There was a time – recent enough that your grandparents could still complain about it – when Americans spent a ridiculous amount of money on food. Not truffle oil money. Not chia-seed pudding money. Just… food. Real food. Flour, eggs, vegetables that looked like vegetables, meat that once had opinions.
Back then, food took up nearly a quarter of the household budget. A quarter. Imagine that now. You’d have to refinance your house just to buy an apple that hadn’t been in a factory relationship with corn syrup.
Healthcare, on the other hand, was modest. A doctor’s visit didn’t require a second opinion from your accountant. Insurance was something you bought for your car, not a philosophy you argued about at dinner parties.
Then something very American happened. We got efficient.
The Miracle of Cheap Calories
Sometime between the invention of the TV dinner and the rise of the drive-through window, food became astonishingly cheap – at least the kind of food that doesn’t complain when you store it for six months next to a box of laundry detergent.
Calories became abundant, obedient, and portable. They came in bags, boxes, and shapes no plant had ever dreamed of. You could eat them in your car, at your desk, or standing over the sink at midnight like a raccoon with a mortgage.
And the accountants rejoiced.
By the 1980s and 1990s, food’s share of the household budget had fallen from nearly 25 percent to something closer to 14. Today it hovers around 12 or 13 percent. A triumph! We had conquered hunger with coupons and industrial solvents.
Healthcare, meanwhile, stayed polite for a while. Then it quietly started lifting weights.
Enter the Age of the Prescription
Here’s the part no one likes to put on a billboard: as food got cheaper, healthcare got expensive. Very expensive. The kind of expensive that comes with co-pays, deductibles, and pamphlets explaining why your insurance doesn’t cover the thing you actually need.
In the 1960s, the average household spent a few hundred dollars a year on healthcare. By the 2020s, that number had swollen into the thousands – five, six, sometimes more. Healthcare now eats up close to 8 percent of household spending, and nearly one-fifth of the entire economy.
That’s not inflation. That’s escalation. We didn’t just invent better medicine – we invented lifelong customers.
The Great Budget Swap
So let’s take stock. We cut our food budget in half (as a share of spending). We tripled or quadrupled our healthcare spending. We developed a national personality disorder around insurance forms.
This is what economists call “a trade-off.” This is what novelists call “a plot twist.” The money didn’t disappear, it just changed uniforms.
Why Healthy Food Feels Expensive
Now, at this point, someone usually raises a hand and says, “Eating healthy costs more.” And they’re not wrong, at least not in the short term.
Broccoli costs more than cheese-flavored particles. Wild salmon costs more than something breaded, frozen, and shaped like optimism. Cooking requires time, which modern society treats as an exotic luxury, like silence or handwriting.
Healthy food asks things of you. It spoils. It needs preparation. It demands that you show up. Processed food just waits patiently in the pantry like a loyal dog that doesn’t mind if you never walk it.
So yes, if you compare tonight’s grocery receipt, healthy food often looks more expensive. But this comparison has the lifespan of a mayfly.
The Long Game (Which We Are Terrible At)
Healthcare costs don’t show up weekly. They show up later. They arrive quietly, wearing lab coats and speaking in acronyms.
No one connects the dots in real time. The cereal aisle does not display a sign that reads: “Pairs well with statins.” The soda fountain does not come with a loyalty program for endocrinologists.
But the body remembers. The metabolism keeps receipts. Inflammation does not forget. Chronic disease is slow, quiet, and relentless. It does not crash the party; it moves in gradually and rearranges the furniture.
And modern medicine – brilliant, heroic, and expensive – keeps you alive long enough to pay for it.
Food as Preventive Medicine (Which Is Inconvenient)
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: food is not entertainment. It is not a hobby. It is not a lifestyle brand. Food is infrastructure.
It is closer to plumbing than pleasure. Ignore it, cheap out on it, or outsource it entirely, and eventually something backs up.
Historically, we understood this. Food was survival. Then it became convenience. Then it became content. Healthcare, meanwhile, became the place we sent the bill.
Eating better does not guarantee perfect health – life is not a vending machine – but the probabilities are lopsided. Fiber matters. Blood sugar matters. Inflammation matters. Mitochondria, those tiny powerhouses inside your cells, have opinions about what you feed them.
Spending a little more on food is not indulgence. It is maintenance.
The Real Cost Comparison
The real comparison is not between a $120 grocery bill and a $160 grocery bill. It is between better food now and five prescriptions, quarterly labs, and a specialist you see forever. One costs more this month. The other costs more every year until you die.
And yet we treat the grocery bill like a moral failing and the medical bill like an act of God.
A Very American Ending
So here we are: a nation that prides itself on innovation, baffled by the idea that prevention might be cheaper than repair.
We saved money on dinner. We spent it on doctors. We call this progress. But progress, like calories, depends on quality, not just quantity.
The question isn’t whether we can afford to eat better. The question is whether we want to keep paying for the consequences instead.
Author
Scott Rollins, MD, is Board Certified with the American Board of Family Practice and the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine. He specializes in bioidentical hormone replacement for men and women, thyroid and adrenal disorders, fibromyalgia and other complex medical conditions. He is founder and medical director of the Integrative Medicine Center of Western Colorado (www.imcwc.com) and Bellezza Laser Aesthetics (www.bellezzalaser.com). Call (970) 245-6911 for an appointment or more information.
