A new study by Canadian researchers reveals that the country and the world per se are wasting billions of dollars by simply not eating fruits and vegetables.
Apparently, the study generated the notion that by not eating fruits and veggies, people tend to get sickly more compared to the case where people eat the nutritious greens and eliminate toxins in their bodies.
In fact, the study estimates that in their country alone, Canada wastes approximately Can $3.3 billion annually because Canadians do not eat enough fruit and vegetables. The figure is obviously more in the United States, reports The Huffington Post.
It became clear during the recent Super Bowl 51 early this month when the event featured mostly food ads. But there was hardly anything about fruits and vegetables among the ads with the exception of the Avocado from Mexico.
According to the same study, junk food ad expenditure is enormous and is approximate $5 million for a 30-second ad in the 2017 Super Bowl. For some reasons, snack and fast-food companies spend billions each year to convince Americans to consume their rather unhealthy merchandise.
The economic loss of not eating fruits and veggies
The US actually wastes billions of dollars by simply setting fruits and veggies aside on the everyday diet of Americans.
Many chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer are attributable, at least in part, to diet and lifestyle.
Other modifiable lifestyle factors including exercise, obesity, and smoking, for instance, are addressed often, and their economic burden is calculated.
In a new study in Public Health Nutrition, Canadian researchers, led by John Ekwaru and Paul Veugelers looked at chronic diseases in which fruits and veggie intake significantly reduce disease burden across many studies.
After assembling the established estimates of the risk of inadequate vegetables and fruit on these chronic diseases, they found out that the 80% of women and 89% of men in Canada eat inadequate amounts of veggies and fruits.
Their most conservative estimate of the price of not eating fruits and veggies in Canada is Can $3.3 billion yearly, a third of which is in direct health-care costs and two-thirds is indirect costs due to people being too sick to go to work.
Critics say it is too heartless to measure human disease in dollars. Healthcare and productivity costs are dwarfed by the price in human pain and suffering. But the economic calculation is valuable when it comes to investing funds in public health.
Prioritizing health food
Making healthy food accessible should be a public health priority. The message from the study is very simple. When a person is out shopping for food, the price at the grocer does not always reflect the true cost. When they are buying healthy food, they are actually investing in their own health.
When people buy junk food, its price at the cash register is a fraction of what it will really cost them down the line. The cheapest foods and 1-dollar menus are actually very pricey and too expensive to even be considered.
Meanwhile, buying fresh fruit and vegetables in season can keep the price down, but a pack of dried pasta and a can of sauce can make more sense for a low-income family, reports Stuff of New Zealand.
High cauliflower and avocado prices in New Zealand, for instance, have caused a stir recently, but they are not the main reason many people eat fewer fruit and vegetables than health practitioners recommend.
The Ministry of Health wants people to eat at least three servings of vegetables and two fruits each day. At the same, it laments the great wad of Kiwis who are carrying around too much flesh.
According to the ministry, 31% of people aged 15 and over in the country are obese, while a further 35% are classed as overweight but not obese.
The department says that excess weight and physical inactivity together account for 15-20% of health losses, a measure of how much healthy life is lost due to early death, illness, or disability.
Diet, weight, and inactivity mainly do that through their contribution to cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and musculoskeletal disorders.