> healthy food should be more affordable and readily available
I think there's more than one way to achieve that. It doesn't have to be bans or subsidies. A lot of it has to do with education and competition. Unfortunately, they are kind of a circular dependency.
- There's so much cheap, highly processed food out there. The companies pay for prime real estate on the shelves and expensive marketing. It is chemically engineered to exploit your pleasure senses when you eat it. That is a hard beast to fight without proper education. And not just the food pyramid, but in depth explanations on why you should avoid it and what to eat instead. There are large groups of the population that have no idea that pop tart or cereal are not a healthy breakfast option.
- If there were more companies creating and promoting healthy, less-processed food options, the price would naturally comedown due to competition. But without the education, these products just do not sell as well. If I gave you some natural peanut butter or almond butter (just almonds or peanuts - 1 ingredient) and I gave you a jar of a more common peanut butter like JIF (sugar + hydrogenated oil for better consistency) and you had no other information at all, you're choosing JIF 10 out of 10 times. It's cheaper, it taste better, and you don't have to stir it. These megacorps prey on that lack of knowledge.
More education -> make better choices when buying -> more companies selling those choices -> cheaper prices on those choices.
I think there's more than one way to achieve that. It doesn't have to be bans or subsidies. A lot of it has to do with education and competition. Unfortunately, they are kind of a circular dependency.
- There's so much cheap, highly processed food out there. The companies pay for prime real estate on the shelves and expensive marketing. It is chemically engineered to exploit your pleasure senses when you eat it. That is a hard beast to fight without proper education. And not just the food pyramid, but in depth explanations on why you should avoid it and what to eat instead. There are large groups of the population that have no idea that pop tart or cereal are not a healthy breakfast option.
- If there were more companies creating and promoting healthy, less-processed food options, the price would naturally comedown due to competition. But without the education, these products just do not sell as well. If I gave you some natural peanut butter or almond butter (just almonds or peanuts - 1 ingredient) and I gave you a jar of a more common peanut butter like JIF (sugar + hydrogenated oil for better consistency) and you had no other information at all, you're choosing JIF 10 out of 10 times. It's cheaper, it taste better, and you don't have to stir it. These megacorps prey on that lack of knowledge.
More education -> make better choices when buying -> more companies selling those choices -> cheaper prices on those choices.