David Friedman chimes in since he had more patience than I did to go and actually look for some simple data:
The study estimates that getting the average American to the recommended target of just one nutrient, potassium, would cost an additional $380 each year.
Anyone who believes that should Google for “potassium supplement”—priced at $9 for a 120 potassium iodide tabs of 32.5 mg each from one source for $9, 100 caplets of 99 mg of potassium gluconate for $6.87 from another, and about ten cents a pill—with calcium and magnesium thrown in for free—from a third.
The trick is quite simple. The article pretends to be about what healthy eating costs. It is actually about what people who eat healthily spend.
Please do read the rest. I’d add one more thing to this list. Not only is the author clamoring for more subsidies, but remember that when the USDA defines what a necessary food consumption basket looks like, this is what the poverty line in the U.S. is indexed to, so this idea has the possibility of “making” many more millions of Americans poorer (and we all know what the solution to that is) and works to the advantage of whomever will be lucky enough to be able to serve these new needs.
History lesson: go back and look at how many eggs the USDA used to recommend as part of a healthy, nutritious, diet.
What a great observation, Wintercow. Defining the poverty level up has vast implications.
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