Did you ever wonder why the cost of nutrient rich and health foods are so expensive?
The reason that healthy foods are so expensive is simple economics. Even though recent trends have pointed to an increased demand of healthy, natural and organic food, supply is still very low and the cost to produce them is very high.
One important factor that makes food healthy is freshness. Fruits and vegetables can only grow in specific climates of the world and only at certain times of the year. Usually this climate area is far from your house, and even though it is only grown for a few months out of the year, is demanded all the time.
We want to eat kiwis and strawberries all year round, right? To make this a reality, companies need to store the food in giant air conditioned warehouses and ship the food across the world to meet local demand. As you can imagine, this is a very expensive process and the cost is passed onto the consumer.
On the other hand, unhealthy foods are grown (or raised) in huge quantities. For example corn that is used to make high fructose corn syrup (the ingredient that adds sugar to everything including candy, fruit juice and soda) is grown all around the world and is heavily subsidized in this country. Manufacturers have a cheap supply of sugar that they use to make all sorts of unhealthy foods.
Until the demand of healthy food rises above the demand for unhealthy foods, the supply won’t expand and the prices won’t come down. Fortunately, with the country starting to notice that buying expensive food now can prevent expensive hospital bills later, the mood is changing. People are starting to realize that paying a bit more for healthy foods can really pay off in many ways. That’s why we spend so much time here at nutrientrich.com promoting more intake of nourishing foods! The more people eat right, the better chance costs will decrease so spread the word!
Tell us what you think about the cost of nutrient rich foods and how you deal with this unfortunate reality in our current society! You can post and share your comments below….
Greg,
You are 100% correct.
I have a good mind to update this blog posts asap.
It’s true, economics and the market system are set up so that nutrient poor foods are subsidized.
And frankly, nutrient rich foods aren’t as expensive it seems in this article.
Needs to be updated.
Thanks for disagreeing and helping to correct the message.
~ JAM
John Allen Mollenhauer
You know John, I almost never disagree with you because you write such a great blog, but in this case you’ve missed a big piece of the puzzle.
The only reason nutrient poor foods are so cheap in the United states is because the government pays farmers to grow corn for animals.
If the government subsidized kiwis and strawberries, they would be cheap too.
In fact, many nutrient rich foods are available in local food sheds 9 months out of the year.
Even the “high” price of organic food is more about what people will pay than how much it costs to grow. When you have cheap cabbage at 30 cents a lb and organic for a dollar, you’ve got the perfect setup to catch shoppers who don’t pay attention to price.
If you only had one product that was, say 40 cents… how would you sell cabbage for a dollar to the people who don’t notice the price?