Why is healthy food more expensive?

Recent research has shown that children in the UK are now considered as fat as those in America. The reasons are fairly obvious considering what kids love to consume and all with their parents’ consent and participation.

Did you know that parents who are exhausted by their active new-borns who do not fall asleep when their parents need them to, are now consciously feeding their babies spoonsful of butter? They claim that their baby sleeps through the night after eating it. But doctors have warned that parents are not doing their babies any favours in the long run. Butter is good, in moderation, and most doctors recommend that the amount of butter an adult should consume is about a spoonful or less. This is for grown adults who weigh 20 or more times the baby. Imagine a baby being fed an adult dose of a highly fatty thick oil.

It is a very likely that the butter is putting the baby to sleep, much like turkey does to adults at Christmas, but it’s very irresponsible to feed a baby such a fatty substance, setting him up for obesity in later life.

Children’s obesity is really all down to what their parents feed them. Most families are now two income families where both parents are working all day and neither has time to prepare a home-cooked meal when they get home. The best option, as I witness every day at a local food court, is families with young children making a beeline for a fast food outlet. Not only do they order huge burgers and fries but if the child wants an ice cream, the parents do not decline. In fact, they join in. I’ve even seen some parents get their children burgers and fries whilst they head for a healthier option. I don’t understand the common sense there. Why would parents opt for a healthy option for themselves and fast food for the child, even if that’s what the child wants? They’re the parents and what they say should go.

I think that obesity is, in fact, a pandemic, not an epidemic confined to the UK and US. It is, however, confined to countries where the lifestyle lends itself to food that is readily available in outlets like food courts. Obviously obesity is not prevalent in countries where food is a scarcity and fast food is not so readily available and, if it were, it would probably be very expensive.

Obesity is a developed country’s disease where almost everyone can afford to buy a burger, fries and soft drinks, regardless of their income. In fact, fatty foods and processed foods, like burgers and fries are a lot cheaper than your healthy options.

Have you ever been to an organic shop? The prices are about four times the price of that same food which is not organic. Have you been to the healthy food section of a supermarket? Same story. Have you seen how a healthy protein bar costs around Dh30 whereas a normal chocolate bar is around Dh3? The food supply is so messed up that it’s absurd. They are inviting us to gorge on bad food by making it so much cheaper.

Now parents have a responsibility, as I said. I have seen children with pocket money running down to the local supermarket and heading straight for the crisps section. The amount of salt, carbohydrates and artificial colours and flavours they are consuming on a daily basis is absolutely astronomical.

I would like to ask one question of food manufacturers. Why can’t burgers be made on wholemeal buns instead of the awful white buns, which are far less healthy? Why can’t cereals have less sugar? Or no sugar at all? Why can’t packets of crisps have no salt added? More to the point, why can’t the salt be in a sachet inside the packet so that people might avoid adding it to their snack? Even more to the point, if no sugar has been added to a food item, why is it more expensive? In a nutshell, why is healthy food more expensive to buy? If we knew the answers to these questions, there would be no such thing as obesity.