Keeping a balanced diet is essential, not only to survive but to live a healthy and strong life, preventing diseases. Many people may think that the diet they are doing is considered as healthy. But through this monograph, you may realize how unhealthy many of the things you used to label as “healthy” actually are. From here, a debate is created between how expensive a healthy diet may be, according to the products you use, and whether you buy them or produce them.
To start with, I would like to explain what “unhealthy food” is and why it is bad for our bodies. Many people believe that when we talk about unhealthy food, we mean fast food such as hamburgers or fries. But there is actually a much more extensive variety of food that hurts our bodies as much. We call processed food any food that has been altered in some way during preparation. Though, it does not necessarily mean that every proceed food is damaging. Just the ones that are labeled as “highly processed” food, which means that they have been made mostly of industrialized ingredients meaning that they have extremely little, if not none amount of whole foods. Moreover, it has been proved that your diet affects not only your body but your brain health as well. The brain is mostly made from fatty acids, in such a way that omega 3&6 create cell membranes, whereas saturated and trans fats compromise the health of your brain. Our brain gets its energy out of these foods, thus way, controlling our mood, sleep, and energy.
Many people may believe that a healthy diet is really expensive to sustain every single day. As I have just explained, real healthy food is not just the fruits you buy from the supermarket or the typical diet yogurt you buy as well. These products have been so modified, that they have almost no whole foods. This is why the best products to buy are organic ones. But these are not only more difficult to get, but they are obviously more expensive. On the other hand, many people opt for harvest in their backyard, so that they can get perfectly fresh and organic products, and know what that fruit or vegetable has as well, as they are the ones producing it. So now you may be wondering why wouldn’t everyone start harvesting themselves. Well, it is a process that takes a lot of time, if it even succeeds. Failure of harvest sometimes happens, as it is really difficult to keep it at the right temperature at all times, with the necessary amount of water. Moreover, even if you get to succeed in this, there is a really high chance of your products being produced in a small amount as insects may have eaten most of them. Furthermore, you should make sure that the seeds you are buying have not been scientifically modified, nor have pesticides. With all this said, it is perfectly clear why people would choose to buy their products rather than produce them. Besides, harvest could be cheaper, as it could be more expensive. Depending on how well you are at harvesting and how well you succeed. For example, if you have bought the seeds, some elements to help you move the land, and some soil, you could have easily spent $200 on seeds, $20 on soil, and $50 more on the elements you are using to help. So, you have spent $270 on cultivating, if not more on getting some help to succeed properly and get your products to grow. This could go two ways. In the first one, you succeed, even though it takes more than six months for them to properly grow and for you to eat them. So even though it was expensive to harvest, you can finally eat for free or at least some food for free. On the other hand, all that you have worked so much on could either be eaten by an insect, not grow properly, or have drowned from so much water or dry from lack of it. So, it is safe to say that harvesting could be a solution, as well as a problem.
What is more, after watching a social experiment held out by Joey Salads, in which, with the company of a friend tested who would spend more on food for a day. One of them ate only healthy food, while the other one ate only unhealthy food Through the whole social experiment, the one who was supposed to eat only healthy food only eat his own cooked meals, while the one who was supposed to eat only fast food ate only at fast food restaurants. At the end of the day, the first one ended up spending $5,59 and the second one, with the fast food ended up spending $23.11. This seems to be a really reliable video that represents this topic in an everyday real-life routine. However, in this video, there are some aspects that are not taken into account, which many of you may not even think about it. First of all, through all the meals, the man who was eating healthily cooked every single meal. Meanwhile, the second man, who always eats unhealthy food, eats only at restaurants. So, even though the restaurants the second man went to were fast food ones, which means that they are cheaper, they still were more expensive than if he had made them himself. To reinforce this statement, there was research data gathered? that showed that per meal cooked at home, $3,7 could be saved. This sadist shows how, even though fast food could be more expensive than healthy food, eating at a restaurant will be more expensive than cooking at your house. Next in order, through this video, it is not taken into account that unhealthy food is not only fast food, but as was explained before, highly processed food is extremely unhealthy as well and brings almost no nutrients to your body. He could have made mac and cheese at home and it would be really unhealthy, bringing no nutrients to its body. The same goes for the man that was eating healthily. None of the food he brought where shown as organic products, or at least low-processed. This again shows how he actually did not really know what really healthy and unhealthy food are. So, healthy food may be cheaper for some people than others. But this depends on what they believe is healthy food and what they believe is not healthy food. Moreover, the man in this video believes that all cooked meals are healthy, while only fast food at restaurants is unhealthy food. Hence, in this case, unhealthy food is actually more expensive than unhealthy food.
In addition, what is bought to have a balance and healthy diet, variates on your type of diet? A meat-free diet, such as veganism and vegetarianism, saves up to 720 dollars a year. This happens because the meat is one of the most expensive products that are bought on a regular healthy diet. Nevertheless, this does not mean that people who do not eat meat cannot have a perfectly healthy diet. Through beans and lentils, it is really easy to gain most of the protein missed in the meat and they are really cheap in the market. On the other hand, it is overly difficult to gain all the protein being missed from the meat back. Additionally, as a consequence of vegans not eating any product that comes out of an animal, it takes much more than simply eating beans or lentils to gain every nutrient that is missed in these important foods in the diet. Many people choose to be vegan in order to take care of the environment and to show their concern for animals. In order to succeed through this and keep a balanced diet at the same time, they eat lots of replacements, for example instead of eating cow milk, they eat almond milk. These replacements, even though they are high in nutrients, they sometimes do not bring enough of them to their diet so they have to eat a lot of high in rich protein foods such as almonds, avocados, and vegan cheese. Besides the fact that vegans have to eat more amount of these replacement foods, they are much more expensive than regular milk, cheese, or even yogurt. Moreover, to completely get all the protein they need per day without eating so much, they get protein powders which cost around $1 per serving. This may seem a really little difference in price, but adding how expensive the replacements foods are and how much more they have to buy of it differently than someone having a meat and dairy diet, as they have to get double the portion in order to get all the nutrients, it may be more expensive to have a vegan diet. To reinforce this idea, during a vegan diet 105 dollars more a month is spent rather than a meat and dairy-based diet if doing the diet correctly and getting all nutrients, calories, and proteins needed every day. Therefore, even though to many people having a non-meat diet may be cheaper than a meat diet, in order to get all the proper nutrients needed for the body, especially for vegans, it may be more expensive. This depends on whether you believe that just rice and beans replace meat and cheese or if other products are needed. Besides, just like in every single diet, it is almost impossible to live out of the exact same food every single day. So, even if beans and rice may help substitute some non-vegan foods, vegans cannot eat just these foods every day.
To conclude, after everything is said, it would be fair to conclude that whether people believe what food is cheaper or more expensive depends on what they believe is healthy and what is not healthy. As it was mentioned before, we talk about healthy food when we refer to food that has not been highly modified. An example of these highly processed foods could be fast food, but it is important to understand that it is not the only highly processed food there is nor the only unhealthy ones. Even diet yogurts and cereal bars are considered to be in this field. So, out of this, we may come to the conclusion that not every food that we cook at home is healthy, meaning that even if it may be believed that cooking at home is more healthy and cheaper, it depends on what you have boughten and how you cook it. Another solution to this problem discussed throughout the essay was harvesting, which could be a possible and viable answer, but the chances that this ends up costing more and failing are higher. To sum up, it is my belief that a healthy diet is more expensive than a poor diet.