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August 4, 2011 in Food, Nation/World
Study: Healthy eating means spending more at store
SEATTLE — A healthy diet is expensive and could make it difficult for Americans to meet new U.S. nutritional guidelines, according to a study published today that says the government should do more to help consumers eat healthier.
An update of what used to be known as a food pyramid in 2010 had called on Americans to eat more foods containing potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium. But if they did that, the study authors said, they would add hundreds more dollars to their annual grocery bill.
Inexpensive ways to add these nutrients to a person’s diet include potatoes and beans for potassium and dietary fiber. But the study found introducing more potassium in a diet is likely to add $380 per year to the average consumer’s food costs, said lead researcher Pablo Monsivais, an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and the School of Public Health at the University of Washington.
“We know more than ever about the science of nutrition, and yet we have not yet been able to move the needle on healthful eating,” he said. The government should provide help for meeting the nutritional guidelines in an affordable way.
He criticized some of the marketing for a healthy diet — for example, the image of a plate of salmon, leafy greens and maybe some rice pilaf — and said a meal like that is not affordable for many Americans.
Food-assistance programs are helping people make healthier choices by providing coupons to buy fruits and vegetables, Monsivais said, but some also put stumbling blocks in front of the poor.
He mentioned, as an example, a Washington state policy making it difficult to buy potatoes with food assistance coupons for women with children, even though potatoes are one of the least expensive ways to add potassium to a diet.
The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, was based on a random telephone survey of about 2,000 adults in King County, followed by a printed questionnaire that was returned by about 1,300 people. They noted what food they ate, which was analyzed for nutrient content and estimated cost.
People who spend the most on food tend to get the closest to meeting the federal guidelines for potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium, the study found. Those who spend the least have the lowest intakes of the four recommended nutrients and the highest consumption of saturated fat and added sugar.
Hilary Seligman, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said Monsivais’ research is an interesting addition to the debate about healthy eating and food insecurity, her area of expertise.
A lot of people assume the poor eat cheap food because it tastes good, but they would make better choices if they could afford to, said Seligman, who was not involved in the study.
“Almost 15 percent of households in America say they don’t have enough money to eat the way they want to eat,” Seligman said. Recent estimates show 49 million Americans make food decisions based on cost, she added.
“Right now, a huge chunk of America just isn’t able to adhere to these guidelines,” she said.
But Monsivais may have oversimplified the problem, according to another professor who does research in this area. Parke Wilde, associated professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, said it’s not expensive to get all the nutrients a body needs to meet the federal guidelines.
What is expensive, in Wilde’s opinion, are the choices Americans make while getting those nutrients.
He said diets get more and more expensive depending on how many rules a person applies to himself, such as eating organic or seeking local sources for food or eating vegetables out of season.
“The longer your list gets, the more expensive your list will be,” he said.
Seligman said her list can get longer than Wilde’s, but not everything is a choice. Adding to the cost of buying healthful food could be how far away from home a person needs to travel to get to a grocery store that sells a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.
The government also affects food prices through the subsidies offered to farmers growing certain crops, she added.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Corrected Lemon Curd recipe from FRESH 
polistra on August 04 at 10:04 a.m.
Nah. The most important part of healthy eating, really the only part that matters for most people, is:
EAT LESS. A LOT LESS.
Bruce (aka thatoneguy) on August 04 at 10:46 a.m.
Better food, and less of it.
Shopping smart doesn’t mean spending more money. Vegetables are still good for you even if they’re not organic [i.e. super expensive]. Even canned or frozen vegetables are better for you than donuts.
Upthewazzu on August 04 at 10:48 a.m.
Or, you could start growing some veggies in a backyard garden. I realize this isn’t an option for everyone, but it’s stunningly easy to do. I have literally no idea what I’m doing and I have 3 tomato plants that will produce probably over 100 individual tomatoes. I had pea pod plants that produced peas well into July, and my squash/zucchini/cucumber plants will start producing mass quantities once the weather stays warm. Oh yeah, and my pepper plants will start producing peppers by the boatload in the next couple weeks.
fishinjay on August 04 at 11:14 a.m.
Calorie for calorie crappy food costs more than healthy food. It’s because we subsidize the corn and soy industries resulting in extremely cheap processed products that replace their healthier counterparts in the ingredients for common foods. For example, take almost any frozen meal and then try to make a healthy version of the same thing. It would cost you significantly more.
Stop subsidizing the processed food industry and healthy food won’t become cheaper, but unhealthy food would certainly become a whole lot more expensive.
de3 on August 04 at 11:26 a.m.
The idea that we should be eating fresh fruits and vegetables year round is not realistic and would not be possible without modern, energy intensive processing and transport of food by air, truck and ship.
Bananas come from central America. Throughout much of the year, fresh fruit and vegetables are trucked 1,ooo to 1,500 miles from California and the southwest. And in winter, they even come from South America.
You cannot eat fresh fruit and vegetables and eat local in February unless you have a high energy consuming greenhouse.
Frozen foods were mostly non-existent until WW II. Canned foods were mostly non-existent until about the Civil War.
Much of the “healthy food” debate seems disconnected from the real world and from history.
detroitdude on August 04 at 5:57 p.m.
I don’t buy it. Organic or not, if you clip coupons that stores GIVE to you, you can seriously go into a grocery store and save more than you spend, I do it every two weeks.