According to the image below, Raleigh spends the 4th highest amount on food annually, coming in 3rd for dining out spending and around 12th in grocery spending.

Sorry it's a giant graphic, but it's kind of cool to see where different cities stack up.

5/24/2010 4:25:00 PM

oh snap, i love torchy's



i'd be happy living in austin

5/24/2010 4:26:06 PM

It's because we have great restaurants

5/24/2010 4:26:14 PM

w00t DETROIT represent!

5/24/2010 4:26:35 PM

Austin has fucking BREAKFAST TACOS. Ugh.

5/24/2010 4:26:43 PM

i'm 12 and what is this i don't even

5/24/2010 4:26:46 PM

I would eat way too much if I lived in Austin. The food there is amazing.

5/24/2010 4:26:51 PM

detroit is so low cause people shop in other cities so people don't realize they have to cheer for the lions

5/24/2010 4:27:07 PM

Spending money to eat out doesn't mean we're fat.

We've got a ton of college kids and young professionals. Eating out is what we do.

5/24/2010 4:27:36 PM

What does the amount of money spent on food have to do with obesity?

Fresh Market > Taco Bell

(I'm just kidding. I just like to stir the logic pot.)

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 4:28 PM. Reason : l]

5/24/2010 4:28:12 PM

Austin owns a bunch

5/24/2010 4:28:47 PM

i eat out every meal

5/24/2010 4:29:06 PM

Quote :

"i eat out every meal"

sucka

5/24/2010 4:29:55 PM

i will be cheering for Lions! Mathew Stafford Ndamukong Suh ftw

5/24/2010 4:30:05 PM

Actually grimx there may be something to that: apparently inner-city Detroit has no grocery stores but about 80 liquor stores, so they kind of have to go elsewhere.

5/24/2010 4:30:40 PM

true...most grocery stores closed...i have seen atleast 3-4 stores close in the last year or so

5/24/2010 4:31:36 PM

so if Durham is number 5 then that makes the Triangle area number 1?

nice.

5/24/2010 4:40:29 PM

http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/05/24/498297/raleigh-gets-good-mark-for-fitness.html

5/24/2010 4:51:11 PM

That graphic says nothing about Raleigh being fat

Great thread

5/24/2010 4:51:49 PM

Implication: we spend a lot of money on food, and therefore we eat a lot; eating a lot leads to weight gain. Also, typing "Raleigh is fat" is a lot shorter than "Raleigh spends the 4th highest amount on food in the US." SORRY MY LOGIC IS FALLIBLE.

5/24/2010 4:55:16 PM

SORRY YOU ARE A GIRL

5/24/2010 4:56:34 PM

Quote :

"we spend a lot of money on food, and therefore we eat a lot"

Anyone who has tried to diet on a budget will tell you that is a damned lie. It takes a lot more money to eat a healthy diet than it does to eat dollar menu Ramen noodlesque trash.

5/24/2010 4:58:02 PM

It takes like $4 to get full on the dollar menu.
Ok at least $3 minimum.
You can cook a good meal on $3-$4.
Don't fool yourself.

5/24/2010 5:21:51 PM

no. It just looks like we have more money to spend on food. look who is last. that answers everything

5/24/2010 5:55:12 PM

i spend at least 500 a month dining out

5/24/2010 5:59:20 PM

i can honestly say that I've probably spent $50 or less at restaurants (take-out or dine-in) since the first of the year

5/24/2010 6:01:48 PM

Quote :

"It takes like $4 to get full on the dollar menu. Ok at least $3 minimum. You can cook a good meal on $3-$4. Don't fool yourself."

Admittedly, you can always cook at home far cheaper than you can eat out. However, it is much harder to cook good for you foods on a budget because you pay a premium for fresh, lean, unprocessed, nutritious foods.

5/24/2010 6:06:30 PM

^ nope

5/24/2010 6:08:33 PM

Quote :

"However, it is much harder to cook good for you foods on a budget because you pay a premium for fresh, lean, unprocessed, nutritious foods."

Buy and cook in bulk.

5/24/2010 6:10:47 PM

If you're cooking for a bunch of people it's much cheaper than going out, but if you live by yourself it's often a hassle and isn't all that much cheaper.

5/24/2010 6:14:26 PM

^ nope

5/24/2010 6:16:00 PM

The only point that I'm making is that you aren't necessarily eating a lot and therefore fat because you spend a lot of money on food. It takes money to eat well. As the person who does the grocery shopping and the cooking, I've put the pencil on it and it just takes more money to cook good nutritious meals than it does to feed your family trash.

5/24/2010 6:17:13 PM

What do you mean by trash? Please give us an example without including Ramen Noodles or Spam. I mean a real sample meal that you might feed to your family on a shoestring budget.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 6:21 PM. Reason : l]

5/24/2010 6:20:58 PM

diabetes medication is more expensive than cooking good, healthy food


think about it

5/24/2010 6:22:58 PM

Ok, quick comparison shopping:

Store Brand Peas & Carrots - .85 per can or 6 cents/ounce
As opposed to frozen store brand that are fresher and lower in sodium for 12 cents/ounce. I'm not even going to compare it to fresh peas and carrots.

Store brand white rice 5 cents/ounce
As opposed to the cheapest brown rice at 10 cents/ ounce.

A value pack of chicken legs w/ skin at 1.29 per lb.
As opposed to boneless skinless chicken breasts that are 3.99 per lb.

That's a bare bones family meal with a meat, starch, and vegetable without going for the easy cheapies like pork and beans, ramen, macaroni, and all of the canned nonsense. It just costs more to eat better.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 6:37 PM. Reason : I'm so glad that I don't have to cook on a budget.]

5/24/2010 6:36:08 PM

I can just see the owners of Bojangles and Cookout rolling around in rooms full of cash.

5/24/2010 6:38:19 PM

bottombaby: Makes a lot of sense, but the way I'm seeing it is that the dining out option is where we're higher ranked, and usually when you go out to eat it's not to a place with a lot of fresh produce and healthy options; in fact, it's most often fast food, which is worse than canned OR frozen peas. I would expect, given higher prices for healthier foods, to see a city like San Francisco higher up than it is, with its reputation for loving all things organic.

I didn't really see this as a big social commentary or diatribe against our eating habits. It's just some food for thought (bad pun).

5/24/2010 6:48:44 PM

Oh no doubt.

This is just a topic that has come up on TWW several times. I'm sure that there is a great deal of eating out and eating out is almost never a healthier option. I just want people to understand that spending more on food doesn't necessarily mean fat and unhealthy. I think that anyone who has gone on a diet and changed their grocery shopping has found that it just costs more to eat better.

5/24/2010 6:55:00 PM

This argument has happened before and your point of view was proven wrong before. Yes, it is more expensive to eat healthy if the only way you know how to eat healthy involves overpriced lean cuisine, healthy choice, etc. type food. But you can put together a perfectly healthy meal with cheap shit like rice, certain vegetables, beans, etc.

5/24/2010 7:06:03 PM

i <3 food

5/24/2010 7:19:08 PM

I'm not talking about prepackaged frozen meals. Do you even read? There is a price comparison all broken down for you. You can do a price comparison for just about anything and it always comes out the same. Even when putting together a basic meal, it costs more to get higher quality grains, produce, and cuts of meat. It's all fairly black and white.

5/24/2010 7:20:24 PM

i like how bottombaby just laid that shit up a half dozen posts up and talage is to dense to read it

5/24/2010 7:22:13 PM

i dont see race

5/24/2010 7:22:22 PM

didn't this whole discussion come from this post:

Quote :

"I've put the pencil on it and it just takes more money to cook good nutritious meals than it does to feed your family trash."

so what's the definition of "trash"....is white rice trash? are chicken legs trash? canned veggies?

i thought by "trash" you were talking pizzas, chips, hot dogs, etc

5/24/2010 7:24:14 PM

Quote :

"Implication: we spend a lot of money on food, and therefore we eat a lot; eating a lot leads to weight gain"

You can prove how idiotic that conclusion is solely by using your own graphic.

"If manhattan were its own city, it would rank No 1 for overall spending on food and drink ($13,079)."

So do you really think Manhattan is the fattest part of the country?

Don't be stupid.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 7:29 PM. Reason : .]

5/24/2010 7:29:10 PM

It's all on a continuum. Yes, my initial comment about "trash" referred to things like junk food and low grade ground beef, but someone asked me to lay out a healthy meal on a shoe string budget, so I did. However, that meal still isn't very good -- certainly not ideal. The better your food gets nutritionally, the more it costs. There have even been studies to back it up. Per calorie, unhealthy foods are just cheaper than healthier foods.

5/24/2010 7:30:15 PM

WHAT THE FUCK

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 7:31 PM. Reason : usr error ]

5/24/2010 7:30:54 PM

^^ Now it might cost the avg person more to eat healthy agreed; however, with my triple/super double/coupons ways I can eat well very cheaply. It depends if it is a priority. Before I got pregnant, I lost 50 pounds eating from very simple menus and cheap food. I kept a spreadsheet for 2 months looking at cost per meal. I averaged around .80 a serving. The only problem with the strategy I employ is that you cannot be picky and you have to eat what is on sale.

Example meals:

Saturday:
Rice (free after coupons)
smart organic chicken breast .99 total for 3 breasts (sale + coupon + store manager special coupon)
steam fresh veggies 20 cents.

Now you might say this is rare or what if you do not have a coupon. Well, I keep 20 pounds of rice & pasta in the house which was all free. I bought every package of the chicken breast and froze it (6 packages). Frozen veggies are almost always close to free.

Last Thursday:
Ground organic chicken meat loaf

organic chicken 0.99 for 2 pounds (raincheck + sale)
The spices were mainly free from the McCormick & triple coupons
barbecue sauce- free
free frozen veggies
Fresh fruit is really the hardest thing to get. I tend to just go to the farmer's market because I think the taste is worth the price. I stock up when I see sales. Tuna is almost always free/cheap. I still have a few cans of chicken breast from a triples. I always go through the manager specials meat and look at associated coupons.

5/24/2010 7:32:40 PM

Couponing has nothing to do with the actual cost of food. Yes, you can eat well and eat cheaply if you take the time to coupon and watch sales. That does not change the fact that good high quality nutritious foods flat out cost more than the alternative.

5/24/2010 7:41:13 PM

marry me, forkgirl

our identical shopping styles would make for a lovely union

5/24/2010 7:41:40 PM