Processed foods are actually more expensive than whole foods. A one pound bag of rice and and one pound bag of dried beans costs $2 (11 servings). Add in a pound of flash-frozen vegetables for another $1. A ten pound bag of potatoes is $5. That's food for a week for less that the cost of a bag of Doritos and a Mt. Dew.

There is a significant cultural problem. People just prefer fatty, salty, sweet processed foods and they don't want to have to cook.

At our farmers market food stamps are doubled. So for $5 in SNAP money, you get $10 worth of food. We have over $1 million/month spent on food stamps in Danville every month, yet very few people take advantage of this program. Last week we took in exactly $5 in food stamps at the market. Unfortunately poor diets correlate to low income and that isn't always because of the price of the food. There are some significant cultural issues as well.