Health Tip – Mar. 25 – Can You Afford a Healthy Diet?

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    Dee Dee - Health Tip
    Dee Dee – Health Tip

    For most of us, the answer to that question is “probably” even though the popular perception is that healthy eating is much more expensive than the cost of typical, and often unhealthy diets. A new report from the Harvard School of Public Health found that the additional cost to assure prudent nutrition is surprisingly low.

    The researchers looked into the actual costs of a healthy diet compared to what you would pay for the unhealthy ones so prevalent in our society. They analyzed 27 studies from 10 higher income countries to determine the costs of individual foods and then compared prices for healthier vs. unhealthy diets. The Harvard team calculated the differences in price per serving and per 200 calories for certain foods as well as the cost of 2,000 calorie daily diets, both healthy and unhealthy. They even assessed the costs per calorie of foods in both diets.

    Bottom line: the cost of pursuing a healthy diet amounts to only $1.50 per day more than the cost of consuming an unhealthy one. Here are some details: healthier choices for meat and other protein foods cost only 29 cents more per serving than the unhealthy ones, the cost of healthy snacks was only 12 cents more and the price differential for fats and oils was only two cents more for healthy products.

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