaps but let's bear in mind that with the exception of contaminated products, there are no such things as unhealthy foods. There is such a thing as an unhealthy diet constructed from disproportionate and inappropriate amounts (as you point out) of the essential nutrients we need including carbohydrates, fats, protein, vitamins and minerals.

That's right. Corporations are forcing people to stuff themselves with potato chips, Captain crunch and pop.

They literally pay people to market these things to children.

You actually name check a 44% sugar cereal that has a cartoon character as a mascot!

The person who invented the flavor described it as having a quality she called "want-more-ishness".

So you are saying parents are at the mercy of the whims of their children when it comes to buying food?

You choose your battles. You won't win every one.

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