Why is junk food so cheap while healthy food is so expensive?

Question

Don't you think it should be the opposite now that we are the fattest nation in the world? I'm trying to eat healthy and it's a lot more expensive that basic junk food!

I'm not talking about like fruits and vegetables, I'm talking about all the organic cereals and pastas and all that stuff.

Answer 1

Mass production and a longer shelf life; the healthy stuff goes to the pigs when it is half-rotten, we call this industrialisation and capitalism. I know what you mean, but in this wonderfull world of opportunity and freedom of choice you better buy what they offer; they need the profit and if you aint all that rich, you're just out of luck. Try this: Eat less, rats can live up to seven times longer being underfed (calory-wise), take additional vitamines and minerals and always see to your intake of various proteins, then you can eat as unhealthy as you wish, as long as it is not combined with eating too much, you need to burn off all the bad stuff.

Answer 2

Supply and demand.

The junk food industry is a multi-billion $ industry of corporate suppliers (Conagra, Simplot, Coke, Pepsi and others.)
They have thousands of franchise outlets (basically, highly motivated small business owners), and spend tens of millions annually on advertising.

Their customer base doesn't want to spend $50 to feed a family of 4 - they want good-tasting food, prepared in a consistent way. The FF industry responded with a formulaic business model and operating plan where simplicity and consistency at very low cost are the hallmarks. There is so much competition among FF stores that they don't have a lot of pricing power to increase prices - so they compete on prices, special deals, advertising, etc. to draw customers.

Healthy food is expensive because the supply of ingredients, outlets and cooks or chefs is much more limited, and in order for them to stay in business, they need to charge higher prices. I would imagine a typical healthy-menu restaurant needs to bring in $500K minimum per year to stay open - either that's a lot of cheap meals, or a modest number of expensive meals served.

New restaurants have a terrible success record. Turnover on staff is high; location, innovative & creative menus are important, good reviews, etc. are critical. Restaurants try to maximize the number of meals served - it's tough to just do a lunch & dinner crowd -- see all the FF restaurants serving breakfast these days? To payoff the rent and other fixed costs, some FF places stay open from 5am to midnite - that is 2 full shifts of staff.

There is also a lot of waste in restaurants - between the raw materials losing freshness all the way to customers not eating everything served to them (just think of all the wasted dinner rolls) - at least 1/3 of the food is thrown away.

It is just very expensive to run a specialty (healthy) restaurant. If anyone ever figures out how to franchise the concept, write a 5,000 page operating manual, develop a menu with limited ingredients and few choices, and can drive costs very low, then they will be very rich. But I'm not holding my breath.

Answer 3

I totally agree that it should be junk food the one with high prices. Problem is most healthy food spoil easily and so there are more losts during transportation and at the market, this helps the prices go up. Junk food on the other side is more resistant to bumps and has a long shelf-life so there sure to sell it one day. It's the good things in healthy food that makes them perishable so we want to keep them this way! What I do is connect with a local organic farmer, we have a great program in Quebec to help find one. I have great organic produce at the lowest cost and our farmer is happy too :-) Maybe there's a coop place or nearby farmers that could provide you with the healthy food at lower cost and you would link with your community at the same time :-)

Answer 4

Most junk food is made in mass quanities using processing of machines. It also has a very long shelf life and little waste. Fresh food, (good for you) however, is perishable and when its shipped from farm to market, some even rots that fast. They have to make a profit on it and the price needs to be high enough to make up for the lost food as well. My theory is, the fresh food is worth its weight in gold, bec. it keeps you healthy. Pay now, so you don't have to pay doctor bills later, from eating the junk food...or even worse, pay with your health or even your life....We eat fresh food, and don't have to see the doc.

Answer 5

it is? i find fresh produce is cheaper.

i think junk food is expensive, in more ways than one also.

a diet of junk food gets expensive over time also with poor health, anemia (sp?) and high cholesterol, hypertension, weight gain.. constipation that comes from junk foods because of the binders in it and other chemicals to make the food better tasting, processable to larger groups of people, give it a shelf life so on.

read those lables.. if there's more than one word that's got more than 15 letters in it put it back down and get an apple or something.

Answer 6

I think that it is not necessarily cheaper to buy junk food it is just easier to prepare--unless you are talking about fast food in which I would agree it is definitely more expensive to make the healthy choices.

Answer 7

the government wants your money. they know we want to eat healthy now so they raised the prices of the healthy food. the junk food is cheap so fat people will get fatter and go out to eat a lot more and where does that money go?... the government. because for one bush is a piece of sh** and needs to leave this country and two because the government is greedy.

Answer 8

Junk food is mass-produced, therefore made in larger quantities which makes it cheaper. Healthier food is more than likely a high quality usually made in smaller quantities.

Answer 9

Probably cuz healthy food is good 4 u so it is expensive and junk food is bad 4 u so it is cheaper!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 10

HEALTHY FOOD IS MORE EXPENSIVE BECAUSE IT GIVES YOU HEALTHY AND JUNK FOOD IS NOT THAT EXPENSIVE OR IS CHEAP BECAUSE IT IS NOT HEALTHY TO EAT AND IT'S JUST LIKE A SNACK.