When you’re starving, buy a bag of sugar

What is the cheapest staple in the supermarket? We took notes today. I looked for the cheapest brand, and the best price per unit. Food values obtained from labels, or the Food Standards Authority. Yes, I accounted for the banana peel (by weighing a handy test banana; didn’t have a taro to hand, sorry, and you can eat kumara and potato peel if you scrub them).

I’ve sorted this table by price. I reckon if you sorted it by nutritional value, it would pretty much be reversed.

Food	Weight (kg)	Price ($)	Price/kg	kJ per 100g	kJ per $1
Kumara	1	3.98	3.98	335	842
Banana	1	2.48	2.48	229	923
Taro	1	3.98	3.98	469	1,178
Brushed potatoes	10	9.98	1.00	263	2,635
Rolled oats	0.75	1.98	2.64	1590	6,023
Pasta	0.5	0.99	1.98	1530	7,727
White rice	1	1.85	1.85	1470	7,946
Standard flour	5	6.48	1.30	1450	11,188
White sugar	3	3.00	1.00	1600	16,000

And we wonder why poor people are fat.