For Aubin Thomas, grocery shopping isn’t about picking foods that look tasty. It’s about picking foods that won’t make her sick. But even more than that, its about picking foods that won’t break the bank.
“I have a lot of dietary restrictions,” she says. “So when I feel I can afford to, I shop at Whole Foods, but for the most part I shop at Hannford and just choose what I buy carefully.”
Thomas isn’t alone. Plenty of college students, if they could afford to, would shop at Whole Foods Market or similar stores. But with fixed incomes and other expenses, students throughout the area are forced to shop at conventional grocery stores like Hannaford or Shaw’s.
Thomas, a vegetarian, also has an allergy to artificial coloring and a sensitivity to wheat.
What she’s left with is a very particular shopping list that includes a host of gluten-free and rice-based products – not to mention a sometimes hefty grocery tab. The decision between exhausting her bank account and eating the right foods leaves her pigeonholed.
“It’s just very frustrating to be limited in what products are available. They have rice bread, but its costs so much that I’d rather just go without any bread than continually spend a huge amount of money on a product with a short shelf-life due to lack of preservative chemicals,” she says.
In a study conducted by the University of Washington, researchers tried to find the price difference per 1,000 calories between non-health foods and foods they considered to be healthy. What they found was an immense gap between high calorie “junk foods” and their vitamin and mineral rich counterparts. According to the study, non health foods cost approximately $1.70 per 1,000 calories, whereas foods marketed for their health value can run the consumer almost $18 per 1,000 edible calories.
And while these numbers may seem to tell a bit of a tall-tale, the stickers don’t lie.
According to a New York Times survey, organic food is more expensive across the board for staples like milk, bread and eggs. Even those without dietary restrictions find it hard to eat well or shop where they want.
Sarah Barron likes shopping at Whole Foods, but finds the prices of organic fruits and veggies to be a little excessive at times. She says that sometimes the price of health foods can deter her from doing the right thing.
“I like eating organic because every little thing makes you live a healthier life, even the smallest things, but we’ve never bought all organic stuff because of the price,” Barron says.
The empirical data seems to side with Barron. A gallon of organic milk, according to the Time’s survey, can cost as much as $7 a gallon, while its traditionally produced counterpart rings in at around $4.
And the disparity between specialty supermarkets and their traditional competitors isn’t just about organic versus non-organic foods. Prices at Whole Foods on the exact same products as Hannaford have a tendency to be considerably higher as well.
A gallon of Oakhurst whole milk costs $4.99/gallon at Whole Foods market, but is only $3.94 at Hannaford. And the trend holds true in the bread aisle, as well. At Whole Foods, a loaf of their Whole Foods brand wheat bread is $3.49, while Hannaford’s Nature’s Place wheat comes in a dollar cheaper at $2.49.
Barron added that she often shops at Whole Foods because of their expansive prepared food section, but usually opts for Hannaford when she’s doing the bulk of her grocery shopping.
With a sagging economy, food prices sky-rocketing and the price of education forever on the climb, stories like Thomas’ could become more common. Rather than just being a nuisance, however, they could pose serious health risks for those who simply can’t afford to fund their hyper-restrictive diets.
“I know an increasing number of people who can’t eat nuts or wheat and have to give up things altogether because the substitutes are just too expensive,” Thomas says. “It’s like a while back when meat substitutes first came out, they were rather pricey but once the demand for them became known they became more reasonable. I think that for whatever reason, accommodating to people’s allergies just isn’t seen as a lucrative business strategy.”
Whether or not the health and specialty food industry’s business model completely aligns with that of its consumers is unclear, but one thing is for sure: the demand from students is there, just not the bucks to back it up.