Does Fast Food Save You Money?

When some of my clients hear my nutrition advise for the first time, they get a little queasy. �Geo, I�d love to eat like that, but who can afford it? Fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood are all so expensive. It just costs too much. I can�t do it.� Let�s think about this for a moment. I can emphasize with being low on funds. I�ve had periods in my life where I had no income and my savings were depleted. But here�s the question: if you don�t eat the �expensive� nutritious foods, what are you going to eat? Cocoa puffs,? McDonald�s? You can eat fast food, but you gotta realize it costs more than the price of the meal in both cash and health. Eating fast food is known to cause half the medical problems we experience today. I didn�t look up the actual amount so don�t quote me, but it�s a good chunk of medical costs and everyone knows it. In the U.S. medical costs here are through the roof, so add that to the price of your fast food meal. If you�re from a country with socialized medicine money won�t be an issue, but do you really want to get a preventable disease just because you wanted to save $20 bucks on your grocery bill? Oh and did I mention that eating fast food makes you fat? I know you know that, so add that to the cost too. Now let me ask you: after you factor in the above costs, is fast food really that cheap? You WILL spend money on this area of your life one way or another. You can either spend a little more upfront and stay healthy and lean or you can save a bit and get fat and sick. How much more expensive is nutritious food anyway? I would estimate it costs only about 20% more to eat healthy than it does to eat cheap. I don�t want to do your budget here, but I�m sure you can rearrange some things to fit in healthy food. It�s just a question of priorities. I would cancel cable TV before I gave up nutritious food. If you got cable, you can afford to eat healthy. You get my point right? I guarantee you there are things you�re spending money on right now that are less important than healthy nutrition. If you want to keep eating fast food to save money, prepare to sooner or later pay the price in the emergency room, on the surgeon�s operating table, and on the phone with your health insurance. There�s a reason doctors make more than fitness coaches. They can charge more because by the time you need a doctor the problem is so bad you�re willing to pay a lot more to fix it. Prevention is much cheaper than treatment. If you like eating fast food for other reasons that�s a different problem that we also can solve (not right now though :). But don�t tell me you�re saving money when you eat fast food.