We need to make healthy food convenient for a change

If you’ve been told that eating healthy costs more than eating unhealthy, you’ve been lied to. Sure, eating processed foods and starches is cheaper, if you’re sourly uncreative. No offense, but most of us are. So, what’s really holding us back from purchasing wholesome foods and getting more munch for our money? It’s something precious that we seem to lack in American culture: time. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average adult spends four hours a day on leisure activities. Included in that is, of course, three meals a day. However, that’s assuming someone works full-time, seven or eight hours a day. Some of us work more than one job and have families to raise. We’re always running around and somehow we’re always eating.

According to WebMD, Americans eat a surplus of calories, yet in a sense, we are malnutritioned. We are lacking crucial vitamins and minerals in our daily meals that boxed mac-and-cheese and dinosaur chicken nuggets don’t provide.

Due to the limited free time to go shopping, American families tend to hit the super-store once a month and fill multiple carts with $600 worth of processed junk.

We think there’s a better way. Instead of purchasing everything at huge, super-chain grocery stores, what if people took to opening and shopping at small markets and vendors in the streets? This kind of thing occurs throughout Europe and Asia. Food carts have already become a thing in Portland, so it’s quite possible. The only way to combat the seductive convenience of prepackaged food is restoring the convenience of purchasing raw fruits and vegetables and healthy snacks.

We shouldn’t, of course, torch Walmart or anything, but it gets to the point that publishing books and writing documentaries on better eating gets us nowhere. Sure, we can protest all we want, but sometimes creating an establishment is more productive than trying to destroy one. Make produce vendors hip, cool, enjoyable, and hopefully, the American lifestyle will change on its own.

Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and the Saturday Market is a big thing in the Pacific Northwest. The only real issue: Shopping at Trader Joe’s gets pricey. Natural food stores seem to attract mostly singles, young couples, small families, and urban dwellers. We need to evolve this movement so that it becomes part of our popular culture and common lifestyle. It can no longer be just a quirky special interest for a select few.

The option to sell fresh fruit or vegetables on the street with similar regulations as our food carts would allow farmers some independence and freedom with how they choose to raise their produce. The farmers markets have provided these freedoms; however, they’re almost like a tease. They aren’t a regular thing – only  a fixation people can satisfy from the late spring through early autumn.

The only reason fresh produce and healthy foods are so expensive is because they aren’t readily available and convenient, but the Earth is amazing. All we need are seeds and healthy land. In the Pacific Northwest, we have plentiful soil and beautiful land for growing more food and to buy all one’s food at Walmart seems like a cop-out.

Now, what about places in the United States that are dry and where the terrain isn’t so easy to work with? Well, if people can create a Kibbutz or a huge irrigation system in the middle of a desert (as the inhabitants of Israel/Palestine have), anything is possible.

We believe that culture can change, as long as we take initiative. Portland has made healthy food a thing now, but we should make it the thing all across America.