An inspired blog post I read recently, shows that U.S. households spend a higher percentage of their dollars on cheap packaged junk foods than anything else. The blogger observed people's shopping carts full of foods and decided to add up some data gathered by Nielsen about Americans' grocery shopping habits. Not surprising, the data reveals the food choices behind the pandemic of lifestyle related diseases caused by the cheap calories we consume. According to the data, the average American spends $1,321 on packaged foods (snacks, soda, etc.), $309 on frozen foods, $112 on meat, $215 on alcohol but just $91 on fresh produce.

I buy the majority of my food at my local Farmer's Markets, the health food store and through my food-coop group. While the health food store sells a lot of processed and convenience foods, they carry healthier versions of what their conventional counterparts sell, even when these carry some organic options also.

In my experience, most people's carts at the health food store contain a combination of produce, grains, beans and also quite a few processed, packaged and canned items. Some time ago, I was looking for ripe avocados and found myself looking in the local conventional super market. It was a surreal experience. I was almost in tears because it was so schocking and painful to see that the majority of people, with children, had shopping carts full of cheap toxic foods that come laden with artificial additives. It was truly overwhelming for me to witness this and I was overcome with sadness because I'm sure that in most instances, these peope simply don't know how harmful these "dead" foods are. They don't know how bad what they are buying is.

I decided to take a walking tour through the isles of the grocery store and noticed that the food prices, in many instances, are even higher than, for example, Whole Foods Market's 365 Organic Everyday Value® brand foods. Conventional grocery stores teamed up with industrial food manufacturers really stick it to uninformed consumers who pay a higher price -- both in food costs and in poor health.