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Fully agree. Where I live (Finland, a very expensive country) cabbage is typically 30-50 cents per kilogram (including 14 % VAT), less than half what you list.

Fully agree. Where I live (Finland, a very expensive country) cabbage is typically 30-50 cents per kilogram (including 14 % VAT), less than half what you list. Almost everything is more expensive here, but cabbage is one of the things that is not. And it is a healthy foodstuff, like the others you list. If cabbage is more expensive in America, it's because people don't want to eat healthy food. It's not cool. But still, it is so cheap that eating too much meat and flour instead is really a choice. Perhaps people are not informed enough to make a rational choice, but nevertheless it is a choice, not something forced on them.

dpark 11y ago
The price of cabbage really doesn't matter. Cabbage is healthy, but you really cannot eat enough cabbage to live on. You'd have to eat almost 17 pounds of cabbage to meet the caloric needs of a 2000 calorie diet. A pound of cabbage in a day would probably be on the upper limit of what I could stomach, even after cooking it down. (Plus it stops being cheap anyway when you look at the price per calorie.) "Eating healthy" does not mean "eating insufficient calories". You have to actually get enough calories to live. Once you start adding other healthy foods that get the calorie count to the right level, the cost starts to go up. There have been a number of studies that show it's cheaper to eat unhealthy food. You can eat healthy pretty cheaply, but you can eat unhealthy even cheaper. This is doubly true if you factor in cooking time as having some cost
- ptaipale 11y ago
  I don't follow this logic in discourse. First there is the problem that cheap food has lots of calories but no essential nutrients and it's all the fault of those evil companies. And when you point out food that is cheap and has lots of nutrients, people come saying there are not enough calories. Hey, if you eat some of those cheap calories, but not too much. And then eat some of that cabbage and beans and whatever that has nutrients but not too much calories. I would call it "balanced diet". It's not rocket science, though it does take some brain function. Cabbage of course isn't the only healthy and cheap vegetable or other foodstuff there is.
  - dpark 11y ago
    The problem with junk food is not just that it is lacking in essential nutrients. If that were the only problem, then Snickers bars and multivitamin supplements would be a healthy diet. Junk food is unhealthy for a myriad of reasons, including the heavy use of sugars. Humans were not evolved to subsist on sugar and oil (and various corn-derived products), but that is a huge chunk of junk foods. It is possible to eat fairly cheaply and still healthily, but it is not as cheap as eating unhealthily. It's also far more time consuming because cheaper healthy foods are uncooked and unprocessed, whereas cheaper unhealthy food are generally ready to eat.
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      When some food has lots of sugar, you can eat less sugar (avoid excess calories) AND save money simply by eating less. Some of that saved money could be used for getting even better nutrients. Unhealthy food being cheap is no real explanation for obesity.

dpark 11y ago

The price of cabbage really doesn't matter. Cabbage is healthy, but you really cannot eat enough cabbage to live on. You'd have to eat almost 17 pounds of cabbage to meet the caloric needs of a 2000 calorie diet. A pound of cabbage in a day would probably be on the upper limit of what I could stomach, even after cooking it down. (Plus it stops being cheap anyway when you look at the price per calorie.) "Eating healthy" does not mean "eating insufficient calories". You have to actually get enough calories to live. Once you start adding other healthy foods that get the calorie count to the right level, the cost starts to go up. There have been a number of studies that show it's cheaper to eat unhealthy food. You can eat healthy pretty cheaply, but you can eat unhealthy even cheaper. This is doubly true if you factor in cooking time as having some cost

ptaipale 11y ago
I don't follow this logic in discourse. First there is the problem that cheap food has lots of calories but no essential nutrients and it's all the fault of those evil companies. And when you point out food that is cheap and has lots of nutrients, people come saying there are not enough calories. Hey, if you eat some of those cheap calories, but not too much. And then eat some of that cabbage and beans and whatever that has nutrients but not too much calories. I would call it "balanced diet". It's not rocket science, though it does take some brain function. Cabbage of course isn't the only healthy and cheap vegetable or other foodstuff there is.
- dpark 11y ago
  The problem with junk food is not just that it is lacking in essential nutrients. If that were the only problem, then Snickers bars and multivitamin supplements would be a healthy diet. Junk food is unhealthy for a myriad of reasons, including the heavy use of sugars. Humans were not evolved to subsist on sugar and oil (and various corn-derived products), but that is a huge chunk of junk foods. It is possible to eat fairly cheaply and still healthily, but it is not as cheap as eating unhealthily. It's also far more time consuming because cheaper healthy foods are uncooked and unprocessed, whereas cheaper unhealthy food are generally ready to eat.
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    When some food has lots of sugar, you can eat less sugar (avoid excess calories) AND save money simply by eating less. Some of that saved money could be used for getting even better nutrients. Unhealthy food being cheap is no real explanation for obesity.