<p>I guess my grocery is a little higher- my apples are $2.49lb ( but organic)</p>
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[Are</a> the Farmers Markets really more expensive? — Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance](<a href=“http://www.seattlefarmersmarkets.org/ripe-n-ready/are-the-farmers-markets-really-more-expensive]Are”>http://www.seattlefarmersmarkets.org/ripe-n-ready/are-the-farmers-markets-really-more-expensive)</p>
<p>I usually buy my apples from Costco. I think the apples come from Washington and they keep for a long time.</p>
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<p>I love fresh peas, but frozen are always much, much cheaper for us here in Southern Cal. </p>
<p>I made eggplant parmesan the other night (much tastier and healthier to roast the eggplant rather than breading it). For the tomato sauce, I had several different options:</p>
<p>*Make sauce using 3 lbs. of fresh tomatoes. $4/lb at Whole Foods, $2.50/lb at the farmer’s market, $1/lb at the local supermarket (but picked too early to make it easier to ship them), “free” if I grew them myself. </p>
<p>*Make sauce using canned tomatoes. $2 for a 32 oz. can. No culinary shame in using canned tomatoes. </p>
<p>*Buy jarred sauce. $4-5 at Trader Joe’s (actually pretty tasty), $2 for something generic at the supermarket. </p>
<p>Unless I grew tomatoes myself or used the rock-hard supermarket tomatoes, all of the versions involving some processing would be cheaper.</p>
<p>No sense in using a supermarket “tomato.” Might as well use styrofoam.</p>
<p>I guess it all depends where you live. . One poster mentioned chicken at $1.99/lb? not here on a regular basis. walmart actually has the cheapest food of any kind available. even produce if it is a superwalmart. (not found in the inner city).
Maybe even if it is expensive people would rather eat cupcakes and cheetos? ( i rather would) even if I can afford the $2 per mango or $1 per apple. Perhaps most other fat people aren’t willing to admit that.</p>
<p>Supermarket tomatoes, while not like home garden quality, can be left on the counter to ripen and then are not so rock hard. Putting those pale things in the fridge is the kiss of death. </p>
<p>Yes, canned tomato sauces and the like are cheaper than fresh. That still is a natural, healthy product, if not overly salted.</p>
<p>Yikes. Tomatoes should never be refrigerated!</p>
<p>There is nothing bad about using canned tomatoes, especially, if the healthy dish that is being made with them will replace a Happy meal.</p>
<p>^^^^ Disagree…my family loves chilled sliced tomatoes, it’s a matter of taste.</p>
<p>Only if fresh ripe tomatoes aren’t available, canned will do fine, for our family anyway.</p>
<p>Trying to find one reason for ‘the obesity epidemic’ is like trying to find a magic cureall that works on all diseases, different causes and cures.</p>
<p>With poorer people living in inner city areas, there isn’t a lot of choice, there are still plenty of neighborhoods in NYC, especially in the outer boroughs, that lack good food markets, they rely on local bodegas and such that frankly tend not to stock much in the way of produce, and it is expensive, and this is true in other city areas. I have also read accounts in poorer rural areas with the same problem, lack of access to stores that have healthier food at prices they can afford. </p>
<p>One of the problems in inner city areas is people often rely on fast food, because it is omnipresent and pretty cheap comparatively (not to mention lacking home ec skills). Part of the problem is government policy,the reason fast food is so cheap is that it is directly or indirectly subsidized by the government. For example, the meat they serve in fast food places is directly subsidized by farm subsidies, especially to raising corn and such to feed the cattle, and it results in cheap meat. More importantly, the bread and such that they use in those places is loaded with fillers, especially high fructose corn syrup, which is a disaster. A lot of the times people in the poorer areas also buy food from dollar stores and the like, which tends to be things like peanut butter and packaged white bread and canned meats and such, which is not healthy, because it is what they can afford and it is available. </p>
<p>Sure, dishes like beans and rice are filling and pretty nutritious, but you are also talking about places with other ills, broken families, where in many cases they haven’t learned how to cook much at all, let alone healthily.Several posters have mentioned how they cooked healthily relatively cheaply, but they also had background on how to do that.</p>
<p>When they talk about relatively cost of food, they are also talking about the fact that packaged foods or things like white bread or some kinds of deli meat products, are cheaper then fresh ingredients, and it is because those products in effect cut corners, I would argue that instead of subsidizing cheap cattle or corn, maybe there should be efforts to subsidize getting healthy food in places where it can be hard to get and also in trying to educate people.</p>
<p>The other big cause of obesity has little to do with being poor, a lot of it is lifestyle. Families are stressed out these days, and gone are the days when even in two parent households the parents worked 9-5, or when families sit down for meals, it is rarer and rarer from what I can tell. Often both parents are working long hours, and then if you add in what passes for childhood these days, it is not surprising, everything is about convenience. People are eating take out more often or they are buying packaged food rather then cooking it themselves, and that is not a good way to eat healthy. Add to that because of the long hours many people are sedentary, and it isn’t a good formula towards healthy eating. We live in a world these days where the idea of sitting down to eat a meal seems as archaic as a model T, in the working world, least in these parts, the lunch hour or even half hour is on the endangered species list, people work at their desks after grabbing take out, kids barely have time to eat in school between schedules and cafeterias that schedule kids like cattle through the shoot and so forth. Food these days is often thought of more in terms of convenience then as something you take the time to make and sit down to eat…</p>
<p>Checked again today. Farmer’s market: nothing below $2/pound, not even the stone fruits, which are in high season right now.</p>
<p>Safeway supermarket: no produce below $1/pound except some sad-looking underripe bananas for $.79/pound and potatoes for $.80/pound. Safeway is a normal supermarket chain, not a high-end market like Whole Foods.</p>
<p>So, those of you who have cheaper produce, please don’t assume that everyone else is as fortunate as you are. McDonald’s dollar menu (if they have it out here, which I assume they do-- I don’t eat at chain fast food places) is in fact going to be cheaper than most other choices for people who live in my area.</p>
<p>Safeway/Vons supermarkets are places that I avoid because they are expensive. Check to see if you have Henry’s, Sprouts, Food4less.</p>
<p>I don’t have any of those markets. But no need to worry about me, I’m in no danger of malnutrition or starvation. The point is, someone who doesn’t have a car can’t go traipsing around to all sorts of markets that are twenty miles from their house in search of $2 chicken.</p>
<p>We only have national chain stores and a very few smaller markets. In checking two markets, there was only ONE fruit for under $1.49/pound–pineapple. There were black grapes and plums for $1.49/pound at Safeway. Most of the other fruits were considerably more, including somethat were ON SALE for $4.99 instead of $6.99. Even LOCAL tomatoes were $2.99 - $3.99/pound. Vegatables weren’t much cheaper!</p>
<p>Sometimes at the farmer’s market, I do get produce for slightly less & other times it’s more. I don’t find their locations convenient as I need to drive to get groceries at any market or farmer’s market.</p>
<p>CF, no I’m not worrying about you starving :D. My point is these shops are serving cheap fruits and vegetables for people who don’t have money that are within walking distance to a lot of not so rich area. The locations of these shops are places that are not in the rich area, at least not in Atherton.
In fact, Food4less serves mostly the hispanics population. Food is so fresh because the turn over is very high.
And if a person does not have a car, would it make sense for this person to live closer to town. I do know someone without a car and this person walks everyday to get food and exercise.</p>
<p>To walk to the market for some of us means walking along roadways & highways with heavy traffic, often where there are NO sidewalks. It’s one thing to walk when it’s a pleasant route and another entirely when you’re walking beside heavy traffic.</p>
<p>People with low income can’t always live close to town because it makes sense–they have to live where they can afford to do so and this is often in areas which may be heavily populated with fast food stores rather then grocery stores.</p>
<p>HImom, it depends on the location. In Hawaii, that’s probably true. We live in a walkable area, there are no crossing of roadways and highways. Very pleasant walkable sidewalks.</p>
<p>I think there are many communities like mine where it is not a pleasant walkable route to go from where folks live to where they can purchase fresh groceries, especially for folks with lower incomes. When I visit my kids & friends in CA, DC, VA, I know that many areas are NOT walkable & these are not even low income areas. Wish there were better planning so folks COULD easily walk from place to place without having to walk beside busy roads & highways and not have to go via some motorized vehicle and/or be subjected to dangers of traffic & pollution from all the traffic. :(</p>
<p>In my boyfriend’s neighborhood it’s a problem for a lot of people that they require food stamps, but if they can’t afford to keep a car then they can’t get to any stores that accept food stamps. They’re anywhere from 10 to 30 miles away. And even if they could walk, the safety of walking, due not only to traffic but to serious violent crime-- yes, in the middle of the day–is also highly questionable. There’s a lot more at play to this question than the price of produce.</p>
<p>Sorry to disagree Bunsen, but I’m also a fan of chilled fresh tomatoes. I buy whole tomatoes every week and they go straight from my shopping bag to the Kelvinator…er…refrigerator.</p>
<p>This topic of the cost of healthy eating is very interesting, and as others have said, there’s more than one answer or one set of acts. We all know that buying your fresh produce at the big chains and at upscale places like Whole Foods or Publix is costly. But like others, I regularly shop for produce at independent ethnic stores and save big bucks. I rarely pay over $1 a pound for Red Delicious or Gala Apples at my local Korean or Mexican market. And like Zoosermom said, it’s not always an insurmountable challenge for low income persons to have options. Latino markets aren’t found in inaccessible high rent districts like Beverly Hills, Pound Ridge, Shaker Heights or Buckhead. The point is, folks of modest means can often find inexpensive ethnic supermarket alternatives nearby.</p>
<p>There’s always choices. Being raised on great fresh produce in Pacific Northwest, it took a long while for me to appreciate the imported produce that American markets began to sell in earnest in around the year 2000. I used to avoid pears and apples from South America like the plague, but in recent years their quality and taste are much improved, which made it harder for me to justify paying a steep premium for the “Grown in Washington” label. The fact is, fresh produce from south of the border is less costly than a lot of locally grown produce, with equivalent quality. Just another fact to consider.</p>
<p>Finally, we’ve got to stop stereotyping food. For example, I don’t understand why beans remain on the ‘non cachet’ scale in this day and age in the U.S. The Europeans know that there are very delicious varieties of beans. I grew up on limas, pintos and black-eye peas myself, but have lately discovered lentils. Tasty and inexpensive. Americans grow tons of lentils in the fertile hills of eastern Washington, but nearly all of the crop is exported to Europe. Smart folks, those Europeans.</p>
<p>We Americans can eat healthy, with flavor, at reasonable cost, but we have to know how and where to look for our food.</p>
<p>I think the saying should be that healthier food costs more per calorie. Junk food gives you lots of calories cheap. </p>
<p>I just bought two whole chickens at 67 cents per pound. I can buy huge bags of carrots very cheaply. Of course, preparing a meal with these items takes planning, time and effort. Something grabbing cheap junk food doesn’t.</p>