[ItsMe000001]

I'm not sure that healthy food is more expensive when you only look at the items, because vegetables are not (some fruits are, but veggies are far more important). With even limited cooking skills you can produce pretty cheap and yet very good meals.

However, I still think your point is valid, because it's not just the food items themselves. You need time to prepare them, plus a stressful life puts psychological pressure (which is real and not "imagined") on your brain for swift and easy rewards. So if you don't just look at the stuff on the plate, but see "eating" as a system consisting of sooo much more, the entire context, I think that's a big part of what in the end indeed makes bad food more expensive.

I almost forgot to mention a possibly even bigger part: When you live in poor areas availability of certain foods is vastly limited, and availability of bad foods is through the roof. Try shopping in supermarkets in poor areas and compare it to a wealthy suburb supermarket.

[Retric]

Veggies are very expensive per calorie. A cucumber is ~16 calories and costs ~50 cents each. A 2,000 calorie diet at that rate would be 60$ per day.

Granted nobody is eating like that but 1.50$ for 3 servings of vegetables per day is 550$ per year which really is significant for them.

PS: This is assuming they even have access to low cost veggies.

[ItsMe000001]

Straw man at the very least? How many people use veggies for their energy? That's what most people use grains for - bread, pasta, potatoes. All of them also cheap.

Given obesity rates, the problem is too much energy. After all, one part of calling for more vegetable consumption is so that people lower their energy intake. Example: https://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/eating-vegetable... (the number of articles on cutting calories by eating more vegetables is uncountable)

Just as an aside, a short excerpt from a bio.chem course that shows the connection between high energy intake and obesity: https://youtu.be/rTR-Ev3hj4c

[your-nanny]

Under scarcity, in choosing which foods to buy, how tolerant are you to the risk of being hungry because you allocated too few dollars to calories rich foods? My guess is extreme risk averse.

[ItsMe000001]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198075/

The link between poverty and obesity in the modern world is well established. That means you can hardly point to a lack of energy consumption. I added a video to my comment, from a bio.chem course, that shows a common pathway how high energy state leads to obesity.

Note that I can't and don't want to (and don't need to) show very much here, only provide an argument against what I think is a strange argument from @Retric about "not enough energy in veggies". Energy is not the problem (the psychological feeling of "I have no energy", which may be more prevalent in poor people (I don't know), is not the same as a low energy level).

I doubt the considerations you mention actually happen, or when then it's not widespread. I think it's automatic behaviors rather than conscious choices, and I doubt most people think about their foods energy content (given that a large majority of people, including and for some groups even especially among the poor, consume too much of it). As I see it, the energy claim doesn't fit the available data - which shows an excess, not a lack. That's why I think explanations as well as actions have to aim somewhere else - or would you say we should provide even more energy in food (especially aimed at poor people or not does not matter, since obesity affects all groups to varying degrees).

Another interesting read might be (okay, although it does not say anything actually new): https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/79/1/6/4690070

[Retric]

The point about low calories is veggies are inherently an extra and not a staple. You need to add veggies to your diet and can't simply replace a plate of rice and beans with them.

The preference for low cost per calorie foods makes it easy to over eat when your body is missing some nutrient. Which can create offial feedback loops. But, the simple "how do I eat for 20$ this week" is IMO a factor at the individual and cultural level that should not be ignored.

[ItsMe000001]

The point about calories was invalid, as I clearly pointed out. There is a problem of too much, there is no problem of not enough. And energy-rich carbs are cheap. So nothing remains of that argument, it was just silly!

> The preference for low cost per calorie foods makes it easy to over eat when your body is missing some nutrient.

Exactly.

If you agree with me, what's your point? I argued against your very specific - and very silly - argument in your first reply, which makes no sense whatsoever and is completely made up and artificial. See my response!

Please stop making stuff up and reply to what I actually wrote or not at all. I hate it when people make stuff up and pretend to "counter" my comment when they completely ignore it and make stuff up.