Jumping in to the Entitlements Pool with Both Feet

[Ddrak]

Canned tuna, canned salmon... healthy and cheap (if not packed in oil). With two cans of tuna, a bag of whole grain pasta and a can of fat free cream of mushroom soup, I can make a tuna fish casserole that will feed about 8 people for about $6. That's $0.75/serving. Takes about 30 minutes to make and requires one pot, one stirring spoon, one casserole dish.

That stuff is good - one of my favorite fast dishes.

Dd

[Harlowe]

Embar I wasn't supporting or excusing fast food. Far from it. I'm saying the issue is much more complicated than the paintbrush you stroke it with, because it's definitely not just about fast food vs. home cooked. There is a lot of unhealthy home cooking going on. The issue is far more complicated it involves cycles of poverty, poor diets, poor healthcare, overwork and development in childhood and even unhealthy culutural cuisine that's cheap. Like I said, the working poor have always had health issues, obesity being one of them because they tend to eat a lot of cheap fillers and refined foods and fry foods, which is more of an issue than buying fast food. I live in a neighborhood with vastly different wages - from working class immigrants to middle upper class and I can tell you that the large latino family is constantly working their butts off and cooking and most of them are what you'd technically consider obsese or bordering obsese. I don't see the laid off construction worker and his family coming back with bags of fast food either.

By the way, beans are not a complete protein, to get the array of amino acids you need a complimentary source from nuts or whole grains or another complimentary source.

ETA tuna or fish of any sort hotdish is really repulsive to me. I'd rather just eat the fish....though I'm not a hotdish fan in general.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I agree the diet issue isn't about cost. In fact, that's the point I'm trying to make. Even poor people can eat more healthy for less than what they spend on food today, if most of their diet is fast food and junk food. So if cost isn't the barrier (and for the large part, accessability isn't either), then its choice. Its choice driven by education, its choice driven by schedule, its choice driven by cultural dietary habits... but its choice.

@ Dd... yeah, tuna casserole is one of my favorite comfort foods. Not the healthiest food out there, loaded with carbs, but mand does it tastet good.

@ Kulaf - Went to my local Albertson's to check on the prices of food. Whole chicken... $7 dollars. Sweet potatos... $1.20/pound. Brown rice... little over $1/bag. Dried beans.. same as the rice, in fact there were some under a buck. I think my pricing was fairly accurate.

[Harlowe]

I think people tend to cook the kinds of foods they grow up with unless they are educated and taught about nutrition.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I think people tend to cook the kinds of foods they grow up with unless they are educated and taught about nutrition.

There is massive information out there about healthy eating... its all over the place. And most people are reminded they aren't eating healthy when they look in a mirror. They have a constant visual cue that they eat too much. Yet what choices are they making to change the situation? Not much, if you ask me. How do I know? Because obesity is increasing in all socio-economic levels herre in the US, not just the poor. I just attended a seminar last night at Amylin, one of my clients. They make diabetes drugs. On interesting factoid they spoke about was the increasing incidence of fatty liver disease in children, arising from eating to many calories. Some of these kids have early stage cirrhosis as a result... twelve year olds in early cirrhosis... let that sink in.

[Harlowe]

That's beyond depressing....

[Ddrak]

Eating badly tends to be a comfort thing. The body is designed to reward high sugar/high fat food sources. When you're at the lower end of the income spectrum it's far more immediately gratifying to dose up on easy sugar and fat than it is to work towards the delayed gratification of fitness and health. The fatter you get, the harder you have to work to get rid of it and the more you feel like you need comfort food. Looking in the mirror tends not to be negative reinforcement, but is actually a depressing thing that leads to more bad eating.

If it wasn't a self-reinforcing problem them it wouldn't be such an epidemic. Yes, it's a choice, but like smoking, drinking, drug abuse, crime and pretty much any anti-social behaviour it's all about immediate gratification at the expense of long-term damage.

Dd

[Harlowe]

I could have sworn I read a study somewhere how fatter people crave carbs more, so it's like a cycle of destruction. The fatter you are the more your brain craves shit that's bad for you.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

http://www.good.is/post/usda-s-food-desert-locator-map/

All things told, about 13.5 million people nationwide have little or no access to stores selling healthful food.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

So less than 1% of the population...

[Ddrak]

So less than 1% of the population...

When did the US population hit 2 billion?

Dd

[Torakus]

http://www.good.is/post/usda-s-food-desert-locator-map/

All things told, about 13.5 million people nationwide have little or no access to stores selling healthful food.

I am glad you posted that. I looked around San Diego and I found exactly what I thought I would find. The food deserts are bullshit (at least for San Diego). Almost every single one of these deserts are in unpopulated areas. San Diego Airport, Naval Amphibious Base, Sea World, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar (which is also bullshit, because it has the largest Commissary in the area), UCSD Campus in La Jolla (give me a fucking break), Mount Helix (oh the poor rich of Mt. Helix are in a food desert) etc, etc. Aside from Imperial Beach and Paradise Hills, the deserts are all in upscale neighborhoods, industrial districts where there are no homes, university campuses, parks or large empty military reservations.

I am not saying that these deserts don't exist in other areas, but if calling the runways and landfill at MCAS Miramar a food desert is an indicator I would say the entire study that produced this map is flawed.

Tora

[Embar Angylwrath]

Growing up in the midwest, I can tell you that most of that area highlighted is hardly populated, it's some of the lowest population density in the nation (person per square mile). I'd love to see an overlap map of population density and the "food desert" map.

I don't see too many urban areas on that map, with the exception of the industrial Great Lakes region.

[Embar Angylwrath]

OMG... look at LA as an example for "food deserts". Since the map is by census tract and not by geographical distance to a grocery store, it makes the issue larger than it really is. For example.... take the Compton area in LA. The "food desert" in that area is less than a couple square miles. And its surrounded by areas that aren't "food deserts".

This is an over-hyped issue. It just reinforces the fact that under-nutrition is largely a matter of choice, not geography or poverty.

If the same evaluation methods were applied to a country like Australia, over 90% of the country would be a "food desert".

[Fallakin Kuvari]

So less than 1% of the population...

When did the US population hit 2 billion?

Dd

My bad, less than 5% of the population. I R GUUD AT RED CALTULACOR.

Still, it'd only have to be slightly over 1.35bn for it to be less than 1%, not 2.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

http://www.good.is/post/usda-s-food-desert-locator-map/

All things told, about 13.5 million people nationwide have little or no access to stores selling healthful food.

I am glad you posted that. I looked around San Diego and I found exactly what I thought I would find. The food deserts are bullshit (at least for San Diego). Almost every single one of these deserts are in unpopulated areas. San Diego Airport, Naval Amphibious Base, Sea World, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar (which is also bullshit, because it has the largest Commissary in the area), UCSD Campus in La Jolla (give me a fucking break), Mount Helix (oh the poor rich of Mt. Helix are in a food desert) etc, etc. Aside from Imperial Beach and Paradise Hills, the deserts are all in upscale neighborhoods, industrial districts where there are no homes, university campuses, parks or large empty military reservations.

I am not saying that these deserts don't exist in other areas, but if calling the runways and landfill at MCAS Miramar a food desert is an indicator I would say the entire study that produced this map is flawed.

Tora

Since apparently anecdotal evidence > all else, I'll provide Omaha as a counter example, given it's where I live. Nearly a third of the city has no reasonable access to grocery stores. I've lived literally all over this city and surrounding communities, and from personal experience the deeper you get into the impoverished areas the farther away food (Not just grocery stores - food period) actually is from you. At more than one of the locations I lived, the nearest gas station or fast food joint was about 3 miles away, while the nearest grocery store/Super Wal Mart was more than 10 miles away. Compound that against Omaha's inexcusable public transit, and the fact that the areas I'm referring to are about as dense as anywhere else in the city (Much denser than the upper class neighborhoods, but that goes without saying) and you might actually be able to see where I'm coming from.

And quite frankly, it's downright retarded to suggest that nowhere in America does anyone have difficulty accessing food. Nor am I suggesting that we literally have 13m starving people, or even that we have 13m people who have significant difficulties keeping their kitchens stocked. But like I said before, when someone doesn't have their own vehicle, when they're operating on a budget so tight most of us here can't imagine it, and when they're so old or infirm that they can barely shuffle down a sidewalk, the grocery store that's 10 miles out may as well be on the moon. And I have personally assisted neighbors in this situation. I know it happens, and if you're to any degree honest you cannot deny that out of those 13m people at the very least a few of them are likely to find commuting to the grocery store and back practically impossible.

And Embar, having grown up in the midwest you know that there are a lot of people out here who aren't near anything whatsoever, so I really don't understand what point you're trying to make regarding density. Does lower population density somehow affect how easy or difficult it is to acquire and transport food?

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Man, Omaha looks SO BAD.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

Learn to read, fuckwit.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I looked at Omaha. It appears to me that the overwhelming majority of the area listed as a "food desert" are along the industrial corridor. Kinda makes the whole thing questionable if whoever made that thing isn't correcting for commercial and industrial zones, where no one lives (except transients).

[Jarochai Alabaster]

So when I was driving my neighbor 10 miles to get groceries, what, exactly, was I doing if not assisting someone who was in a position of need? If I lived in a neighborhood (Read: houses, people, families) that was miles away from any grocery store, was I living in the industrial corridor? And what kind of industrial corridor has no industries or factories?

Seriously, you're not reading what I write. Again, I'm not saying that everyone who lives in these areas has significant problems accessing food. But some do. This is a fact. Can you at least acknowledge that there are people in this country, apparently outside the scope of your experience or even your imagination, who may face difficulties? And if you can't acknowledge that I have personal experience, could you at least have the decency to call me a liar outright instead of beating around the bush?