How much do you pay for your calories?

It was the question that popped into my head the other evening while making a quick trip to the grocery store.

I was walking up and down the aisles looking at those little yellow stickers posted under each food item.

You know the ones. Printed in bold computer type, they tell consumers the price of each product on the shelf. Usually just to the left of the big number is more computer type that tells shoppers how much per unit certain items cost.

Introduced when bar coding became popular, these tags give consumers the ability to compare one product to another.

During these recessionary times, I have paid closer attention to these tiny little numbers. It has become a game, in a way, to see how much I can shave off the family grocery bill.

Then it came to me. What would happen if these tags revealed how much consumers were paying per calorie?

Take junk food for example.

Two hundred calories of potato chips costs approximately 33 cents. The same amount of non-diet soft drink costs 46 cents.

Two hundred calories of chocolate chip cookies cost twice as much at 83 cents.

Sounds cheap, doesn’t it?

Interestingly, the healthier the food, the higher the price.

Using 200 calories as a benchmark, here is how other products compare:

Apples will cost you $1.43. You will shell out $1.65 for bacon. Broccolli costs $1.93. Grapes cost $2.55. You will end up paying a whopping $3.19 for 200 calories of sliced turkey

Just looking at the cost per calorie numbers it’s evident that healthy food just costs more. No wonder Americans are getting fatter.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, an estimated 34 percent of adult Americans are obese, and that number is rising.

Just to the north of Adams County, sit what Time magazine has tagged the fattest county in America. At 26.1 percent, the county has more obese adult residents than any other county in the United States.

At the same time, Jefferson County remains one of the poorest counties in Mississippi with an average income of $9,709 per adult. The unemployment rate stands at 20 percent, the highest in the state.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Jefferson County has one of the highest bank card delinquency rates in the country.

How is that the poorest county in America is also the fattest.

Is this because we like to buy the cheap food?

I certainly ate my share of value meals in college because I could afford it.

I guess, if you’re hungry and broke, you just want something that’s cheap and filling. Donuts and chips sound much better than lettuce and broccoli in my book.

Maybe it is a matter of convenience and laziness. Perception is that it is far easier to pickup a hamburger and fries laden with preservatives and chemicals than it is to make a healthier dish at home.

Maybe it is that human beings are hard wired to want salt, fat and sugar over leafy greens.

Or maybe it is because the rich tend to be better educated about health and nutrition. The rich can afford to join health clubs.

There seems to be numerous possibilities as to why Americans are facing this crisis, with few answers.

One thing is for certain. People are getting fatter on the cheap.

Ben Hillyer is the Web editor for The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3540 or ben.hillyer@natchezdemocrat.com.