It's official: the people at Institute of Economic Affairs probably think you're an idiot. Ok, they didn't say that explicitly, but that's what comes across in their latest study, which claims there's "no excuse" to eat junk food because the price of pizzas and burgers and other unhealthy food is actually not cheaper than their green equivalents.The IEA say that instead of buying a burger, you could buy a kilo of potatoes, a couple of kilos of carrots and two-and-a-half kilos of pasta for the same price! Wow! IEA, where is this place I can buy exorbitant amounts of vegetables for such low, low prices? What's that? You won't tell me? I'll have to go a-searchin' for myself? In the interest of fairness, I tried to find £10 of healthy food and £10 of unhealthy food to see which would feed me for longer.
Advertisement
So I went to Sainsbury's near my work and what do I find? Just the standard selection of fruit and veg, all priced similarly for around 50p and upwards. I had £10 to spend and I wanted to make the right choices. The second most expensive item I saw was asparagus, coming in at a whopping £1.95. I didn't buy them. The first most expensive was a giant bottle of mud flavoured beet juice, which was £4.50. I did buy that. Theoretically this one drink, which was filled right up to the cap would be enough to fill my five-a-day quote for like three days. That's 15 a day. If I bought two that would be 30 fives-a-day for six days. That's a lot of five-a-day. I couldn't afford two, so I bought some other bullshit vegetables instead. An aubergine, a broccoli, some carrots. All for just under a tenner. But I couldn't find any wholesale items.
With my big bag of expensive vegetables weighing me down, and £10 of my food budget left, I visited Tennessee Fried Chicken to see what a fiver could get me. There was chips, wings and a canned beverage on offer. I got it. My drink of choice was a 7UP.
Across the street was Best American Pizza. As far as I could glean there were no Americans serving but there was a very jovial man who said he'd give me a 9" Mighty Meaty pizza and two cans of tango for £6. It was an offer I couldn't refuse.After the pizza came off of its heated conveyor I left with a great deal of food. Weight wise, the veg was quite clearly heavier. But what is more filling? Economically, what is more likely to sate a family?
Advertisement
The obvious answer is the junk shit right? Well that's because it's the real answer. I had one slice of the extremely doughy pizza and it felt like I'd just poured a gun of expanding foam into my gut. Because of all the preservatives it would probably keep for a little while too. The chips got cold pretty quickly while I was waiting for the pizza to cook, but the wings retained their heat. I only had one of them because the pizza slice was bloating me to such a point that I was beginning to get blurry vision.
The vegetables on the other hand just fucking sat there. I couldn't do anything with them because a) I can't be arsed and b) there's no utensils in the VICE office to cook anything, only reheat. Also, when you cook vegetables they shrink, which sucks, and you need to have a variety of spices and other things to make it edible. What the fuck is that racket about?Obviously I didn't buy filling carbs like pasta and potatoes; obviously I'm just one man trying to buy affordable veg from a supermarket in central London (rather than, I dunno a greengrocers in Chichester). But just as there are flaws in my experiment, these studies never explore that it's not as straight forward as just making the decision between "healthy" and "unhealthy" food. What's more, Christopher Snowden, author of this study, bemoans the "junk science" that has been used to justify smoking bans in bars and clubs, likening it to the failed war on drugs and American alcohol prohibition. He suggests that pubs are closing because people are not allowed to smoke in them any more. So when the IEA suggest that I wholesale buy my fruit and veg like I'm a one-man fucking restaurant, I'll have to take it with a pinch of salt.
ONE EMAIL. ONE STORY. EVERY WEEK. SIGN UP FOR THE VICE NEWSLETTER.
By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content.
