Trim the fat

Prices are way down on the stock market and way up at the grocery store. Just thinking about it could make you lose your appetite -- or, alternatively, give you a serious craving for some comfort food. Indeed, as the economy flags, sags and drags, there's talk that it could affect the way people eat, and even how much they weigh.

You might imagine that high food prices could put the nation on a diet as people, strapped for cash, tighten their belts and eat less. Forget that idea. Many nutrition experts fear that soaring food prices will have the opposite effect -- fatten up the nation.

They point to science showing that price changes can make people change what they buy as well as how much. As the price of one food goes up, people not only buy less of it, but they also sometimes buy other, cheaper food in its place. And cheaper foods tend to have more calories than those with a higher price tag. For instance, as the price of oranges goes up, people don't buy as many oranges. And some may decide to buy cookies instead. Today, "people are eating cheap, unhealthy food who never thought they would be," says Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Obesity Research at the University of Washington in Seattle.

It's no accident that high-calorie foods (chips, dips, cookies, candy) are generally cheaper than low-calorie foods (broccoli, asparagus, peaches, blueberries). Processed foods are cheaper to produce, ship and store. As researchers note, this is partly due to agricultural policies, which could be changed, and partly due to the nature of the foods themselves, which can't.

"You can see how this situation could fuel both under-nutrition and over-nutrition," says Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

But despite the fact that a diet could easily get derailed during these lean economic times, it doesn't have to be that way. In a related story, we provide some simple tips to help you stay on track and eat cheaply -- and healthfully.

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Price of eating right

Drewnowski has been arguing for years that healthful eating isn't just a matter of choosing the right foods. It's also a matter of being able to afford those choices. "Simply put," he writes for an upcoming publication of the University of Washington's School of Public Health, "fats and sweets cost less, whereas healthier diets cost more."