Are We Forced To Eat Unhealthy?

Late last night Kieana asked if I could get her some corn chips and layered salsa dip from the grocery store. I’ll do just about anything for my girls, even if it means leaving an engaging documentary, warm office and having just 15 minutes before the grocery store shut its door for the night. Luckily the corn chips which are low in salt were on sale, so into the shopping cart it went (smile on my face).

I then proceeded to where the pre-made dips and salsa were.. gotta luv it when companies feel it’s necessary to take something as basic as salsa and add other toppings to somehow make it better. As I struggled to find a basic salsa that didn’t look like tomato puree, I started to read some of the labels! Not only was I blown away by the amount of sodium, fats and the inclusion of preservatives, there were words (chemical sounding) that I could not even pronounce! 

The odd paradox is that food insecurity — not knowing where the next meal is coming from or not having enough money to adequately feed your family — leads to obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease. Mark Hyman, MD

Granted, the pre-packaged salsa did look ‘good’ in the packaging and was just over $5. And the stated expiry date gave us a 2 weeks to continue enjoying! But I struggled to come to peace in knowingly giving my daughters something to eat, laden with ingredients we should not be consuming or at least not in the amounts contained in this small package. I could do better! BUT could I afford to do so?

I ended up leaving that impostor of a salsa at the grocery store and came home with ingredients to make one from scratch. But as I shopped for said ingredients, I realized how expensive it was to do so. Let’s a take a look…

• Cream Cheese        $3.25 (on sale)
• Sour Cream            $1.99 (cheap brand)
• 1 large tomato        $0.75
• 2 Scallions              $0.50
• Taco Spice              $1.25
• Small onion           $0.75
• Cheddar Cheese   $1.25
• 1 Lemon                 $0.50

 Total                     $10.24

Notes. They dislike cilantro so I didn’t get any, I added a clove of garlic which was not mentioned in the pricing above and in calculating the price of the cheddar cheese – I used 1/4 of a block which cost $5.

The budget conscious consumer will definitely look at the two price points and I’m sure a large number of us would go for the $5 container of pre-made layered salsa, since it was CHEAPER and who wants to stand in the kitchen and make this from scratch? If you’ve never made such dips, it would mean finding a book or website/video with the recipe and no one wants to wash the dishes after! So added to the $10.24 mentioned above we must also factor in our time and the cost of the soap and water to wash the dishes after… hidden costs?

However, I was in CONTROL. salt, preservatives.. chemicals I could not pronounce were all under my control. PLUS.. there wasn’t any ingredient I knew they would not eat in the finished dip (no reason for wastage).

Back to my original comment “Are we forced to eat unhealthy?’ If I didn’t look at the label on the packaging, I would do what any ‘smart’ consumer would do and bring home the economical pack of dip, which also meant no work for me. Yes, chips and dip is not anyone’s idea of eating healthy, but in the process I got my girls to eat dairy, tomato, scallions, onions and I’m sure there’s some good in the spices which went into the mix (antioxidants maybe?)

I kinda figured I made this late night snack a little bit healthy! (compared to if we did what most people do and reach for the packaged stuff). Next time we’ll take a look at buying a frozen Lasagna vs making one from scratch. That one will certainly have you thinking!

Are you paying attention to what it costs to eat relatively healthy? What if I wanted those same ingredients mentioned above to be organic? Can you say second mortgage?

I didn’t do a video of the layer salsa I made last night, but here’s one I did some time ago if you’re interested….