UK push to rank food addiction alongside drugs and alcohol

Its bad in places like the USA and UK. Saw it while shopping there.

In the UK an apple will cost you 42c, a large frozen 4 cheese pizza 1.65 so its cheaper to eat junk food. 4 apples or a large pizza at the same price.

Compare that to SA where a bag of 8 apples is about R20 and a large frozen pizza from checkers for R65. So say 26 apples = 1 pizza. We get really cheap healthy food in SA (outside of woolies). Its not the norm in first world countries. The unhealthy stuff is cheaper there.
 
Cius said:
Its bad in places like the USA and UK. Saw it while shopping there.

In the UK an apple will cost you 42c, a large frozen 4 cheese pizza 1.65 so its cheaper to eat junk food. 4 apples or a large pizza at the same price.

Compare that to SA where a bag of 8 apples is about R20 and a large frozen pizza from checkers for R65. So say 26 apples = 1 pizza. We get really cheap healthy food in SA (outside of woolies). Its not the norm in first world countries. The unhealthy stuff is cheaper there.
Click to expand...
You are not wrong, but I would add two things.
-if you live in the inner city.
-you are lazy and poor.
Haven’t noticed it in bigger cities but in smaller towns and villages there are always options for cheaper fruit and veg that aren’t in the big name stores. An easy option if you are on a budget. If you are into it most towns have allotments so you can also grow your own.
Lazy is probably a mean word to choose but if you use the previous option and put in just a little effort you don’t have to eat pre prepared meals. I’ve been able to feed a family of 4 a reasonably healthy meal for only £4. Cost obviously excludes condiments, spices etc.

Point I’m trying to make and should be obvious is that while you are correct in saying an apple is more expensive than frozen pizza, if you want to eat healthy it doesn’t have to be expensive but requires some effort. You can’t blame food prices when you choose the least effort option.
Also, passing accountability for your own health on is a poor mindset to have.
 
Cius said:
Its bad in places like the USA and UK. Saw it while shopping there.

In the UK an apple will cost you 42c, a large frozen 4 cheese pizza 1.65 so its cheaper to eat junk food. 4 apples or a large pizza at the same price.

Compare that to SA where a bag of 8 apples is about R20 and a large frozen pizza from checkers for R65. So say 26 apples = 1 pizza. We get really cheap healthy food in SA (outside of woolies). Its not the norm in first world countries. The unhealthy stuff is cheaper there.
Click to expand...
Wrong.
The problem is that people want to eat fruit that is out of season in the UK, and that UK farming regulations are retarded (Watch Clarkson's farm.) So they import it.

So if we look at Sainsburys:

Country of Origin​

Grown in Belgium, France, Italy, Netherlands, South Africa, Spain
Click to expand...
https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/loose-produce/sainsburys-granny-smith-apples-single-c

Whereas in Cape Town, I am literally <50 km from the nearest farm that produces granny smith apples.
If you go and look for stuff that is suitable for the UK climate, it is orders of magnitude cheaper.
 
konfab said:
Wrong.
The problem is that people want to eat fruit that is out of season in the UK, and that UK farming regulations are retarded (Watch Clarkson's farm.) So they import it.

So if we look at Sainsburys:

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/loose-produce/sainsburys-granny-smith-apples-single-c

Whereas in Cape Town, I am literally <50 km from the nearest farm that produces granny smith apples.
If you go and look for stuff that is suitable for the UK climate, it is orders of magnitude cheaper.
Click to expand...
The pizza ingredients are also largely imported. Its not about distance, its about labour. Apples are far more labour intensive, and hence cost more. In SA labour is cheap so harvesting apples is cheap. Same reason fast food is so much cheaper in SA. Our cooks, delivery drivers, and waiting staff are just cheaper and hence eating out is cheaper.

I could list innumerable examples but its a well known fact. My uncle had to do an insurance write off of a perfectly decent car because its transmission went and the repair work was worth more than the book value of the car. Was madness. Mechanics are so expensive in the USA and UK. The job cost 10 times more than it would in SA just to pay for someone's time. So rule of thumb is if its takes someone's actual time in those countries you pay a lot. If it costs mainly a chinese person's time its cheap.

I did a comparison a few years back on how long a burger flipper would have to work in the USA and RSA to buy a new release DVD and in SA it was over 2 days where in the states it was 1.5 hours. Goods, and prepackaged stuff is just way cheaper in first world countries. Its relative to the incredible buying power of their currencies. The flip side is how much you pay for anyone's time in your local area.
 
Paul Kemp said:
You are not wrong, but I would add two things.
-if you live in the inner city.
-you are lazy and poor.
Haven’t noticed it in bigger cities but in smaller towns and villages there are always options for cheaper fruit and veg that aren’t in the big name stores. An easy option if you are on a budget. If you are into it most towns have allotments so you can also grow your own.
Lazy is probably a mean word to choose but if you use the previous option and put in just a little effort you don’t have to eat pre prepared meals. I’ve been able to feed a family of 4 a reasonably healthy meal for only £4. Cost obviously excludes condiments, spices etc.

Point I’m trying to make and should be obvious is that while you are correct in saying an apple is more expensive than frozen pizza, if you want to eat healthy it doesn’t have to be expensive but requires some effort. You can’t blame food prices when you choose the least effort option.
Also, passing accountability for your own health on is a poor mindset to have.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I agree on all that and learned a bit about the effort side. My personal experience was entirely in London's and shopping at Tesco which is not their exclusive shop, its more like Checkers so I thought a decent comparison. Would love to know how much things cost at the village markets vs the chain stores.

This however seems to be a trend everywhere in the first world. My parents commented on it in the Netherlands, my brother in law in NZ, other family in Aus, and to a degree family in America. South Africa has very cheap and varied fresh produce compared to most of those places. Its a thing many expats I know comment on missing. Amazing quality fruit and veg for low prices. Buying an Avo in the Netherlands when I was there cost me something like R90 for 1. Was a little shocking. Makes sense I guess as its so far from the main producers.
 
Cius said:
The pizza ingredients are also largely imported. Its not about distance, its about labour. Apples are far more labour intensive, and hence cost more. In SA labour is cheap so harvesting apples is cheap. Same reason fast food is so much cheaper in SA. Our cooks, delivery drivers, and waiting staff are just cheaper and hence eating out is cheaper.

I could list innumerable examples but its a well known fact. My uncle had to do an insurance write off of a perfectly decent car because its transmission went and the repair work was worth more than the book value of the car. Was madness. Mechanics are so expensive in the USA and UK. The job cost 10 times more than it would in SA just to pay for someone's time. So rule of thumb is if its takes someone's actual time in those countries you pay a lot. If it costs mainly a chinese person's time its cheap.

I did a comparison a few years back on how long a burger flipper would have to work in the USA and RSA to buy a new release DVD and in SA it was over 2 days where in the states it was 1.5 hours. Goods, and prepackaged stuff is just way cheaper in first world countries. Its relative to the incredible buying power of their currencies. The flip side is how much you pay for anyone's time in your local area.
Click to expand...
The pizza ingredients can be imported frozen, which is a lot cheaper. And frozen pizza is shelf stable provided it is in the freezer.
Obviously labour comes into it, but it you cannot discount the choice in ingredients.

You can live cheaply and healthily in every single first world country. People simply don't because they would rather watch Netflix. We use whole chicken to make pies because you get a lovely stock when you steam them and they are much cheaper. So I am going to base the analysis on that:

For example, in Tesco.
A whole chicken is £3.20/kg or R71.18 per kg

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/292276232
Here in the People's Republic of South Africa, a whole chicken is about R60/kg from checkers

In the US a whole chicken is $1.46/lb or R26.95/lb or R59.4/kg or $3.2/kg
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Foster-F...hicken-67-2-100-8-oz-4-2-6-3-lb-Bag/140139691

But once you take into account wages:
SA minimum wage is R25.41 an hour
UK minimum wage is like £6.83 an hour. (for 18-20 year old)
US federal minimum wage is $7.25 (and the average is usually quite a bit higher)

1Kg of whole chicken per hour rate:
SA: 0.356.
UK: 2.13
US: 2.26

So no, I don't think your hypothesis holds very well.
 
konfab said:
The pizza ingredients can be imported frozen, which is a lot cheaper. And frozen pizza is shelf stable provided it is in the freezer.
Obviously labour comes into it, but it you cannot discount the choice in ingredients.

You can live cheaply and healthily in every single first world country. People simply don't because they would rather watch Netflix. We use whole chicken to make pies because you get a lovely stock when you steam them and they are much cheaper. So I am going to base the analysis on that:

For example, in Tesco.
A whole chicken is £3.20/kg or R71.18 per kg

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/292276232
Here in the People's Republic of South Africa, a whole chicken is about R60/kg from checkers

In the US a whole chicken is $1.46/lb or R26.95/lb or R59.4/kg or $3.2/kg
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Foster-F...hicken-67-2-100-8-oz-4-2-6-3-lb-Bag/140139691

But once you take into account wages:
SA minimum wage is R25.41 an hour
UK minimum wage is like £6.83 an hour. (for 18-20 year old)
US federal minimum wage is $7.25 (and the average is usually quite a bit higher)

1Kg of whole chicken per hour rate:
SA: 0.356.
UK: 2.13
US: 2.26

So no, I don't think your hypothesis holds very well.
Click to expand...
Lol, where was I talking about chicken ever? Learn to read. I only spoke about veggies and fresh fruit. Nice math though, and interesting, so thanks for that.

Another nice fact. When in the Netherlands I saw Albert Hein selling a free range whole chicken for R600 for one bird. Fortunately the non-free range was a lot cheaper than that but just made me wonder how rich those Dutch are to even consider that.
 
Cius said:
Thanks, I agree on all that and learned a bit about the effort side. My personal experience was entirely in London's and shopping at Tesco which is not their exclusive shop, its more like Checkers so I thought a decent comparison. Would love to know how much things cost at the village markets vs the chain stores.

This however seems to be a trend everywhere in the first world. My parents commented on it in the Netherlands, my brother in law in NZ, other family in Aus, and to a degree family in America. South Africa has very cheap and varied fresh produce compared to most of those places. Its a thing many expats I know comment on missing. Amazing quality fruit and veg for low prices. Buying an Avo in the Netherlands when I was there cost me something like R90 for 1. Was a little shocking. Makes sense I guess as its so far from the main producers.
Click to expand...
I work in a food manufacturing business here and labour cost isn’t as big an issue as filling those positions. Even in a heavily mechanised plant we struggle to find people that want to be machine minders. People just don’t want to do that work because minimum wage is pretty good so people just choose other jobs.
I’ll try to remember to look at pricing at the markets and smaller stores for comparison.
 
Paul Kemp said:
I work in a food manufacturing business here and labour cost isn’t as big an issue as filling those positions. Even in a heavily mechanised plant we struggle to find people that want to be machine minders. People just don’t want to do that work because minimum wage is pretty good so people just choose other jobs.
I’ll try to remember to look at pricing at the markets and smaller stores for comparison.
Click to expand...
Fascinating. Heard this was a bigger issue post brexit as a lot of your cheaper migrant workers are no longer an option? The news articles focused on farm workers but would be interested to know how far that spreads in other industries. Was very strange to me to see just how automated everything was outside of SA. Here we have so much unemployment and cheap labour we almost default to hiring people to do it rather than using a machine.

Watched garbage collection in the Netherlands. One guy with a crane equipped garbage truck that pulls this huge box up out the ground, empties it, and all done by himself. So different to here with the army of men doing it. Same thing for ditch digging. One machine operator. Saw farmers in France doing everything with a handful of machines where here it would have perhaps been far more manual.

Honestly, considering how people live here in SA and scrounge to get by (plus the crime that comes with unemployment) it must be a wonderful problem to have as a country that your unemployment is so low that you struggle to full basic jobs.
 
It’s not the cheapness, it’s the lack of those willing to do the work. They earn a good living doing what most consider menial, but I think that is what you meant. Lower end of the pay scale and loads of employment opportunities. It’s bizarre but a good problem to have.
 
Cius said:
Lol, where was I talking about chicken ever? Learn to read. I only spoke about veggies and fresh fruit. Nice math though, and interesting, so thanks for that.

Another nice fact. When in the Netherlands I saw Albert Hein selling a free range whole chicken for R600 for one bird. Fortunately the non-free range was a lot cheaper than that but just made me wonder how rich those Dutch are to even consider that.
Click to expand...
You were comparing frozen pizza to fruit :laugh: so I thought the argument was about healthy food vs processed food. Chicken is a better example to compare with IMO because it is more of a staple food than apples.
And I still think I have roughly shown that your statement about food being cheap here doesn't hold too much grounds for most people. Now if you are in the middle class, then food is definitely cheaper here than first world countries.
 
konfab said:
You were comparing frozen pizza to fruit :laugh: so I thought the argument was about healthy food vs processed food. Chicken is a better example to compare with IMO because it is more of a staple food than apples.
And I still think I have roughly shown that your statement about food being cheap here doesn't hold too much grounds for most people. Now if you are in the middle class, then food is definitely cheaper here than first world countries.
Click to expand...
OK. I just hear a very different story from almost all other expats I know. They also say pretty much the same thing as that article. Its cheaper to eat unhealthy than healthy due to elevated costs of fresh produce.
 
Cius said:
OK. I just hear a very different story from almost all other expats I know. They also say pretty much the same thing as that article. Its cheaper to eat unhealthy than healthy due to elevated costs of fresh produce.
Click to expand...
Expats are used to not eating seasonal food. To claim it is impossible to eat healthily on a budget is just absurd.
 
There won't be any fat folks in the wellness camps ;)
 
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