One Hundred Dollars a Month

I often wonder what our great grandparents would think if they could see our pantries these days. The boxes and packages of convenience food would probably blow their minds. Up until the 80s, convenience foods weren’t prevalent in diets and certainly weren’t staples. Today just the opposite is true. Convenience foods {junk food, packaged food, overly processed foods, chemically rich foods and fast foods are what most consider convenience foods} have replaced healthy, fresh, whole foods in many American diets. I think our ancestors are rolling over in their graves as they watch our health decline because of it. I’m sure they want to shout at us to pull out their old recipe boxes and get to cooking!

While I’m not an expert on the matter, I think there’s some truth to the fact that breakfast cereal was were this fad began. The industry noticed kids gobbling up the bright, sugary, processed loops and stars, while parents were embracing the time they saved in the morning. So companies expanded their offerings, using the science of chemical flavoring and new technologies for processing and preserving foods to create yummy high fat and high sugar foods that sold like crazy. They were no longer worried about nutrition because it seemed the country didn’t care. We loved the taste and we loved the convenience. I mean pizza places don’t really even sell pizza; if you pay attention to many of their ads, they sell the convenience. They sell the delivery.

A group of doctors with the Department of Family Medicine did a pretty extensive study about convenience food. I was kind of shocked at the results, since it was a bit opposite of what I always thought. Surprisingly, dinner didn’t get on the table any faster in homes that favored convenience foods. Meals took an average of 52 minutes in total time to prepare. The difference in the total amount of time saved was marginal between convenience and healthy diets. In fact, families saved only when it came to the amount of hands-on time spent preparing dishes — and the savings were relatively modest. Families with an extensive reliance on convenience foods saved an average of 10 minutes over families with more limited reliance on such products.

And the savings or lack thereof also shocked me. They actually found that a convenience dietary model produced an average annual food cost of $10,298, nearly twice that of the healthy food model. Calculated cost-per-calorie values for the healthy and convenience diets were shocking, too: the average cost per calorie of the healthy diet was estimated to be 25% less than that of a convenience diet.

Of course, what their study also revealed was what I already knew: A LOT of food that’s packaged and prepared for our convenience is not only more expensive than something you cook yourself, but also most likely less healthy. A convenience diet comprises 52% more calories than the healthy diet. And that’s the crux of the problem. Convenience food is making us fat. And at an alarming rate! Based on the latest federal data, almost 65% of American adults are overweight, with 30% considered obese. Compare that to the 15% obesity rate from the 70s and it’s shocking. The obesity rate has doubled in 50 years!

With prepackaged foods leading the fastest-growing section in grocery sales {increasing almost 60% over the last few years}, it’s clear this trend isn’t slowing down. And even though the convenience food trend has dabbled into healthy territory {bagged salads, pre-cut apples, etc.}, I’m not sure it’s worth it {have you seen the price of sliced apples compared to buying an apples and slicing it yourself? Crazy talk!}. What do you think? Are you a convenience food junky? Have you seen a decline in your health because of it? Does it actually save you time? Money? Share your convenience food experience in the comments!

Rock on,
~Maivs