# Calories per Dollar.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calories-per-dollar/573029>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [March 1, 2011, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calories-per-dollar/573029 "2011-03-01T04:44:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calories-per-dollar/573029/41 "2011-03-16T02:04:00Z")

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> [@Lasciel](#):
>
> I don’t live in a city, but I was under the impression that grocery stores with fresh veggies and fruits and cooking staples weren’t very common or easy to get to inside of cities.

It depends. I live in the middle (actually, on the northwest side) of a very large city. Our neighborhood is by no means fancy; the public high school a block away has the following stats:

95.2% were low income Students. 16.8% were Special Education Students. 19.2% were Limited English Learners.

But within a 5 - 10 minute walk, there’s one good-sized supermarket, probably a couple dozen dozen smaller grocery stores that sell fresh dairy, produce, and/or meat, and a few bakeries. One can buy just about any ordinary grocery item, and quite a few out-of-the-ordinary ones; we have halal butchers, Peruvian beans, several kinds of fresh steaming tortillas, etc. This is certainly not a food desert, and prices are comparable to just about anywhere - and much better than other local chain supermarkets in fancier neighborhoods (with comparable quality) for many items. The neighborhood is served by one main train line and several bus lines.

So yeah, at least some of the time, it’s quite possible to buy fresh produce, meat, etc. in a not-fancy urban neighborhood.

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calories-per-dollar/573029/42 "2011-03-16T03:28:20Z")

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> [@Chronos](#):
>
> I’m pretty sure that in America, the cheapest calories are from potatoes (which can be prepared for eating using any heat source whatsoever). Sure, cookies may have more calories per dollar than carrots, but carrots are hardly the only thing in the produce aisle.

That’s a reasonable guess, but it depends on your potato prices. A pound of potatoes has 400 calories. You’d need 4 lbs of potatoes to equal one package of pasta (which has 1600 calories.) At the cheapie supermarkets by where I live, a pound of the least expensive pasta is usually cheaper than a pound of the least expensive potatoes, but it’s close.

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