{"id":10528,"date":"2011-10-07T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2011\/10\/07\/is-junk-food-really-cheaper\/"},"modified":"2011-10-07T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T12:00:00","slug":"is-junk-food-really-cheaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2011\/10\/07\/is-junk-food-really-cheaper\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/09\/25\/opinion\/sunday\/is-junk-food-really-cheaper.html?pagewanted=print&#038;pagewanted=all\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK, NY, USA, September 24, 2011 (nytimes.com): The American obesity epidemic is often &#8220;explained&#8221; by saying that junk food is cheaper than a healthy, home-cooked meal. But despite extensive government subsidies, hyperprocessed food remains more expensive than food cooked at home. Moreover, it&#8217;s unnecessarily high in calories, and most people in this country&#8211;especially the poor&#8211;already consume too many calories.<\/p>\n<p>Even meat eaters can feed a family of four to six for about $14 with a roasted chicken, vegetables, a simple salad and milk. Just try feeding that family at McDonalds, or any other restaurant, for that price! Vegetarian meals, of course, can cost much less.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, cooking is defined as work; fast food is both a pleasure and a crutch. The ubiquity, convenience and habit-forming appeal of hyperprocessed foods have largely drowned out the alternatives. There are five fast-food restaurants for every supermarket in the United States, and fast-food companies spent an incredible $4.2 billion on marketing in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the engineering behind hyperprocessed food makes it virtually addictive. <\/p>\n<p>For decades, the fast-food industry has been placing their products on every street corner, making it socially acceptable to eat anywhere and anytime, and training us to self-stimulation every 15 minutes. Real cultural changes are needed to turn this around. Somehow we must get people to see cooking as part of a normal life, ideally as a joy rather than a burden.<\/p>\n<p>The full article at source includes suggestions for political action and provides links to further details.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source NEW YORK, NY, USA, September 24, 2011 (nytimes.com): The American obesity epidemic is often &#8220;explained&#8221; by saying that junk,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}