Why Eating Healthy Is So Expensive In America? Dr Ekberg

Hey today I wanted to comment on something I found by the Vox channel on

Why eating healthy is so expensive in America - or is it? Hey I'm Dr. Ekberg

with Wellness For Life and if you like to truly master health by understanding

how the body really works make sure you subscribe and hit that notification bell

so that you don't miss anything so is food expensive well that's a relative

term there's a lot of opinion and value in that so let's look at the bigger

picture so in 1950 we spent 24% of our income on food and in 9 2010 60 years

later we spent 6.8% so the percentage dropped more than three times and yet we

think of food is expensive because inflation drives the prices up and we

only remember what it was last year but over time we spend less and less and

less on food at the same time in Europe they spent 11 to 15 percent almost twice

the percentage of their income on food and in terms of real dollars the u.s.

spends $2,200 France spends over 3000 and Norway spends almost twice as much

as the u.s. at just under $4,500 we don't spend so much as we think on food

we spend a lesser percentage than ever and we spend less than most other

countries in terms of dollars on food what has changed is our priority we

don't see it as really important anymore we've been sold the idea that it doesn't

really matter what you eat as long as you get enough calories or it's this or

that or the government puts a percentage of vitamins and nutrients and

cholesterol satisfied in the food so we've forgotten what real food is we've

lost track of what healthy food is and convenience is a big deal we've gotten

more and more busy so we don't want to take the time if we think that we can

get the same result picking up something on the way home from work from

McDonald's or some fast food rather than spending the time if we don't understand

and the difference then we'll go for the convenience so we need to get back to

understanding how much of a difference it is in the quality of the food so we

have to get back to understanding why we eat and the first reason that we eat is

to get fuel that's why you get hungry that's what you need you need the energy

to get through today and tomorrow so the primary reason to eat is fuel and that's

that ugly word called calories all right so we've been taught to think of

calories as something bad oh don't eat that it's got too many calories don't

eat nuts don't eat avocado has too many calories eat the the crispy rice cookie

it only has less than a hundred calories so you can eat as much as you want it's

guilt-free we've gotten the ideas the basic principles on food completely

turned around and we're so lost in our low-fat and our calorie principles

calories are a good thing they keep you alive every other animal on the planet

eat to get calories and they try to get as many as possible when you fill up

your car you're getting your car calories in the terms of fuel and you're

trying to get as many calories as possible for a few dollars as possible

and this is how we need to start thinking about food also we need to get

the largest amount of calories for the fewest amounts of dollars but it needs

to be whole food it can't be processed it can't be sugar it can't be grain or

starchy things or mass-produced or packaged food none of those are

actually food and they will ruin our health the second thing we need is GRP

genuine replacement parts and that is building blocks it's everything that

whole food has that your body needs to provide fuel and to convert the fuel and

the building blocks into new tissue so we're talking enzymes we're talking

vitamins and minerals all of it in the complex form in the combined form that

nature provides it but also the amino and the essential fatty acids that your

body needs that it can't get elsewhere and the third part that food provides is

cleansing vegetables in particular our cleansing we don't eat vegetables to get

fuel or genuine replacement parts or building blocks we eat vegetables for

cleansing so the reason we want to eat them is different okay we I'm not

opposed to vegetables but that is not the key to turn your health around when

I've watched this video they said oh if we could only have more produce if we

can only get people to eat more fruits and vegetables then there would be less

obesity and diabetes because people who eat more fruits and vegetables have less

diabetes yes but the reason that they have less diabetes is that by the time

you start eating more fruits and vegetables you understand more about

food so you eat less cereal and grain and bread and soda and sugar and cookies

and candy and donuts etc that's why they have less diabetes not because they eat

more produce and again I'm not opposed to produce I think you should eat

several cups every day but the reason is cleansing not to get fuel or building

blocks primarily and a lot of people feel better when they eat a lot of

vegetables because a lot of people are toxic the more toxic you are the more

desperately your body needs cleansing that's why it works so great for a lot

of different disease conditions especially cancer and or autoimmune

diseases people are so toxic they need a lot of cleansing vegetables are great

for that right throughout the last 50 years we have been very very misled on

what whole healthy real food is the food pyramid just confuse things and most of

the stuff that's really really good for us most of the stuff that has a lot of

fuel calories most of the stuff that has a lot of building blocks has been deemed

bad has been demonized vilified cursed so we're

talking here meat fish fowl game fat nuts those are the stuff that gives you

the most fuel and the most building blocks and the most nutrients that are

the most suitable for humans in the long term to rebuild and heal your body then

we add on the vegetables and the berries for the cleansing and all of these are

low glycemic meaning they don't raise your blood sugar they don't trigger

insulin so these are the safest foods to eat for anybody then if you're already

healthy you don't have insulin resistance or a weight problem or a

disease now you can add some fruits and some beans and some tubers like potato

sweet potato various different routes because if you don't if you're not

insulin resistance then you can tolerate some of this and they give you a good

nutritional value for the amount of food you eat so that's why we eat food to get

calories to get things and that's the type of foods that have the most of them

so now you probably say yeah but that stuff's still so expensive I can't

afford to buy organic I can't afford to buy grass-fed because it's 30% more it's

50% more or this or that so we want to think differently about these and I'm

gonna give you some examples of how inexpensive this food really is think in

terms of calories and we're going to give you prices in terms of dollars per

1000 calories and then assume that the average person needs about 2,000

calories a day now you would only need to eat two times whatever this amount

here is and of course it doesn't work like that you're not going to eat just

two things off off all this you're gonna eat eat a variety but it will give you

an idea of how much money you would have to spend 15% fat ground beef grass-fed

organic I found that at Walmart I tried it it's excellent some of the best

tasting ground beef I've had one pound about 550 and gives you a thousand

calories so that's enough to feed at least two large people if you only eat a

few meals a day if you eat smaller meals smaller people that's probably enough to

feed four people chicken thighs organic and I'm lazy trying to save some time be

convenient so I buy the skin free bone free boneless skinless and it cost me

350 per pound gives about a thousand calories sardines try to get something

in a good oil about four dollars per thousand calories cheddar not the cheap

stuff I'm talking grass-fed organic raw the the stuff that your body can utilize

that doesn't stress your body 550 per thousand calories eggs six dollars for a

thousand calories so these eggs are the pastured they are the ones where the

chickens run around like they used to they have at least a hundred eight

square feet per chicken that's the standard for pasture so these eggs cost

about four to five times as much as the cheapest cheapest eggs but it is so

worth it because if the animal is healthy the food is healthy if the

animal is stressed and sick and medicated then you're gonna be the same

sour cream you can find some as low as a dollar fifty for a thousand calories so

these are primarily with proteins this is the amino acids the building blocks

that builds most of your tissues then we look at your main energy source this is

where you get the most calories the most healthy natural calories in their

natural form per dollar butter grass-fed organic cultured butter dollar eighty

per thousand calories sure it's twice as much as the cheapest you can find but

you still can't eat more than a dollar of butter a day okay even at this price

so switching from the worst - the best butter is still only costing

you 50 cents a day coconut oil a dollar 30 olive oil less than a dollar 93 cents

per thousand calories so just drizzle it on everything put it on all your

vegetables put it in your omelet put it on everything you can think of because

it is good energy I just came back from Crete earlier this year and they

consumed 35 liters of olive oil per person per year it's a third of their

caloric intake and they are some of the had some of the lowest rates of

degenerative disease anywhere black beans not a fad but I just kind of threw

it in here dollar 29 per thousand calories again if your insulin resistant

if you have trouble losing weight then you want to leave those off but if not

you can tolerate some some of those flaxseed a dollar per thousand calories

hemp seed a buck 90 - peanut butter dollar 29 again organic not sugar and

margarine and shortening and all that stuff but organic natural with sea salt

dollar 29 per thousand calories walnuts dollar 50 so a lot of different nuts a

lot of different seeds get them as natural as you can and you have a

tremendous value of fuel and replacement parts per dollar so now we get to the

vegetable kingdom now we get to what they're calling the the healthy food

which again I agree but we eat it for a different reason

avocado $4 per a thousand calories eggplants $9 bell pepper $22 broccoli 12

cauliflower 13 and then spring mix these organic little baby greens $62 per a

thousand calories so then you're saying oh I thought you were going to show us

inexpensive things look how expensive that is true per thousand calories but

you would never ever try to eat a thousand calories of spring

greens trust me that's like 15 pounds that's like 15 buckets of spring greens

to get you a thousand calories so that's not why you eat those that's not why you

eat the vegetables you eat the vegetables for the cleansing you eat the

meat and the fat the animal product and the fat to get the fuel and the building

blocks so here's how you want to think about this okay

you start off trying to get a regular supply of vegetables get several cups

get as many different kinds as you like it asparagus and green beans and

broccoli and cauliflower and bell pepper and kale and whatever else that you like

and enjoy a good variety then you pour fat on it you pour butter olive oil

coconut oil you put nuts and seeds on it you've seasoned it with lots of healthy

good salt the pink salt the sea salt season to taste salt is not a bad thing

your body needs it as long as it's not a chemically pure sodium chloride table

salt and then you add on some for protein so this doesn't need to be most

of the meal this is maybe 20 30 % on average you get a good variety of

different animal products and there you have a good balance of food and it's not

going to cost you an arm and a leg and the more you eat like that the more

you'll notice you don't get so hungry so you don't have to eat three times a day

with snacks in between you eat twice a day with one snack and then once a day

with a small meal and maybe a snack okay so that's also time-saving and then in

some future videos we'll talk about how to lard make larger batches how to buy

in quantity how to prepare and freeze things because a lot of this stuff you

can make a larger batch and freeze and then it is not so time consuming so we

have to chain some things that we do but we have to

also learn and understand why we're doing it

so that we understand why it's worthwhile as you probably notice the

absolute cheapest calories are not up here

that's the grain and the sugar and the soda and all those different things they

are dirt cheap and they're not food they are the things that cause disease and

that caused the obesity and the diabetes humans have not had them for a very long

time we've certainly not had them in the abundance and the processed form that

we're getting them today so that's one thing that we start have to start

understanding is that certain things they're not food and we just can't go on

consuming them if we want to be healthy so is food expensive not really we spend

less than we've ever had we spend less than most countries and the reason we

think it's expensive is because we don't understand where we get the biggest bang

for the buck and we've been told the wrong things about most of the really

good food like meat and fat chicken fish not just beef but all sorts of animal

products and the fat that comes from them and from nuts and seeds in in their

natural form the other way to think about this is that the most expensive

food is the one that makes you sick because you either invest in a little

bit better food and health or you pay for disease later and we have the most

expensive health care system in the world and it's accomplishing very very

little because we keep ruining the body with the wrong kinds of foods so when

you look at that doughnut which is arguably the worst possible food out

there it is processed sugar it is processed flour processed vegetable oils

topped off with chemicals then that is not something that can sustain your body

so it's gonna make you sick and if you think about that doughnut

and it costs you a dollar to purchase what if you weigh in the cost of the

future medical costs and the emotional and physical suffering then that

doughnut suddenly becomes very very expensive

maybe it's not a dollar maybe it's more like a hundred bucks now and maybe it's

not so attractive anymore so I hope this was helpful I hope that you know a

little bit more about how to eat healthy what healthy food is and how it doesn't

have to be expensive if you're new to this channel and you enjoy this sort of

content make sure you subscribe so we can keep this content coming your way

thanks for watching

you