Access to Healthy Food

Introduction

Why is access to healthy food without preservatives, additives, or toxic ingredients more expensive than fast food? This question is one that anybody concerned about healthy food has found himself asking over and over again. Healthy food should be more readily available than unhealthy foodyet it is often not, and when it is available it is often more expensive for people to buy than food that contains preservatives and other non-organic compounds or substances.

Overall, it is generally believed that access to healthy food without preservatives, additives, or toxic ingredients is generally more expensive than fast food because of the higher cost of production and sourcing of organic ingredients. Organic farms usually only produce small amounts of crops, which tend to be more labor intensive and require more land, leading to higher costs for farmers. These higher costs are then passed onto the consumer. Additionally, organic produce generally has a shorter shelf life than conventionally grown produce, meaning that food retailers often need to source more frequently and in smaller quantities, resulting in higher prices.

However, governments have a duty to protect their societies and to foster and support health. They should be putting in place infrastructure that supports healthy food access rather than infrastructure that discourages. By allowing major corporations to dictate what types of food will be available to the public and what types will be less available, government essentially enables profiteers to put profits before people. The food industry is held hostage by profiteers who stand to make more money by putting well-preserved, artificial, and pre-packaged food items on shelves instead of fresh, locally-produced, organic foods that support and promote health. The issue is one of corporate profiteering, and it is this issue that inhibits food justice around the world and especially in developed markets, where convenience foods are often touted as essential to a modern lifestyle.

The Injustice of Food Monopolization and Appropriate Action

As Bonacich and Alimahomed-Wilson (2011) explain, food monopolization marginalizes and oppresses segments of the global population: sectors of Black Americans, like many people in the Global South, are being pushed out of the formal system of capitalist employment (p. 213). However, the situation has a silver lining in the sense that this maneuver pushes these populations to fend for themselves, become self-reliant, and establish their own access to healthy foods by growing and harvesting them themselves via urban gardens (Biewener, 2015). By engaging in small urban farming projects, marginalized populations can engage in self-actualization as the development of economic experiments rooted in community economic self-determination based on anti-capitalist values provides a basis for this kind of self-reliance (Bonacich & Alimahomed-Wilson, 2011, p. 213).

Alternative food initiatives (AFIs) such as urban farming can be a way for people to open up their own access to healthy organic food options and get out from under the thumb of corporate-controlled grocery stores, fast food chains, and pre-packaged unhealthy foods offered at convenience stores for their consumption. As Biewener (2015) explains, AFIs engage in alternative economic practices by...

…that aims to shift the power dynamics of the food system away from corporate entities and towards local communities and producers. It seeks to empower communities to take control of their food production and distribution, with a focus on local, sustainable agriculture and food production that is beneficial to both the environment and the health of the people. Food sovereignty can help break the monopolization of the food industry by corporate entities by providing more organic foods directly to communities. This would ensure that communities have access to healthier, fresher, and more sustainable food options that are not controlled by large corporations. Food sovereignty also emphasizes the importance of local production and consumption, which could help reduce the environmental impact of industrial food production and distribution. Additionally, food sovereignty encourages the development of local economies, allowing communities to be more self-reliant and less dependent on large corporations. This could help make communities more resilient in the face of economic and environmental challenges.

Conclusion

The primary reason why healthy food is more expensive than fast food is because of the cost of production. Organic foods require more space, more labor, and more stringent growing and handling processes to produce, which causes them to be more expensive. Additionally, organic foods are generally produced in smaller batches than conventional foods, which makes them more expensive to purchase. Additionally, organic foods often have to travel farther from the farm to the market or store, so transportation costs also add to the total cost of the product. Finally, organic products are…