The Expense of Making Healthful Choices
This summer we are away from home for nearly two months. We are staying in an apartment in the Chicago area with a mostly equipped kitchen, so cooking is definitely not out of the question. When we first arrived and I looked in the cupboards, I found salt, pepper, peanut butter, sugar and a couple of cans of beans. Not a whole lot to work with, so I really needed to start from scratch.
Meanwhile, my daughter is working on her cooking adventure and blog, so our meals have been pretty much planned for us. If we were home, I would have most, if not all, of the basic ingredients and tools on hand. We would have had to shop for some groceries along the way, but I don't think we would have had to go through each recipe with a fine tooth comb, writing down almost every ingredient on our shopping list like we have done here.
The thing I have learned through this process is that making healthful choices and cooking with fresh, natural ingredients is very expensive! Especially when you are just starting out!
I know that many of the pricey items I buy (like herbs and dried spices, oils and vinegars) can and will be used over and over in many recipes. I will not have to restock them often, and usually they will not run out at the same time. If I were just learning how to cook though, would I know that, or would I think, I can buy this jar of dried basil for $3 and then I still have to buy all the other ingredients, or I can buy this jar of spaghetti sauce for $2 and feed my whole family dinner for less than $5!
This is a classic short term vs long term thinking problem like one I heard on NPR today: If someone gave you a choice of getting $100 today or $120 next month, which would you take? Really interesting article on how our brains work, but I digress...
I have spent hundreds of dollars on ingredients within a few short weeks in setting up a kitchen in which my daughter can learn to cook real, authentic and delicious recipes. I do that because I KNOW that I am equipping her with a life long skill that will eventually benefit my grandchildren. It would be much simpler and more cost efficient to buy convenience foods while we're here for a mere 7 weeks.
While I am not wealthy, I do have the means to make that choice, and life experiences and education that help me understand that not only is it worth it, but it is important to my health and that of my family. Not to mention the fact that the food tastes delicious!
But when I go to giant American grocery stores, I become overwhelmed with the amount of choices people have and the convenience, and the prices! But then I see the sheer size of so many of my fellow shoppers and I can't help but wonder, what's wrong with this picture?
Why are the unhealthy choices so inexpensive? Why does it cost an arm and a leg to buy real cheese? Do people even know that the "cheese" they are purchasing is a processed, cheese derivative, loaded down with sodium? Do they know how many chemicals and preservatives they are filling their bodies with?
At this point I have more questions than answers, but I am convinced that somehow, this cycle of food, fat and finances has to be broken.
