One of the greater excuses I hear for not making healthier substitutions for better foods, or for why all these poor people are fat and chowing down on McDonald's or Popeye's or whatever, is that it just costs too much. In fact I had a friend recently ask me if I spent more at the grocery store now than I before I stopped
eating like an idiot. So I decided to do some research on this, both in my personal records and online, and take the most scientific approach to it that I could.
First - the online research. Usually there's a really well-intentioned but horribly narrow study that people reference to give excuses as to why they shouldn't be eating healthier. For instance, one of THE most quoted items I've seen recently is a
University of Washington study that says if put directly against each other, calorie for calorie, pound for pound, junk food is a better value than healthier food. That is, you get more caloric content per dollar spent on junk food (such as candy, pastries, baked goods and snacks, etc) than you would if you spent the same amount on fruits and vegetables. And in addition, pricing on junk food was less subject to the laws of inflation so it was a more reliable food source to those with less economic means.
Well gee that just sounds damning, doesn't it. BZZZZZZT - wrong. It's 100% complete and total bullshit. Who in the hell funded this study - was it a joint venture between Nestle, Mars, Domino's and Krispy Kreme???!!! DUH...OF COURSE there's more caloric content in junk food, that's why it's JUNK!! The big problem with the study's assertion is that junk food is loaded with
empty calories, which means it's spiked with massive amounts of fat, sodium and sugar to make it taste better. If you judge solely on the basis of calories, you're completely and totally ignoring all those other numbers that will absolutely without a doubt end your life earlier.
Also - the bulk amount of a healthy food it would take to equal an amount of junk food based on calories alone is ridiculous, this alone makes for a truly irrelevant measurement. For instance, a
McDonald's Big Mac costs about $3-4 alone, but weighs in at 7.5 oz and has approx 540 calories - and with 29 g of total fat (10 g of saturated fat), well over 50% of those calories come from empty, gut-busting fat. For the same $3, I can buy a package of three
romaine hearts at my local Safeway. These three together are about 66 oz, total 318 calories, and only pack in about 6 g of total fat (0 g saturated fat), amounting to about 16% of calories from fat. This is why this measurement is retarded - in order for you to equal the amount of calories alone you received from the Big Mac, you would have to eat FIVE romaine hearts in one sitting, or approximately 110 oz worth of lettuce. At that point, the Big Mac still costs you about $4, and the equivalent in romaine hearts would be about $5. Now you tell me - which one of these foods is going to fill you up faster, and for less money? Unless you're a complete corporate sell-out you're gonna go rabbit and say the lettuce - and the most I can choke down is one romaine heart per sitting (although I'm sure some of you
Kobayashi wanna-be's can heifer in more). This to me is why this study is bunk, and believe me we're just scratching the surface with the dumb corporate-food-propaganda-as-science that's out there trying to keep more of the junk food junkies out there needing their fix. I'm sure if I dig hard enough I can come up with something telling me Doritos are healthy too.
I'm not going to stop there, remember I said my friend asked me if I now spend more at the grocery store. Well let's open the books on that, shall we? I decided to crack open my Quicken records and compare the first 6 months of my new eating lifestyle (
3/9/2009 - 9/9/2009) with the same exact period from last year (
3/9/2008 - 9/9/2008) - note that you'll need a version of Microsoft Excel to view the raw data linked there, and before you go getting all shocked, understand I'm not really revealing anything all that personal here, just places and amounts. If you look ONLY at the raw data for buying food at the grocery store between 2008 and 2009, there is a slight increase of about $75+ overall, it works out to about $12 extra per month. So yeah if we stop there like that half-assed study did, I guess I spend more at the grocery store now...
HOWEVER, you'll remember that one of the first few bits of advice I gave in this blog was to stop eating so much outside the home - and if you are a FAT person you know damn well you're chowing down on drive-thru nearly every day of your life. So I decided to also factor in the amount of money I spent on "outside food" during those two periods, and to furthermore divide that expense into two categories - "healthy" and other outside food - to see if there was any change there as well. I have a good memory but it's not photographic, so for an expense to fall into the "healthy" category, it had to be from a place where I could be reasonably certain I made a healthy choice. For me, this means Subway, Ratto's (a deli in Oakland where I get lunch), Togo's and places like that (sorry Quizno's, you don't make the cut). Using these standards, the differences between the two periods could not be more stark - here is what the summary looks like :
The numbers show two things :
- the difference in overall monthly spending on food and how much is spent in the grocery store per month between the two periods is barely significant. Granted, I spend about $35/month more in the grocery store now than I did previously, but the overall spending is barely changed (if even a bit improved)
- there is a huge and dramatic shift in spending on "healthy" outside food vs. the comparatively unhealthy stuff - and bear in mind I was really strict on what was being included in the "healthy" category, so some items in the "unhealthy" category may be there unfairly
Conclusions : using this logic and my own personal data, we can safely show that with a bit of discipline and making the right choices, it will NOT kill your wallet to eat healthier. If you stop spending money on restaurants and other junk, and largely spend it on food you can get at the grocery store to bring home and eat, your budget should either not significantly change or may even improve (which in my case it could improve further, if say, I decided to bring food with me to Oakland rather than buy it there, or even stopped going to Subway so much and made sandwiches at home). And as for the question of does this produce results? Hey I was nearly 270 pounds in 2008, I'm about 224 right now, you do the math. You can question my methodology here all you want, and I welcome you to comment on it, but the numbers don't lie - for about 2 hours worth of effort, I just debunked a major university study. True dat.
ADDITIONAL NOTE (9/20/09 2:00 PM) - Ness just mentioned to me that while looking at the numbers above it occured to her that there is one fundamental difference between 2008 and 2009, and it is that I had the kids one extra day per week in the summer in 2009 than I did in 2008. This means I actually spent more in the grocery store over that period because I had two extra mouths to feed for 4-5 days per month. So I've unwittingly given the 2008 period an unfair advantage over the same period in 2009, and STILL the spending is about the same or less. Therefore, had the custody schedule remained the same, I should have seen an even LARGER drop in overall spending and probably spending on outside food as well. I think at the end of the year this study bears repeating for the period the kids were in school from Mid-August to Mid-December, but I suspect that the results won't change a bit.
Diet for 9/19/09
Breakfast
- Cheerios, 1 serving w/fat-free milk
- 4 oz orange juice w/vitamins
- Two pieces wheat toast w/yogurt spread
- Big cup of coffee
Lunch
- Subway foot-long roasted chicken breast sandwich w/the usual toppings
- 1 bag Baked Lays potato chips
- 20 oz Diet Coke
Dinner - "Crazy Backwards Breakfast Night" with the kids
- 3 egg whites with one whole egg, scrambled
- 3 strips bacon
- 2 pancakes
- one serving hash browns with a little ketchup on it
- one homemade mimosa
After-dinner - went to see "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" in 3-D, HIGHLY recommended, nearly had a seizure laughing at it and the kids loved it too
- about 4-5 cups of popcorn, NO BUTTER (I used to work in a movie theater, that shit is disgusting - it's congealed vegetable oil and loaded with fat)
- one large Coke Zero
Exercise for 9/19/09:
- had a busy day with a soccer game in the early morning after a late night of work on Friday, I collapsed in the middle of the day for two hours, then had to get dinner ready early so we could make the 8 PM movie, so I took the day off from exercise today, will get back at it tomorrow
