But It Is Affordable – It’s Just Not As Convenient

And far too many people are lazy:

The government’s policy on obesity, announced on Sunday, sounds as though it’s tough on the supermarkets: they really must do better on the health front, ministers say

Calorie for calorie, a basket of healthy food costs more than twice as much as a basket of less healthy food, according to a report by the Food Foundation. That statistic sounds stark until you engage your brain.

If you engage your brain, that statistic just sounds like absolute bullshit. 

Even if supermarkets didn’t have racks of ‘buy it now’ yellow sticker meat, fish, fruit and veg, the cost of an average trolley full of processed ready meals is always going to be more costly than a trolley full of fresh meat, fish, fruit and veg. The missing ingredient here isn’t cash - it’s knowledge and desire to cook from scratch rather than stab a few holes in a film lid and stick it in the machine that goes ‘ding’. 

Processed food is cheap because that is the “process”: the relentless prioritising of the profit margin over every other consideration, such as nutritional value. What else are you going to use all that big, capitalist brain power for? Making food more colourful?

The range of breakfast cereals available on shelves suggest they long ago exhausted that option! 

The missing plank in this raft of suggestions is the only one that would make any difference: addressing the price of food. There is a reason that one in three children in deprived areas are overweight, compared with one in five in the general population – people on low incomes cannot afford healthy food.

Not at all - they can, easily. Countless tv shows have pushed this point, even Jamie Oliver (the Chav’s Chef) has tried, and to no avail. The simple fact is most people don't care, and cannot be bothered to cook - they want the convenience of processed ready meals, and to hell with the side effects of this attitude.