Healthy meals twice as expensive per calorie as junk food
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/health-food-twice-expensive-as-junk-food-bhgvrjkvw
by BestButtons
Healthy meals twice as expensive per calorie as junk food
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/health-food-twice-expensive-as-junk-food-bhgvrjkvw
by BestButtons
30 comments
Article contents:
*Andrew Ellson, Consumer Affairs Correspondent | Poppy Koronka, Health Correspondent, January 28 2025, The Times*
Eating healthily has never been more expensive, according to research that highlights the “tragic imbalance” between food that is affordable and food that is good for us.
The study reveals that healthier food — based on its nutrient profile — is more than twice as expensive per calorie as junk food. Healthier options have increased in price at twice the rate of less-healthy options in the past two years.
It says the growing cost of eating well is exacerbating health inequality. The most deprived fifth of the population would need to spend 45 per cent of disposable income on food to meet the government-recommended healthy diet, rising to 70 per cent for households with children.
The study, published by the Food Foundation, says the cost imbalance between healthy and junk foods is damaging the nation’s health, with the least well off suffering the most.
It says that children from the most deprived fifth of households consume 20 per cent less fruit and vegetables than those from the wealthiest fifth, and are nearly twice as likely to be obese. Deprived groups are also much more likely to be affected by type 2 diabetes and tooth decay.
The study also reveals that food manufacturers and retailers were much more likely to promote unhealthy foods. Only 2 per cent of all food advertising was for fruit and vegetables, while more than a third was for confectionery, snacks, desserts and soft drinks.
The report also noted that a quarter of places to buy food in England were fast-food outlets, rising to a third in the most deprived areas.
Anna Taylor, of the Food Foundation, said: “Our Broken Plate report sadly shows that our food system is failing to provide large swathes of the population with the basic nutrition needed for them to stay healthy and thrive.
“There is a tragic imbalance in the UK between the food that is marketed, available and affordable, and foods that are healthy and sustainable. Often it is the most vulnerable children in our society who suffer the worst consequences of this. Not only can lack of nutrition lead to serious health conditions, it can also lead to children being unable to concentrate in school and have lasting negative impact on mental health, entrenching inequalities from a young age.”
This week, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, is expected to respond to a previous report from the House of Lords committee on food, diet and obesity, which called for the government to fix the “broken food system”. The government recently also started work on a national food strategy.
Henry Dimbleby, the former food tsar and author of the most recent national food strategy, said Britain stood at a “critical moment”.
He said: “As the government rolls out its new food strategy, addressing the incentives that drive the sale and aggressive marketing of unhealthy foods must be a top priority. The human and economic toll is too great to ignore any longer.”
The Food Foundation wants Labour to develop new taxes to encourage businesses to reformulate food and drink in a similar way to the soft drinks levy. It also wants VAT removed from healthy meals in restaurants and fast-food outlets, and restrictions on unhealthy food advertising.
Daniel Zeichner, the minister for food security and rural affairs, said the government’s cross-party food strategy was designed to “ensure our food system can continue to feed the nation, realise its potential for economic growth, protect the planet, and nourish individuals”.
He added: “We cannot do this alone, which is why we are working with those across the food sector, utilising their expertise, to transform the industry for good.”
Is that not because fast food is far more calorie dense? Being high in nutrients and relatively low in calories is kind of a feature of healthy food, isn’t it? As such, you probably get twice as much healthy food for the same calories… Am I missing something?
This is frightening especially when combined with the cost of renting poorer households are likely to do:
> It says the growing cost of eating well is exacerbating health inequality. The most deprived fifth of the population **would need to spend 45 per cent of disposable income on food to meet the government-recommended healthy diet, rising to 70 per cent for households with children**.
So something that’s made largely from homogenous, staple, cheap ingredients (flour in pizza, potatoes in chips, oil etc) is cheaper.. than hard to produce, non-staple foods (berries, lean meats etc)?
Plus, they are staple ingredients specifically *because* they are calorie dense and cheap. That’s what our species needed for thousands of years to not die.
In other news, water is wet and the pope is catholic.
in before the carrots and lentils are cheap crowd, so eating healthy food is cheap.
More education as in mandatory food preparation and nutrition classes in school.
Also, given our national obesity crisis, free cooking classes for all.
Any prepared meal is relatively expensive, if its cheap, it will be nutritionally poor.
Article here [https://archive.ph/9u4FM#selection-1633.0-1633.193](https://archive.ph/9u4FM#selection-1633.0-1633.193)
>It says that children from the most deprived fifth of households consume 20 per cent less fruit and vegetables than those from the wealthiest fifth, and are nearly twice as likely to be obese.
So the biggest problem facing poor people is obesity, so it doesn’t seem like cost per calorie is a barrier, in fact it might help.
>Only 2 per cent of all food advertising was for fruit and vegetables, while more than a third was for confectionery, snacks, desserts and soft drinks.
I think factors like this are key. If there was a larger focus on advertising and education on healthy diets then maybe people would choose fruit over crisps.
In fact the article does have some really good plans on how to actually address the issue.
>As the government rolls out its new food strategy, addressing the incentives that drive the sale and aggressive marketing of unhealthy foods must be a top priority. The human and economic toll is too great to ignore any longer.
>The Food Foundation wants Labour to develop new taxes to encourage businesses to reformulate food and drink in a similar way to the soft drinks levy. It also wants VAT removed from healthy meals in restaurants and fast-food outlets, and restrictions on unhealthy food advertising.
Also both the UK and US there are older studies which suggest the opposite.
>Healthy foods cheaper than junk food in UK supermarkets, study reveals [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/healthy-food-cheaper-uk-supermarkets-obesity-poor-diets-asda-tesco-study-iea-a7607461.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/healthy-food-cheaper-uk-supermarkets-obesity-poor-diets-asda-tesco-study-iea-a7607461.html)
And US.
>the authors find that healthy foods cost less than less healthy foods …
the analysis makes clear that it is not possible to conclude that healthy foods are more expensive than less healthy foods
[https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/44678/19980_eib96.pdf](https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/44678/19980_eib96.pdf) Are Healthy Foods Really More Expensive? [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2199553](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2199553)
Also anyone who has had to live on a really low budget, a budget so low you couldn’t get obese would know how to buy healthy food for cheap, rice and beans, etc. So while I’m not convinced by the title I think the article in general is good.
If dollars per calorie is your only metric, you’re best off chugging canola oil.
I can’t be bothered to read the study but I refuse to believe this.
You can make a pretty much nutritionally complete meal out of a bag of rice, a bag of lentils or tin of beans and some frozen veg. There’s no way that’s not masses cheaper than junk food.
I suspect this study was comparing expensive luxury fruit/vegetable and also inclining meat, which is expensive and that we don’t need for protein as you can find it in cheaper plant foods.
Is judging food like this on a “price per calorie” way sensible though? Unhealthy food is always going to be more calorie dense than food which is healthy, so in terms of real cost to the customer isn’t this going to skew the results heavily?
well, at least its not as high as it used to be before:
[https://foodfoundation.org.uk/press-release/major-report-highlights-impact-britains-disastrous-food-policy](https://foodfoundation.org.uk/press-release/major-report-highlights-impact-britains-disastrous-food-policy)
This isn’t exactly groundbreaking research, anyone with half a brain knows that eating healthier is going to be more expensive per calorie than eating fast food.
Well the cheapest calories would probably be bulk buy sunflower/vegetable oil, which can be as low as £1/litre (or £1.99 if you’re buying the litre bottle). That’s almost pure fat so at the cheapest, most refined end you’re paying £1 for 9000 cals. But good look living off that.
Meanwhile the foods with the most nutrients per calorie are dark green leaves like kale and spinach, which are about £3-£4/kg fresh, different sources suggest spinach is 23 cals / 100g fresh, kale perhaps 30. So at the cheapest / most calorie dense end you’re paying £3 for about 300 cals, £1 = 100 cals. But good look living off that. Even if you get frozen spinach for say £1/kg, that’s still £1 for ~230 cals, about 40x more expensive per calorie than oil.
Most people could do with consuming 50% less calories anyway….
So spend the same amount and consume the actual amount of calories you should be eating
I haven’t read the article, but I’ll assume that rather incentivising healthy food by making it cheaper, the government or some think tank want to make the junk food more expensive with taxes. Same as everything else.
So? If you designed your diet solely to maximise calories and nothing else you’d be unwell pretty soon.
I can make 12 healthy, calorific meals for the price of 1 McD’s…..so I call bullshit!
Supermarkets are 80% junk food with hidden junk food (meat joints glued and bound sold as a premium cut!). UK gov has allowed this abuse.
Supermarkets should be FORCED by law to provide a balance 80% fresh healthy food to 20% adulterated guff).
I think this only applies if you don’t cook your own food. I eat far cheaper eating home cooked healthy meals than if I ate fast food or ready/oven meals.
Dumbest fucking headline ever.
Literally the point of health food is lower calorie but higher nutrients.
For health people need a variety of different fruit and vegetables over the week. This all costs more money. Saying that a bag of carrots is cheap completely misses the point. Putting more cheap carbs on the plate is always cheaper than a variety of vegetables. A frozen pizza is even cheaper.
Yep, but ask yourself if you really need those extra calories. *Tubby*.
Dumbest comparison ever. Very few people, if anyone, in the UK struggle to get their daily calorie intake
I’m pretty sure that food costs across the board are historically low, relative to people’s income. Previous generations used to spend a larger proportion of their income on feeding themselves and their families.
The issue now is no one has anything left after housing costs. Everything comes back to this.
Tell me about it. We cook for ourselves daily and are very careful to eat healthily. Our monthly grocery bill is through the roof. Junk food is the budget option. Always been…
When you cut out expensive takeaways and all ultra-processed food completely you save alot more money to buy good quality food
Yeah, no shit, that’s what makes them healthy.
If brocoli had a thousand calories per 100g, it wouldn’t be considered healthy.
In other news, water is wet, more at 11.
People not eating enough calories isn’t exactly a major concern in the British public health landscape.
Last time this group had a press release I remember the way they calculated this was by mass product comparisons, all that is available. There’s a lot of healthy and really expensive food available, but that doesn’t mean you can’t eat healthily with the typical UK food spend, or that a healthy meal costs more than an unhealthy one. It certainly does not mean that, it’s the opposite of that. In fact, there’s many healthy diets that cost significantly less than the average. Also fruit has some good nutritious value in terms of vitamins and fibre, but it’s also high in sugar.
Everyone here has already pointed out the obesity rate in the UK and that most of us are eating too many calories as it is.
I mean, per calorie is a pretty significant qualifier here.
A McDonald’s burger and coke doesn’t necessarily look like a huge amount of food but it has a crazy number of calories in it.
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