Contrary to popular belief, many healthy foods are no more expensive
than junk food, according to a large new government analysis.

In fact, carrots, onions, pinto beans,
lettuce, mashed potatoes, bananas and orange juice are all less
expensive per portion than soft drinks, ice cream, chocolate candy,
French fries, sweet rolls and deep-fat fried chicken patties, the
report says."We have all heard that eating a
healthy diet is expensive, and people have used that as an excuse for
not eating a healthy diet, … but healthy foods do not necessarily cost
more than less healthy foods," says Andrea Carlson, an economist and
co-author of the report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Economic Research Service."The price of potato chips is nearly twice as expensive as the price of carrots by portion size," she says.


Carlson
and and her colleague Elizabeth Frazão gathered national pricing data
on more than 4,000 foods and then ranked the foods by price based on
calories, weight and portion size.They
placed the foods into the five food groups — grains, dairy, protein,
fruits and vegetables. They added a category for unhealthy foods, which
included items that did not fit the other categories and were high in
sugar, sodium and/or saturated fat such as cookies, candy, desserts,
granola bars and many ready-to-eat cereals.When
using weight and portion size as the guide, many healthy foods were not
any more costly than unhealthy ones, Carlson says. You can always find
healthy foods that are cheap and healthy foods that are expensive. The
same is true of less healthy foods, she says. She
says one of the best ways to think of food costs is to consider portion
size: "How much do you have to pay to put something on your plate?"Overall, the economists found:

•When
considering portion size, the ranking from least to most expensive is:
grains, dairy, vegetables, fruit, protein and less healthy foods.
Protein and less healthy foods are very close in cost, Carlson says.•Grains,
such as bread, oatmeal, pasta and rice, are the cheapest foods no
matter how you measure by portion, weight or calories, Carlson says.•Protein,
such as meat, chicken and fish, is the most expensive food by portion
size, but there are low-cost proteins such as beans and eggs.•When
looking at price per portion, fruits and vegetables are lower in price
overall than unhealthy foods. "Like every food group, there are cheap
veggies and fruits, and pricey ones. Cheap unhealthy foods and more
expensive ones."•When trying to eat a
healthy diet based on the government's dietary guidelines, protein and
vegetables are the most expensive recommendations to meet, followed by
fruit, she says. One of the reasons: The vegetable recommendation has
high amounts, about 2½ cups for someone eating a 2,000-calorie-a-day
diet, and so it takes a lot of food to meet that goal, Carlson says.Previous
research has just looked at price per calories and found that healthy
foods are more expensive, but Carlson says price per calorie isn't a
fair measure. For example, non-fat milk has a higher price per calorie
than 2% milk but most health experts recommend drinking non-fat or 1%
milk, she says. "Whole milk and skim milk are about the same price per
gallon at the grocery store."Another
example: a half cup of broccoli has 27 calories while a one-ounce bag
of potato chips has 154 calories. To consume 100 calories of broccoli,
you'd have to eat almost two cups and that's more than what most people
normally eat in one sitting, she says.If you
eat a chocolate-glazed doughnut at 240 calories or a banana at 105
calories, you get more nutrients from the banana and probably spend
less on it, she says.Most people allocate
only about of 20% to 25% of their food budget to fruits and vegetables,
but the government recommends that it should be more like 40%, Carlson
says.Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian in Chicago and author of The Flexitarian Diet, says that the report "is great information to help bust the myth that it costs too much to eat healthy."

Cynthia Sass, a registered dietitian in New York City and author of S.A.S.S.! Yourself Slim,
says, "Many of my clients are surprised to find that their grocery
bills don't go up when they swap processed goods for fresh foods,
especially when they buy in-season produce and they're eating ideal
portions, meaning three ounces of cooked chicken, rather than six."Just
giving up soda to drink fresh-brewed hot or iced tea, or water with a
wedge of in-season citrus fruit can be a huge cost savings, she says.
"And many of the healthiest superfoods in the market are inexpensive,
such as beans and brown rice."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-17/healthy-food-cost-USDA/55018070/1?csp=34news