There are certain things that are necessary in order to sustain physical life in this world, of which, each of us needs, for instance, oxygen, water, shelter, and food, in order to live. So too, whatever our daily habits are, our body has a very strong tendency to dictate to us, when it so desires to have food, and we typically readily comply with such. In America, there appears to be an ample supply of food so available to us, of which, the dividing line between what we so buy, has an awful lot to do with the disposable income budgeted for food consumption. That is to say, for those that have a ready supply of money, their food choices are far more broader, than for those that have a budget which constrains them in the purchases that they so make of food. This thus signifies that the food items that we consume, is going to show meaningful and significant differences between those that have, and between those that basically have not.
It would be one thing, if every calorie was equal, but, in fact, calories are not equal; because the food that we consume, ranges from that which is wholesome to that which is best defined as “junk.” Not too surprisingly, those that consume more caloric junk food, as compared to those that consume more caloric healthy food, are going to find themselves, on a trajectory in which the consistent eating of food items that have little nutritional value, and are highly processed, are not good for their physical body. While we can decry the poor food choices so being made, by certain segments of the population, what has to be taken into salient consideration, is that junk food is usually priced considerably lower than healthy alternatives, and therefore for those people that can only afford to buy cheap calories, their diet is thus going to consist of a lot more ultra-processed food.
We read at foodtank.com, “…that ultra-processed foods are 52 percent cheaper than less processed alternatives, on average;” and further to the point that “…more than 60 percent of caloric intake in the U.S. comes from ultra-processed food.” Indeed, our eyes do not deceive us, as America, year after year, sees that more and more of its population has bigger body mass indexes (BMI), which reflects that those that eat a lot of cheap calories, eat far more than what they would normally eat, because ultra-processed food does a very poor job of satiating the body’s insistent need for good nutritional intake.
The thing about ultra-processed food is not only is that food readily available, and of which the manufacture and transportation of such is easily achieved, but that it tellingly is also a heck of a lot cheaper than wholesome food – so then, those that are on a budget, or prefer eating that which they consider to be “comfort food” are going to avail themselves of such; especially in consideration that unlike the consumption of tobacco, which has a warning label attached to it, along with governmental cautions to avoid such, ultra-processed food is pretty much treated as any other food item.
While, at the end of the day, we could just say that the general public is entitled to make their free choice about what they so desire to eat, it has to be taken into full account, that the consistent eating of ultra-processed food, besides making the body mass of a given individual bigger, is also over the long term detrimental to the health of that individual, which leads to ever more people, suffering from preventable diseases, which likely would be better averted if their food choices were more healthy.