This is a commonly repeated claim but it's usually not true. Fruit is, in fact, pretty cheap:
In the US, bananas average $1.68/kilo: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_price_rankings...
A kilo is usually ~6 bananas. So a banana costs maybe 28c on average. Find a cost-competitive ultra-processed snack for the calories and satiety that a banana provides. Healthy eating might not is cheap but junk food, specifically, is not usually a cost optimisation.
That's definitely not something I expected to be cheaper in Canada than the US.
I think a lot of people that say quickly perishable items are cheap shop every few days and buy in small quantities.
That’s your choice at the end of the day, but don’t make excuses for why you choose to eat garbage all day.
Having enough fruit for a family for a week, indeed as a sibling posted, accounting for spoilage or just bad items in the delivery, takes a substantial amount. In volume and in cost.
On the other hand, crappy snacks are typically <€1 or <€2 per kg.
We make the choice to buy fruit. But also we are well off enough to be able to do so consistently. There are also other costs of having to spend more time getting the fruit, preparing it for the kids to take to school. Not everyone has the time or sees the opportunity to do so. I’m very reluctant to just blame those people and say it is their choice to eat crappy food.
It is not a generalizable answer to this problem.
Telling someone who can't afford to move to the city that they just need to move the city to solve their health problem is a waste of time for you and them.
The answer applicable to the government is to build better cities.
The answer is never stay in the suburbs but take drugs the rest of your life and spend the end of your life miserably unhealthy. You’re free to do that if you want to, you just can’t pretend it’s healthy.