This vs that, or why we're fat: One pepper costs the same as a family-size carton of juice

One pepper costs the same as an entire carton of juice.

One of the simplest reasons that Americans are unhealthy is because bad food is often much cheaper and easier to get than good food. I am often enraged when I stop at rest areas and other public facilities around the country and discover that bottles of water are more expensive than bottles of soda, for example.

This is partly the function of a free market — consumers are willing to pay more for water than soda — but that’s only part of the story. A complex system of government subsidies and incentives is also, partly, to blame. (Here’s an interesting story about water eclipsing soda as America’s favorite soft drink from USA Today.)

No one wants government-controlled distribution of food, but clearly there are ways to encourage healthier eating that go beyond cheesy public service campaigns. It’s time to rethink the way our policies encourage production of unhealthy foods at the expense healthy foods. For much more on that, read this excellent Denver Post article which explains how corn (and corn sugar, and ethanol) is propped up by massive federal subsidies. As expert Merrick Weaver says in the story: “We’ve made the unhealthy choice the rational choice.”

For now, please enjoy my first installment of “This vs. That.” Healthy peppers cost $2 each at the grocery story I recently visited. As in, a single pepper costs $2. But a whole carton of fruit juice, with its 8 servings of the minuscule percentage of actual fruit inside, cost exactly the same. They were about 10 feet away from each other in the store. For many reasons — we can start with shelf life — a grocery store is happy to sell a carton of juice over a pepper. But a consumer trying to feed a family has a hard time buying this vs. that.

For the record, the box of juice has 1,040 calories, costs 520 calories per dollar. The pepper, which has 24 calories, costs 12 calories per dollar. That’s not the only way to compare foods, of course, but it is a striking disparity of you are trying to fill up the kids’ bellies.

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