Cheap as chips, maybe, but at what cost to health?
The Sunday Age
Sunday May 31, 2009
A "COMPLETE meal" for under $5? Well, yes, if you call a cheeseburger, fries, a Coke and a sundae a "complete meal". The Hungry Jack's promotion of its "cheeseburger stunner deal" for $4.95 - inexpensive at any time, but especially attractive during a recession - is part of a boom in fast food in Australia. The problem, say experts, is that it may be cheap, but it's unhealthy, too.The Sunday Age compared two meals - one from Hungry Jack's (the $4.95 special) and another, healthier meal from the supermarket - the ingredients for a beef steak sandwich, potatoes, salad, strawberries, yoghurt and a roll. The cost was a less appealing $10.69. With the price of fresh food such as fruit and vegetables rising, is it now too expensive to eat well?Some health experts believe financial pressure is forcing people to drop nutritious food from their diets. "It's a public health problem that's grossly underestimated," says Kerin O'Dea, honorary research fellow at the University of Melbourne's department of medicine."Processed foods with a lot of carbohydrates, sugars and fat together - chocolate is a classic example - provide a huge number of calories in a small volume," says O'Dea."These foods are cheap and fattening."And soft drinks are terribly cheap today. It's often cheaper than bottled water. So, in terms of calories per dollar, these foods are good value, but in terms of health they're not."The kilojoules in the fast-food meal were 4291, compared with 4346 for the supermarket meal. But the fat content was much higher in the cheeseburger special - 40.6grams of fat, including 21.1grams of the dangerous saturated fat, compared with 17.5grams and 9.1grams for the home-cooked meal. There was also far more salt in the Hungry Jack's meal.One issue is whether poorer people will find it even harder to eat well. A survey by dietitian Associate Professor Peter Williams, published earlier this year, found that prices of fruit and vegetables increased by about 50per cent between 2000 and 2007, although the cost of bread, cereals and dairy foods stayed the same or even dropped.VicHealth public health research fellow Cate Burns says as income drops, people have to make difficult choices about fruit and vegetables."Fruit in particular will be compromised," she says. "So in order to satisfy hunger and keep energy intake up, people will spend their money on edible oils, processed meat."Our research shows that people in the bottom 20per cent financially see takeaway as too expensive."But for people on higher incomes, they see it as a cheap family treat."
© 2009 The Sunday Age
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