The trouble is one of priorities. Even if you can’t afford to eat fresh fruit you can choose better options. Health recommendations are expressed in a huge pack

The trouble is one of priorities. Even if you can’t afford to eat fresh fruit you can choose better options. Health recommendations are expressed in a huge package all at once, take it or leave it. Lean meat and fish in particular are also expensive and over-emphasized. You can get a similar protein/fat ratio by eating cheap meat or cheese with legumes or oats and it comes with fiber. Eggs are unfairly demonized. Only a tiny proportion of the population needs to limit egg consumption beyond what taste will do naturally. But protein is the most expensive macronutrient and eggs are a cheap source with relatively low fat and loads of vitamins. Cheese also falls into this category, with many people who do not currently have any tumors rigorously avoiding a small increase in their IGF-1, a hormone which performs many essential functions but slightly increases tumor growth rates. You can thank T. Colin Campbell for this absurdity. Potassium is very confusing. The most economical sources for most people are probably from canned tomato products, beans and fresh potatoes — the latter being a cheap vegetable whose nutritional value is highly underrated thanks to a proliferation of processed potato products. Most people, however, will reach for bananas and avocadoes — delicacies to the poor. Bread, too, deserves a more nuanced look. It ranges from sweet, thick and highly glycemic to relatively health-neutral and highly pragmatic wrt home-made lunches. “Bread” here can be extended to wraps and tortillas. “Don’t eat bread” is very often impractical. Pasta, on the other hand, is loved by diet authorities for its satiating bulk, but it’s a mess to make and requires you to wash a pot and a bowl. The rice cooker has yet to assume its rightful place on the counter. Home cooking in general has been neutered by making everyone terrified of adding butter or salt. So people choose between bland foods with no butter or salt or packaged foods with absurd amounts of salt, palm oil and artificial flavor. This advice should be revised with an eye to taste. It is not too surprising that health advice designed for the rich does not serve the poor. I don’t think the obesity crisis can be solved with health advice alone, but I also think the advice could be a lot better than it is. I don’t think we need to teach people to cook — people can learn to cook. Most people, however, do not have the number sense to assimilate hundreds of nutrition labels and prices into a diet strategy. That is difficult and boring. It doesn’t help that many products have such tiny serving sizes that the nutrient label is meaningless thanks to rounding errors. The system could be simpler and clearer. (Even with extreme effort I find myself constantly revising my own plans.)