60% of my diet is locally grown/raised food. Plenty of that is organic. Since I haven't found much local rice, affordable local pasta; and because Yoplait hasn't opened a factory near me, that number isn't higher :-)

comes down to the $$$. bad economy = even worse food. sad but true. unfortunately the real cost of "cheap food" isn't realized until it's too late...bad health, poor environment, etc.

It's just not worth eating sustainably for most things I take in. I'll eat cheap organic local things from the farmer's market - salmon, apples, onions, greens - but I can't justify paying twice the price for things like potatoes or bread. regardless of what's said about pesticides and gmos, organic food = 1st world problem.

if only there was a similar price spread on local foods. i'd be happy to buy conventionally grown local stuff as long as i didn't have to pay for the organic trendiness!

I'd be more interested to know what people ate: prepared food, or dishes they cooked themselves ?

I live in France, in a region where more people are jobless than in the rest of the country. When I go shopping, I'm always amazed to see what they buy: prepared food, prepackaged deserts, tons of industrial bred, and huge amount of sodas. No fish, no vegetables. This is very expensive for people who are watching their budget (I'm not even talking about health here).
I almost never buy prepared food, I drink water from the tap (I don't know if that is correct english). I'm not particularly watching my budget, but my shopping carts are always much cheaper than the ones I see before me.

I think that a lot of people think that low cost and bad quality prepared food is the cheapest thing you can eat, but it's not. And once you start cooking for yourself, you pay much more attention to the ingredients you use (I went organic that way).

You are sooo right Loora! Eating simple foods like lentils and homemade bread (so easy to make, and so cheap) with vegetables is very inexpensive. And if people are unemployed, they have TIME to cook. No excuses.

toughcupcake, I am right there with you.

But they're not talking about healthy vs unhealthy, I thought this article is about regular groceries vs organic, sustainable groceries.

Organic is almost twice the price of your standard vegetable... so yes, income DOES become an issue.

People who are jobless go for the processed foods not because of laziness or whatever you're suggesting, it's because they get more calories per dollar that way. A poor person with a dollar is going to buy a 1000 calorie box of macaroni before a 15 calorie tomato for example.

I took a 25% salary hit last year, and had to dramatically reduce the percentage of organic veggies I buy. Price was 100% of the reason. :(

I bought way less organic in 2010. My income was down by 75%, so it was a luxury that I could not afford. I did still but mostly local though.

This seems like a no brainer study. I like organic, but it is pricy. 2010 was even worse than 2009 for many of us, and in bad times something's got to give.

Where I live in the midwest, buying local is difficult because farmers markets only run about 5 months out of the year. I do have a meat CSA delivery for winter from a local farmer, which is fantastic. Wish there were more options available.

I hear everyone on the price issue. My budget has to stretch. I shop at 3 different stores to get the best products for my dollar, and I have to decide which products being organic are a priority to me. If money wasn't an issue, it would be a no-brainer. Food production in this country is a major problem if you pay attention to what's going on. As of yesterday, genetically modified alfalfa was unregulated. That means that a large amount of the food supply is going to be contaminated. It's scary.

That's because the pricing is controlled by the trends and "food hysterians". Right now the flavor of the day for the hysterians is "Gluten-Free this and Gluten-Free that". I can guarantee you half the people have no idea what this even means but producers know if they put it on the product label they can jack up price.

We have gone through the "no-fat" "no-carbs" "vegetarian" "organic" "vegan" roller coaster of food marketing and it gets tiresome.When you have regular salt advertising on its label that it's fat free, we have gone to far.

I go to a restaurant and see "Our eggs come from whatever organic local farmers" and you what that means? That means I'm paying 3 times as much as I normally would. And I can't taste any difference. I don't know the farm, the farmers or his fields.

Being smart about how you eat does not have to be a bandwagon affair and eating healthly shouldn't be driven by trends and overpriced food items but it is.

The government froze Social Security recipients' income two years in a row, even though food and gasoline prices skyrocketed. We are not welfare recipients - we put money into the system all our working lives and now they are denying us the right to eat as well as we need to. They are taking back federal lands that have always been leased to cattle ranchers and not allowing them to use them anymore, so beef is so expensive no one can afford it. Scary times are ahead; I'm canning everything I get my hands on to save for later.

eating sustainably is mostly an affluent, educated people problem. in this economy even affluent, educated people have faced budget hardships (I know I have) or financial insecurity hence less devotion to spending 2x or more on groceries. Truly low-income people always bought pre-processed foods, they couldn't afford regular fruits and vegetables let alone organic, sustainable ones. Food Inc did a good job pointing this out.