“We know food prices have been top of mind for many consumers over the past few years,” David Ortega, professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University, told Fortune. “These are items that sell at a higher price point. Animal proteins are traditionally more expensive. Whole milk is more expensive than low-fat or reduced-fat milk. That’s one major concern. There’s certainly affordability issues.”
“We’ve run over 1,000 simulations,” she said. “It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla, and one other thing. So there is a way to do this that actually will save the average American consumer money.”
A USDA spokesperson told Fortune that many of the simulations—which also contained foods like canned tuna, tofu, and frozen vegetables—generated meals that would cost Americans less than $10 per day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
But addressing lower-income Americans’ barriers to accessing recommended foods is about more than just the price of groceries. There are structural reasons that may inhibit people from adopting a healthy diet, Ortega argued.
“Healthy eating isn’t just a choice. There are real constraints,” he said. “If nutritional guidance is going to translate into real-world behavior, we have to account for these things: price levels, inflation dynamics, access constraints, and time costs.”
