I was wondering if there has been research done as to how much something that generally “tastes good” costs ?
I would love to see some rating system for how tasty something is compared to it’s price. This could be used to get the most flavor for your buck when shopping for healthy foods / creating recipes
You can start with ‘tasty’ ingredients and completely destroy them with improper cooking or under/over seasoning.
Fast food is generally cheap but ‘tasty’ because high fat/salt/sugar foods trigger our brain’s reward systems quite well.
Realistically you can make most savory things taste pretty good if you add salt, msg, and oil, garlic and onion powder to taste, all of which are very cheap. As for flavor profiles that come after that, that will largely be subjective based on culture, or even just your mood at the time.
You can get a lot of bang for your buck with some simple aromatics like onion garlic carrots celery Ginger etc
I always think of flavour versus taste or more specifically what I would crave as in sugars and bread as opposed to what my body is actually asking for nutritionally. Having said that I always find that when I eat more healthily I often eat less so cost is not really an issue.