New York Times Regurgitates Myths About Poverty and Food

[Shane for Wax]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/is-junk-food-really-cheaper.html

THE “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has become a reflexive part of how we explain why so many Americans are overweight, particularly those with lower incomes. I frequently read confident statements like, “when a bag of chips is cheaper than a head of broccoli ...” or “it’s more affordable to feed a family of four at McDonald’s than to cook a healthy meal for them at home.”

This is just plain wrong. In fact it isn’t cheaper to eat highly processed food: a typical order for a family of four — for example, two Big Macs, a cheeseburger, six chicken McNuggets, two medium and two small fries, and two medium and two small sodas — costs, at the McDonald’s a hundred steps from where I write, about $28. (Judicious ordering of “Happy Meals” can reduce that to about $23 — and you get a few apple slices in addition to the fries!)

THE fact is that most people can afford real food. Even the nearly 50 million Americans who are enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) receive about $5 per person per day, which is far from ideal but enough to survive. So we have to assume that money alone doesn’t guide decisions about what to eat. There are, of course, the so-called food deserts, places where it’s hard to find food: the Department of Agriculture says that more than two million Americans in low-income rural areas live 10 miles or more from a supermarket, and more than five million households without access to cars live more than a half mile from a supermarket.

Still, 93 percent of those with limited access to supermarkets do have access to vehicles, though it takes them 20 more minutes to travel to the store than the national average. And after a long day of work at one or even two jobs, 20 extra minutes — plus cooking time — must seem like an eternity.

Take your bullshit classism and shove it up your ass, NYT.

[Askold]

Is the distance to a shop really such a huge obstacle or am I missing something?

[Morgenleoht]

...

I live forty minutes' walk away from the nearest supermarket, can't drive and often times don't have the money for a bus (I save my electronic bus card for long distance travel or really rainy days). Trust me, lugging home a carton of UHT milk, folder, textbook and other assorted bits and pieces isn't fun.

I imagine it's as bad or worse when petrol's so damned expensive...

[Shane for Wax]

Is the distance to a shop really such a huge obstacle or am I missing something?

TIME TO DEBUNK!

    that meal from mcdonalds takes virtually no time to acquire AND is available almost anywhere.
    the second meal? that “salad” is lettuce … with nothing else, not even dressing unless its just olive oil or some milk i guess? gross.
    also thats the price of each serving, not an entire loaf of bread, a bottle of olive oil, etc. that stuff adds up which means you have to have a lot of money at one time to buy it all.
    that meal probably took an hour and a half to make, which is a long fucking time when you work multiple jobs or are caring for a lot of people or dont have help! seriously, if you are a single parent of three who works, is spending an hour and a half every night preparing a meal a likely option?
    same with beans and rice! also, you know whats a fucking bummer? eating beans and rice every night because you are poor. ask any person who has done it and they will tell you (you can start with me).
    there is a “nutrition” argument here that lacks a follow up: poor people are more likely to be doing physical labor and need more than 571 calories per meal.
    you know who is less likely to know how to bake or prepare a chicken? people without access to the internet, or libraries, or who werent taught how to by their parents because their parents worked all the time. access to healthy foods is a classist issue and classism is cyclical, you fucking morons.
    seriously, these sorts of infographics make me want to fucking flip tables. do you know why people don’t eat more fresh fruits and vegetables? because fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive, because they take a long time to prepare, because they dont live near a grocery store that has a decent produce section, because they dont have reliable transportation to get groceries to and from the grocery store, because they dont have the energy to plan all of the shit that is involved in making healthy, intentional, filling, balanced meals. basically: poor people get fucked, and then we get BLAMED for being lazy.
    eating “healthy”, aka access to fresh fruits and vegetables, is a privilege, first, foremost, always. so fuck you new york times and your ignorant goddamn infographic.
    there are SYSTEMATIC REASONS that we do not have equal access to fresh fruits and vegetables. they are very REAL problems. besides, you know, systematic poverty in america, the total mis-distribution of farm subsidies is a perfect place to start. read about that, then either get bent or start working on the actual problem.

http://alithea.tumblr.com/post/25135992217/is-junk-food-really-cheaper

[TheL]

*applauds Alithea for hitting the nail squarely on the head*

The nearest thing there is to convenient healthy food for poor people (aside from raw fruit and salads, which are DAMNED expensive) is Crock-Pot stews--because a Crock-Pot is cheaper than a stove, and allows you to cook while you're not home.  However, non-cooking food prep time isn't diminished at all, stews and soups get monotonous, and you still have to have that extra $25-30 to BUY a Crock-Pot in the first place.  The only really fast, super-cheap thing you can make in a Crock-Pot is pea soup.  I defy ANYONE to live on nothing but pea soup.

There are great pre-prepared, individually-sized salads in my grocery store, but they cost a little over $3.00 each and have less than 300 calories.  I'm tiny and don't exercise much, and I still need to eat more than the salad in order to have a reasonably healthy meal.

My healthy meal is a salad (or Lean Cuisine meal--roughly the same caloric intake, but distributed differently WRT carbs, protein, and fats, and containing more sodium), a cup of Greek yogurt*, and a piece of fruit.  Total cost per meal: about $4.50.  Total calories: only about 500.  Compare this to a Whopper meal at Burger King, which has 1300 calories and costs about $1 more.  When you're doing blue-collar work, you usually need those extra calories more than someone who sits at a desk all day (like me).  Unfortunately, because junk food is cheaper per calorie, this also means blue-collar workers get less in the way of vitamins.

* I'm basing this off a cost of $1 per serving, which is slightly less than the cost of an individually-sold yogurt cup, and slightly more than the cost of 1 cup out of a multi-pack (which is also usually a smaller cup).  Greek yogurt has less fat and more protein than regular yogurt, but it also costs more.

[Yaezakura]

Is the distance to a shop really such a huge obstacle or am I missing something?

It is when you consider the issue here, which is being poor.

Fresh, healthy foods don't keep for very long. That means you have to make trips to the grocery store every few days, rather than once or twice a month. This adds considerable gas expenses on top of the jacked-up price of fresh food.

[Askold]

I stand corrected.

I guess I just have trouble believing differences between US and Finland are so huge.

[Dantes Virgil]

Not to mention if money and time are both tight, most families aren't going to get the "average" meal at McDonalds.  You can feed your family for much less off the dollar menu.  People aren't stupid.

[VirtualStranger]

http://i.imgur.com/BoImq.jpg

1) Holy dick that's a lot of McDonald's food. That meal on the top is at least 3 times larger than the next two. No shit it's more expensive.

2) Big Mac's? Poor people don't order the meals off of the main menu. You know what they do order? The dollar menu.

If he had started at the bottom of the menu like the rest of us, he could have gotten a full breakfast, lunch and dinner for that 28 dollars.

[QueenofHearts]

Though, the latter two look infinitely more appealing...

[Yaezakura]

Though, the latter two look infinitely more appealing...

Not if you hate pinto beans. Which I do.

But yeah. That comparison is shit. Poor people don't order Big Macs. Normal people out for a quick meal order Big Macs.

For $4 each, every person can have a large tea and 3 dollar menu items. That means a family of 4 can have a comfortably filling meal at McDonald's for about $16. I know, because it's something my own family has had to do pretty regularly.

[Witchyjoshy]

You can't eat beans if you vomit from attempting to consume them, like I do x_x;

[TheL]

I stand corrected.

I guess I just have trouble believing differences between US and Finland are so huge.

Very few communities in the US are walkable, and not too many more are bikable.  You are forced to drive or take the bus pretty much everywhere.  When the nearest grocery store is 10 miles away, that's a minor inconvenience for a middle-class car owner, and a major hurdle for someone barely making ends meet, who uses a bus for transport.

[nickiknack]

I guess someone never heard of the term "Food Desert"

[Osama bin Bambi]

This reminds me of that South Park episode where Rob Reiner yells at a sawmill worker for smoking in a bar, asking him why he doesn't just go relax in an expensive vacation house.