Many people complain about the prices of healthy foods being too much. I am not a total subscriber to this as beleive money is no way an objective to achieving your goals. For most people they could simply do with eating a third to half of what they already are eating, so that would simply cut costs of your food by the quantity you reduce it.
However, it is no lie that the ridiculous low price of junk food doesn’t help the situation. Take a look at these foods I have seen on my travels around London which you could get for less than £1! Scroll below the video for photos and article –
1) Biscuits – These low cost options are as cheap as they come but are absolutely loaded with calories. The pack below wa son offer for £1 yet many different types of biscuits can be bought for the same price. In this example, each biscuit has 83 calories in it with 4 grams of fat and 10 grams of carbs. At £0.05 per biscuit this £1 purchase gives you 20 biscuits containing over 1600 calories, 200g of carbs and 40g of fat. That is a lot of food energy wise for not much money. The main issue of course is not the calories per biscuit but that it is rare for people to have just one or two. Often two leads to more and more leads many. Before you know it you have eaten more than a meals worth yet will not feel contented in the same way as eating a full meal.
2) Shortbread -These guys look like nothing yet have more calories than your average biscuit. Chocolate shortbread is even more potent and the three small squares in the photo below you have over 850 calories. In much the same way as biscuits eating these will not fill you up in anything like the same way as eating 850 calories of a real meal with a good balance of protein:carbs:fat for your body.
3) Chocolate – Many chocolate brands are available for £1 or less either in big bar form or multi packs. Though the brand changes you will always find an offer for something under a £1. The photos below also show 100g for £0.35. That means you can buy 3 bars for £1 giving 1500 calories. While you may not eat three bars worth of chocolate it is not unlikely you would eat one and with chocolate being so energy dense it is not hard to add 500 calories without blinking. If chocolate is a trigger food for you, which means if you have one you want more then with such high calorie density you are in real trouble.
4) Oat and Cereal Bars – While these may look healthy enough for £1 you are getting a lot of calories. The £1 oat bars you buy on the tube are giving you over 500 calories of food. For many that is a huge % of the food intake for their day. The multi pack cereal bar I picked up on offer for £1 gives you 6 x 177 calorie bars. They are so light they will never fill you up so unlikely you will eat just 1 or even 2. At this point you have snacked yourself to an extra 500 calories. While you have to eat of course for most people spending 500 calories on a snack will trick them into thinking they have eaten nothing.
5) Macaroons – While these represent cookies there are other similar cake based products and brownies that come loaded with calories. Each macaroon in the photo below is 180 calories and the £1 box of them gives over 1000 calories in total.
What To Do With This Information
The point of this article is to point out that cheap ‘junk’ foods and snacks are often completely loaded with calories. While you may ‘snack’ on them the total calorie intake from these “snacks” will often be more than your actual meals. It would be much smarter for many people to eat 4 meals a day instead of 3 and cut out snacking completely. These hidden yet excessive calories are often the difference between getting results or not.
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