OBC Food Blog-Day 45: Pay more, eat less

With food, as with so many things, you get what you pay for.  There is also a trade-off between quality and quantity, and a person's "food experience"-a meal's duration or quotient of pleasure-does not neccessarily correlate with the number of calories consumed.  The American food system has for many years devoted its energies to increasing quantity and reducing price rather than to improving quality.  There's no escaping the fact that better food-measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond)-costs more, because it has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care.  Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is a literal shame, but most of us can: Americans spend less than 10 percent of their income on food, less than the citizens of any other nation.  As the cost of food in America has declined in terms of both price and the effort required to put it on your table, we have been eating much more (and spending more on healthcare).  If you spend more on better food, you'll probably eat less of it, and treat it with more care.  And if that higher-quality food tastes better, you will need less of it to feel satisfied.  Choose quality over quantity, food experience over more calories.  Or as grandmothers used to say, "Better to pay the grocer than the doctor."