Imitation things will cost more because you have to imitate things.
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Because the know the people that buy it either are stupid or have no choice (in the cases of the few that actually have to eat those kinds of diets for health reasons).
because fuck you
Because they can
I think others have covered the economies of scale and niche products creating the disparity.
But I wanted to suggest that if your grandpa is regularly eating gluten free bread, we have found that making it at home is SO much more affordable than buying a loaf at the store. (Even though gluten free flour is also more expensive.) Most of the gluten free flours have their own sandwich bread recipe, either on the bag or their website. I don’t know what flours you have access to, but they can be wildly different blends, so using their tested recipes is always best.
We’ve mastered our favorite so it takes only 15 minutes of “work” and then just time in the oven. It’s also much better than store bought! I don’t know if that’s possible for you, but it could be a lovely weekly ritual for you and your grandpa.
Also, to anyone suggesting we just eat rice and beans, I’m an old celiac. We went without bread, pasta, cake, pastries, cookies, brownies, pizza, and crackers before these products came to market. These are mostly “fun” foods that I don’t eat regularly, but usually pop up in social situations. Do you know how many sad birthdays with no cake we’ve had? How often we’ve watched our friends and family eat things we could never have? I am so grateful to the “fad” gluten free people who made it possible to have culturally/socially important foods we were missing out on for decades!!
You have to pay to have morals in a capitalist society.
Not everything is about new ways that capitalism can be painted as evil. There are valid reasons for why gluten free products are pricier, all of which have been presented in this thread.
Price is set at what the market will pay.
For gluten free products: the whole production chain needs to use different tools or be sealed off from the rest. You can generally use the same mill, kneader, oven, tray for barley, wheat, rye, etc without meticulous cleaning in between. But if you want it to be gluten free you now need to either do that expensive cleaning or more realistically have an entirely separate set of machinery and ensure it never gets in contact with your main line.
Anything that’s trendy they know people want to buy they can charge more because people pay it.
For the things you mentioned, the vegan and gluten-free options are processed much more. Beef, for example, is arguably a "whole food."
Gluten-free isn't healthier unless you have specific conditions. Most people can handle gluten fine, and some vegan foods are primarily gluten (such as seitan).
Vegan isn't inherently healthy, especially if your eating mostly processed foods. A primarily whole-food vegan diet is likely healthier and cheaper than most people's diets though.
Meat and dairy are subsidized so that consumers pay below market value for those products, the market is not fair and it's not free either.
That's why.
All of agriculture is subsidized. American consumers don't pay a fair price for anything that's grown in the US. We don't pay a fair price for the labor used to pick fruit and harvest the fields, because the farmers use undocumented migrants that are paid below minimum wage.
Do you think we'd be putting corn in our gas tanks if that shit wasn't subsidized up the ass?