A recent survey by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and Morning Consult found that a majority of US adults incorrectly believe that a plant-based diet is more expensive than one that includes meat and dairy.
The survey, which polled 2,206 US adults between June 10 and June 12, 2025, revealed that more than 60% of respondents share this view. Baby Boomers were the most likely to think that plant-based eating is significantly more expensive, with 67% of them believing plant-based foods cost somewhat or much more than a typical Standard American Diet.
Why is a black bean burger $17 then?
It’s called capitalism. Specifically, it’s how market price is set.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/market-price.asp
Consumer surplus is the difference between the highest price consumers are willing to pay for a product and the actual price they pay, or the market price.
Economic surplus is comprised of two related quantities: consumer surplus and producer surplus. Producer surplus is profit: It is the amount over cost that a producer obtains by selling at the market price, provided that the market price is higher than the minimum that they would be willing to sell for.
People care way too little now about who sets prices.
Those black bean burgers are sold under a strategy of “luxury pricing” or “premium pricing” or “value based pricing”. Which is basically: “how much are you willing to pay?” https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/valuebasedpricing.asp
Value-based pricing is a strategy of setting prices primarily based on a consumer’s perceived value of a product or service. Value-based pricing is customer-focused, meaning companies base their pricing on how much the customer believes a product is worth.
Value-based pricing is different from cost-plus pricing, which factors the costs of production into the pricing calculation. Companies that offer unique or highly valuable features or services are better positioned to take advantage of the value-based pricing model than companies that chiefly sell commoditized items.
A lot of people live with the deeply wrong belief that prices are set based on the cost of production plus some % added on top to make a profit.
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I eat a plant based diet and it is definitely not more expensive, but in a utopian society that didn’t give massive subsidies to big meat and big dairy, it would be a lot cheaper. The fact that soy milk is more expensive than regular milk boggles the mind. The cows are eating the soybeans, but liquid made from the soybean directly is somehow more expensive than milk from a cow.
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Was talking to friends about how they spend on average $100-200 on meat when they go grocery shopping.
I don’t get it.
Here we find another reason why people find major dietary changes like this unrelatable. We have a headline that says people wrongly think that plant based diets are more expensive, and a comment section largely consisting of comments indicating that we should in fact assume a complete change of cooking habits is something we don’t need to factor in while making this statement. It’s a massive oversimplification.
Many of the cheapest and most filling foods available at any given grocery store or especially at any given convenience store or restaurant contain some sort of animal product, whether that be meat, dairy, or egg. Yes, if you have access and the inclination you can get a lot of ingredients pretty cheaply, and yes raw ingredients tend to follow the pattern of plant based ingredients often being cheaper. But to say that a plant based diet is less expensive is as devoid of nuance as saying it’s more expensive.
If you’re eating a plant based diet exclusively, you certainly do lose access to a wide range of cheap and easily prepared foods. The cheap version of a plant based diet requires either a fair bit of preparation or eating a lot of rice and beans. The version that likely most closely mimics the previous diet of people who aren’t doing a ton of cooking is likely to be more expensive.
This also assumes access to fresh produce and both the facilities and the energy and ability to cook on a regular basis. The cost difference for someone who can’t or simply doesn’t cook every day to have a plant based diet with substantial variety is in fact significantly more expensive.
All that said, it is much more attainable to shift to a diet that leans more heavily on plants while spending about the same amount and not denying oneself access to cheaper foods that might be available or quite as drastically changing one’s habits.
Yeah, all of this, its a lot cheaper if you cook the majority of your meals from scratch, but the vast majority of people aren’t cooking the majority of their meals from scratch.
The issue is that for a lot of these people their idea of a plant based diet is an analogous to what they currently eat, and products that emulate that are quite expensive. Bean tacos are cheaper than beef tacos, but imitation ground beef tacos are more expensive.
Perhaps it’s a lack of imagination on the part of people and perhaps it’s that the marketing of plant based diets has largely been pushed in the mainstream by companies offering premium meat substitutes.
TVP is a lot cheaper than either and analogous.
Real problem is people don’t know how to cook.
