One dollar dining

Scott Andrew Birdby Scott Andrew Bird | April 29, 2007
Filed in Articles , Diet and Nutrition


Junk foodDr Joel Fuhrman points to an interesting article in the New York Times which asks the simple question :

You're hungry, but only have one dollar to spend. What do you buy?

The answer, unsurprisingly, turns out to be the calorie-dense processed foods that fill a typical supermarket's centre aisles. As Dr Michael Pollen states in the article :

[Adam] Drewnowski gave himself a hypothetical dollar to spend, using it to purchase as many calories as he possibly could. He discovered that he could buy the most calories per dollar in the middle aisles of the supermarket, among the towering canyons of processed food and soft drink. (In the typical American supermarket, the fresh foods — dairy, meat, fish and produce — line the perimeter walls, while the imperishable packaged goods dominate the center.) Drewnowski found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.

That being said, what type of food would you buy for a dollar? As much as I hate to admit it, my answer would be 'something simple from the nearest convenience store - probably a packet of crisps'.



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