Is the Spartan Diet Expensive?
That's the wrong question, actually. The real question is: How expensive is an unhealthy lifestyle compared with a healthy one?
At first, the Spartan Diet may look expensive. The diet emphasizes quality — and quality costs more. When you compare, for example, the immediate price of a conventionally grown apple with an organic one – literally an apples-to-apples comparison – the latter is more expensive. When you compare the cost of a beef steak, which is not on the Spartan Diet, with venison, the wild game tends to be much more expensive.
But such comparisons can deceive. On the Spartan Diet, you’ll spend far more on some foods, but far less on others. For example, many people who avoid organic apples because of cost waste enormous amounts of money at specialty coffee houses or on soda, candy and popcorn at overpriced movie theaters or eating out at restaurants frequently.
These common examples hold an unflattering mirror to our cultural priorities. It's considered "normal" to pay twenty times more for restaurant food and convenient food. Movie-goers routinely pay $6.50 or more for 25 cents worth of popcorn made with GMO or pesticide laden corn, industrial cooking oil and mystery chemicals.
Millions happily pay more for a glass of beer at a restaurant than it costs for a whole six pack at a grocery store. The average markup on wine in a restaurant is 300 percent. Millions pay over $4 or more on daily basis for a cup of coffee that could be made at home for less than a dollar. Paying massively for convenience is culturally acceptable, while paying moderately more for quality ingredients for homemade meals is less so. On the Spartan Diet, you’ll pay more for quality and less for convenience.
The cost savings on the Spartan Diet are very real, but often subtle and long-term. Living healthier means eating less. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, which means people are wasting money by eating too much food. And they're paying for more food than they're eating. Americans now throw away about 1,400 calories worth of food per person, per day -- about 50 percent more than in the 1970s. There are enormous savings to be found in both buying and eating the right amount of food. On the Spartan Diet, you'll master the art of right-sizing everything and cultivating moderation in all aspects of life.
The Spartan Diet raises your food costs with high-quality, high-nutrition foods, but then lowers them by reducing waste in the form of convenience food, junk food, overpriced prepared food and excess food.
It's also a lot cheaper to be healthy than to be sick. Over a lifetime, you'll spend much less on medical care, prescription drugs and also prevent missed work from ill health over time. You’ll spend more time feeling healthy and happy and staying active than getting sick, feeling lousy and being bedridden.
Americans now spend one-sixth of our income on healthcare, a figure some say will rise to one-third in the years ahead. The average American spends around $1,443 per year on prescription drugs, much of it to treat conditions caused or worsened by unhealthy diet. The majority of these costs are necessary to treat preventable, lifestyle-related illnesses. Cheap food leads to expensive healthcare. It's far better to spend more on food, less on healthcare and enjoy the benefits of great food and great health.
The big-chain drug stores are packed to the ceiling with endless products that exist for no other reason than to help people deal with damage caused by cheap food. On the Spartan Diet, you won’t need to spend money on products designed to help you cope with the effects of bad food: Skin care salons and products, some hair care products, weight-loss centers, diet pills, some dentistry, laxatives, antacids, pain relievers, home medical equipment, and more. You may not have to waste a penny on any of this.
Looking at the big picture, cheap food isn't as cheap as it sounds. The economics of food and health over the past century can be viewed as a gradual transfer of wealth from farmers who produce nutritious, fresh whole foods to the industrial-food companies, the beauty and over-the-counter industries and also what The New England Journal of Medicine calls the "medical-industrial complex." As the cost of our food has been driven down by aggressive processing, engineering and factory production the cost of healthcare from food-related illnesses has skyrocketed. We're spending way more money overall, but farmers are getting less of it and processed food companies, drugstore chains and pharmaceutical companies are getting more.
Without knowing your individual spending patterns, it's impossible to say whether you'll spend more or less on food on the Spartan Diet than you currently are. But we can say with confidence that you'll probably waste a lot less money and enjoy life a lot more.
Wishing you a deliciously healthy and joyful life ♥
Recipe: Super Mung Bean Soupstew
Exceptionally healthy, scrumptiously tasty and lusciously creamy, this happy marriage of soup and stew will lift up your spirits and nourish your body and soul.
Not really a soup and not really a stew but a playful hybridized version of soup and stew, this Super Mung Bean Soupstew is highly nourishing for your body and soul. It makes a wonderfully joyful meal and every bite is loaded with super healing antioxidants that help fortify the immune system and gut flora for a real happy meal!
Inexpensive, nutritious, with anti-inflammatory properties and low glycemic index to help regulate cholesterol and blood sugar levels, beans or pulses are an important part of a healthy diet. Beans are are considered nutrient powerhouses as they provide protein, iron, folic acid, B vitamins, zinc, potassium and magnesium.