sugar
Today I stopped by the Smart & Final warehouse club / grocery store near my apartment. They had some sugar.
Depicted here is one ton of sugar (~2000 lbs., or 0.45 metric tones). I mean, holy cow.
Sugar is a pure carbohydrate, and white granulated sugar from the supermarket has negligible moisture content, so it's just about 4 calories per gram. That's 1,800 calories per pound, or 90,000 calories per bag. If an adult needs 2,000 calories per day (over the long term), then you could live for 45 days off one of those bags. At $32 per bag, that's 64 cents a day.
They also had name-brand granola bars on sale, $8.40 for a box of 60. That comes to 14 cents apiece. And conveniently, each bar has about 140 calories, so you're getting 10 calories to the cent, which comes to an even $2/day. Now Michael, I hear you saying, who can afford to just triple their food costs like that? But with the moderate quantities of soluble fiber and protein you get from granola, you might stave off type 2 diabetes for at least a few extra years! Plus, think what you'd save on toothpaste.
... I think I just made Michael Pollan cry.
On the other hand, maybe he already feels like this is what he's seeing when he goes to the supermarket.
Depicted here is one ton of sugar (~2000 lbs., or 0.45 metric tones). I mean, holy cow.
Sugar is a pure carbohydrate, and white granulated sugar from the supermarket has negligible moisture content, so it's just about 4 calories per gram. That's 1,800 calories per pound, or 90,000 calories per bag. If an adult needs 2,000 calories per day (over the long term), then you could live for 45 days off one of those bags. At $32 per bag, that's 64 cents a day.
They also had name-brand granola bars on sale, $8.40 for a box of 60. That comes to 14 cents apiece. And conveniently, each bar has about 140 calories, so you're getting 10 calories to the cent, which comes to an even $2/day. Now Michael, I hear you saying, who can afford to just triple their food costs like that? But with the moderate quantities of soluble fiber and protein you get from granola, you might stave off type 2 diabetes for at least a few extra years! Plus, think what you'd save on toothpaste.
... I think I just made Michael Pollan cry.
On the other hand, maybe he already feels like this is what he's seeing when he goes to the supermarket.