Cheap food isn’t fuel, it’s control

You walk into the grocery store with the best intentions. You’re going to “eat clean.” You grab some fruit, maybe a carton of eggs, toss in some chicken breasts, and then boom. You look at the receipt and wonder if you accidentally paid someone else’s mortgage.

Somehow, eating like a normal human has become a “luxury lifestyle.” Meanwhile, chips, soda, and microwave dinners are cheaper than water. That’s not an accident - it’s a trap.

Food corporations figured out that if they process the life out of food, they can make it cheaper, addictive, and more profitable. Fill it with corn syrup, seed oils, and mystery powders, slap a “heart healthy” label on it, and suddenly it’s the “value option.”

As Senator Rand Paul once pointed out: “Government subsidies prop up junk food while real farmers get squeezed.” He’s not exactly a nutrition coach, but he nailed the point. The system makes fake food cheap and real food expensive because weakness sells.

Here’s the lie you’ve been fed: clean eating is only for people with Whole Foods loyalty cards and Instagram-perfect kitchens. Wrong. Eating clean just means eating real - foods your great-grandparents would recognize. Eggs, oats, vegetables, meat, rice, fruit. None of that requires a second mortgage.

The only people who benefit from making “healthy” seem unattainable are the same ones selling you $6 energy drinks. As fitness coach Paul Carter says: “The strongest flex isn’t a supplement stack - it’s knowing how to cook a damn meal.”

Marketing departments love making healthy food look exotic. Coconut water from Fiji. Himalayan pink salt mined by monks. Organic kale hand-massaged by yoga instructors. The optics are insane.

And while you’re laughing at the labels, you start to believe the lie: that if you don’t spend big, you’re not really eating healthy. Meanwhile, a bag of frozen broccoli for $2 is sitting in the next aisle, ignored.

Breaking the grocery cart trap means rewiring how you think about “value.” Cheap doesn’t mean better if it wrecks your body. Expensive doesn’t mean healthier if it’s just branding. Real rebels know the sweet spot is smart shopping.

Here’s how to beat the trap without breaking the bank:

Food companies profit twice: once when you buy their fake food, and again when you buy “detox” products to undo the damage. It’s a cycle designed to make you feel guilty and broke.

Joe Rogan put it simply: “Pay the farmer now, or pay the doctor later.” Clean eating doesn’t mean you’re “fancy.” It means you’re not volunteering to be another lab rat in the processed food experiment.

The strongest people in history weren’t eating acai bowls and sipping kombucha. They were eating potatoes, fish, meat, grains, and whatever grew out of the ground. Clean eating has always been simple. It’s the food industry that complicated it.

When you meal-prep chicken and rice for the week, you’re not being boring - you’re being free. Free from the trap of overpriced health gimmicks. Free from being told that eating real food is “elitist.” Free from the system that wants you sick and dependent.

Here’s the LEJHIT stamp of truth: eating clean isn’t a privilege, it’s a rebellion. It’s choosing fuel over fiction. It’s saying no to the cart filled with chips, sodas, and “protein cookies” that cost triple what they’re worth.

Every time you grab eggs instead of Pop-Tarts, or frozen broccoli instead of “detox gummies,” you’re unplugging from the scam. And when you do it consistently, your body, your bank account, and your energy levels all get ripped.

Eating clean should never be a luxury. It should be the baseline. And the rebels who figure that out? They’re the ones who win.

So fill your cart with the good stuff. Break the trap. Because the real luxury isn’t a cart full of branded “superfoods” - it’s living strong, ripped, and unapologetically free.