On eating well

[ihaveatiara]

One of the oddest aspects of today's society, in my opinion, is that it actually costs more to purchase and eat food that is healthy for you. My husband and I have bitten the bullet and frequent the local Whole Foods. We still call it Whole Paycheck. It's not easy, but the food tastes better and our health has improved. (Granted, we are also

Comments

Corn subsidies

[purchasemonkey]

I think that the reason that food at Mickey D's is so cheap is that we subsidize the cost of corn, and everything sold there is derived from subsidized corn (the beef, the corn syrup and thickeners, much of the flavoring, etc.).

According to my academic reading and to what I've read outside of class, you don't have to buy organic to eat well; organic isn't really any better for you (and in some cases is worse) overall. Organic food may be better for the planet due to the lack of petrochemical-derived fertilizers--depending on what the producer means by "organic."

Try looking into community-supported agriculture, maybe? We lived in the East Bay and shopped at Berkeley Bowl and Trader Joe's almost exclusively, and managed to keep our grocery bills within reason. My wife, being an agronomist working at the USDA, had a strong bias towards sustainable food that had a low carbon footprint.

Re: Corn subsidies

[ihaveatiara]

I agree that you can eat well without going organic. We frequent 2 local farmer's markets for our produce and eggs (focusing on local over organic) but go to Whole Foods for our meat purchases. I'm mainly concerned about the hormones and additives that are put in meats and foods. They're just scary.

Re: Corn subsidies

[ihaveatiara]

And I forgot the phrase my father in law gave me to keep myself from becoming an "organic only" nut. Hemlock is organic....

[spurious_logic]

I think the film "Food Inc." says about the same thing you did here. It's crazy, but unless you have enough room to grow your own, what can you do? (Well, Hydroponics, but that's even more money).