Is Healthy Food Less Affordable?
USDA compares cost of recommended foods, less healthy options.
"The diet of most Americans' falls short of federal recommendations, especially when it comes to whole grains, low-fat dairy products, and fruits and vegetables," says Andrea Carlson of the Food Markets Branch of USDA's Economic Research Service in a recent blog. "Some nutrition researchers and food writers blame cost, saying fruits and vegetables and other healthy foods are more expensive than less healthy ones. And, on a per calorie basis, that's true. Calorie-sparse fruits and vegetables cost more than a donut, and skim milk costs more than whole. But is price per calorie the only way to think about a food's cost?"
Carlson and colleague Elizabeth Frazao took a different approach to evaluate whether price is a hurdle to making wiser food choices. Their findings are compiled in a report entitled Are Healthy Foods Really More Expensive? It Depends on How You Measure the Price.
Evaluating food costs in terms of price per calorie, per edible weight (after cooking) and per average amount eaten (by adults surveyed), the researchers considered more than 4,000 foods assigned to one of the five USDA food groups (grains, dairy, fruit, vegetables or protein foods); to mixed dishes (such as spaghetti and tomato sauce); or to the "less healthy" food category.
"To make it into a healthy food group, a food had to contain specific minimums of at least one of the USDA food groups and had to fall below a maximum amount of saturated fat, added sugars and sodium," Carlson explains. "Less healthy foods were defined as those high in sodium, added sugars or saturated fats, or containing little to no amount of USDA's food groups. Less healthy foods included items such as many canned and dry soups, fruit-flavored yogurt and sodas.
"We found that the price measure used has a large effect on which foods are more expensive," Carlson continues. Compared on price per calorie, fruits and vegetables tend to be more expensive than less healthy foods. However, priced per edible weight or per average amount eaten, grains, vegetables, fruits and dairy foods are less expensive than less healthy foods and most protein foods.
Notes: The dark areas of each bar represent the price range for the cheaper half of the foods in the category, while the lighter areas are the price ranges for the higher cost foods. White space at the bottom of the bars represents the start of the price range.
Less healthy foods are foods that are high in sodium, added sugars or saturated fat, or that did not contain foods from a food group.
Carlson says, because of the amount recommended, the vegetable recommendation is the most expensive recommendation detailed on the ChooseMyPlate.gov website.
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