Yes, I understand there are studies. That doesn’t make me trust their conclusion. I don’t have time to dig into these papers right now, but I wonder how well they controlled for e.g. socioeconomic status and latitude.
Wealth doesn’t look likely to me—vegetables aren’t a lot cheaper than fruit where I live, unless we’re talking potatoes and such, and those usually aren’t counted as vegetables in these analyses.
I would be interested in what fruits and vegetables are respectively displacing in the diet. If a lot of these people are eating fruit for dessert instead of e.g. cake, or for breakfast in place of Pop Tarts, then dramatic longevity effects wouldn’t surprise me but also wouldn’t be an unqualified endorsement of more fruit for everyone.
Carrots, cabbage, onions, squash—not cheaper than fruit?
I just looked these up on Safeway’s online store for my area, and found carrots at about 80 cents a pound, cabbage at a buck a pound, onions at about 56 cents and squash at about a dollar. (You can squeeze a bit more out of some of these if you’re buying in 10-pound increments, but I consider that impractical for individuals or small families.) Compare to cheap apples at $1.09 a pound, grapefruit at $0.66, or bananas at about $0.85.
Fruit does go a lot higher—if you’re buying berries or tropical fruit, you can easily be spending five or six bucks a pound. But if you’re mainly looking for frugality, you have plenty of options in each category. I expect this to be skewed a bit by season, too—there aren’t many cold-season fruits.
Yes, I understand there are studies. That doesn’t make me trust their conclusion. I don’t have time to dig into these papers right now, but I wonder how well they controlled for e.g. socioeconomic status and latitude.
Wealth doesn’t look likely to me—vegetables aren’t a lot cheaper than fruit where I live, unless we’re talking potatoes and such, and those usually aren’t counted as vegetables in these analyses.
I would be interested in what fruits and vegetables are respectively displacing in the diet. If a lot of these people are eating fruit for dessert instead of e.g. cake, or for breakfast in place of Pop Tarts, then dramatic longevity effects wouldn’t surprise me but also wouldn’t be an unqualified endorsement of more fruit for everyone.
Carrots, cabbage, onions, squash—not cheaper than fruit?
But yes, I don’t think it’s purely a matter of money but may be a matter of culture as well.
Yep, a very good point.
I just looked these up on Safeway’s online store for my area, and found carrots at about 80 cents a pound, cabbage at a buck a pound, onions at about 56 cents and squash at about a dollar. (You can squeeze a bit more out of some of these if you’re buying in 10-pound increments, but I consider that impractical for individuals or small families.) Compare to cheap apples at $1.09 a pound, grapefruit at $0.66, or bananas at about $0.85.
Fruit does go a lot higher—if you’re buying berries or tropical fruit, you can easily be spending five or six bucks a pound. But if you’re mainly looking for frugality, you have plenty of options in each category. I expect this to be skewed a bit by season, too—there aren’t many cold-season fruits.