An Interesting Debate

I'd probably side with her (0.00 / 0)

To a certain extend people are being squeezed, but...

I cannot speak on behalf of the very poor since most of my circle is upper middle class, but even these people that should have enough money complain just as much as anyone that good food is too expensive...yet they spend tons of money on cars, cell phones, fancy computers and other gadgets, non-essential and brand new clothing, cable TV, and the list goes on...

From my experience, only the people who truly care about good food are actually willing to spend money on it - regardless of their income level.

Remember Food?

http://www.thereluctanteater.com

---

by: TheReluctantEater @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 14:24:57 PM CDT

It's a good sign (4.00 / 3)

that your blog is attracting her attention (and that of more mainstream points of view).

I'd like to hear more about why you think people do not have much of an active role in choosing healthy, environmentally sound food choices. (Did I interpret that right?) I often find myself defending obese people. My friends tend to refer to obese people as lazy and... well, disgusting. They tend to think that the obese do it to themselves, and it's their fault that they're fat. I agree to a small extent, but I blame the social context - availability of fast food, lack of education on healthy choices, food desserts in poor areas, big advertising budgets of fast food companies vs teeny budgets of ... anyone else! Thoughts??

PS We had a big party the other day and everyone brought flowers and more flowers. My house smells insanely like fresh flowers!! They just keep blooming and blooming! Thought I'd share that lovely tidbit about my day :)

---

by: madfoodskills @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 14:25:24 PM CDT

As someone who eats well myself (4.00 / 2)

I know EXACTLY how frustrating and difficult it is to eat well!!!!! That's why I think it's not so much a matter of people's free choice. All choices aren't created equal. You eat what's around you. You eat what you can afford. You eat what you have the resources to prepare. Is some of this laziness? Sure. And some of it's choice too. But not all of it.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

---

by: Jill Richardson @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:12:07 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

And some of it is education (4.00 / 3)

There are a lot of people out there who don't really know how to cook or create healthy meals. It's hard to eat whole food when you don't even know what to do with an eggplant or a whole grain. People have this idea that cooking is hard.

Some people also have a weird blind faith in our food system. They believe that Lucky Charms can be part of a complete breakfast, or that McDonald's chicken nuggets are wholesome because they're made with "all white meat chicken."

When I first moved to where I live now, the local supermarket sold most of its produce on styrofoam trays wrapped with cling film. And it was sad produce, let me tell you. To this day I've never seen any fresh spring/summer fruit in there-- no strawberries, raspberries, peaches or cherries. It's only horrible apples, oranges and bananas, with grapes making an occasional appearance. Vegetables were mostly potatoes, carrots, onions, plantains and mealy tomatoes. If that store were my only option (which it is for some people), I wouldn't cook much, either.  

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

---

by: wide eyed lib @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:35:04 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

absolutely depressing to go to a supermarket (4.00 / 2)

The one closest to us has stacks, plural, of soda at the front door, and more stacks before you can walk past the veggies. Admittedly, the veggies are loose now, on a cooler shelf, but they're still fairly peaked.

Then there's a complete soda aisle, with additional stacks of soda at each end. Needless to say, everyone in this neighborhood looks like a blimp.

And it would be a 5 mile drive to find a better store. (Mrs.B buys the veggies at the Amish market.) Thank the FLM for that.

Yankee Frugality: use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without.

---

by: Anonymous Bosch @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 16:09:57 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Haha I just re-read (4.00 / 2)

what I wrote along with the responses and realized I wrote food desserts instead of deserts. Mmmm food desserts! :)

I agree a lot of people overestimate how hard it is to cook. But there is a lack of knowledge and cooking really is about knowledge.. Food skills if you will! Even simple knowledge like which fruit or veg should be kept in fridge and how to make a white sauce. Where are people supposed to learn these skills nowadays?

I often lack confidence in my cooking as a result of being self-taught. I'm always checking and re-checking online or in one of my many, many cookbooks for instructions when cooking from scratch. I'm working on cooking my grains, beans, and peas from scratch right now, and I still double-check soaking times and cooking times! And I grew up with a Mom who actually cooked! I'm too young (or too urban maybe) to have taken home economics at school, and I never really helped out in the kitchen as a kid. So even someone as interested in health and food as I am really has to work on it.  

---

by: madfoodskills @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 16:42:39 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

some of it IS education (4.00 / 2)

but because marketing substitute's for what a lot of people consider to be "truth" about food these days, and PR and lobbying impact even the government's nutrition recommendations, a lot of people are simply mis-educated and don't even know it.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

---

by: Jill Richardson @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 17:13:04 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

You also eat what you're programmed to (4.00 / 1)

There are things that pass for food in other parts of the world that I would never recognize as food, or might think of as bait, or something. Blood and certain kinds of sushi come to mind. (Or think of those Travel Channel shows where the guy travels around and eats the weirdest, most disgusting-to-us stuff he can find).

I'm programmed by and large to eat an American diet, and look like it as a result. I'm trying to branch out into vegetables and these days am eating more than I used to (my wife is impressed that I've been eating my asparagus), but it's often a struggle.

I have succumbed to the Twitter craze. @Omir55

---

by: Omir the Storyteller @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 17:22:11 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Over cooked vegetables via Joy of Cooking (4.00 / 3)

I think part of the reason eating vegetables is tough for lots of people is cause they suck! As in, the way they are grown, transported, on display, and cooked sucks! My grandma was raising her family in the post-war era when frozen veggies become THE trend. And cookbooks like Joy of Cooking encouraged women like her to overcook the veggies. So of course her kids don't like veggies! My mom luckily "unlearned" her mom's cooking skills, and I didn't have to suffer through them! There's nothing like lightly steamed broccoli compared to soggy boiled broccoli! (I should add organic, local / garden-fresh).  

---

by: madfoodskills @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 18:12:34 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

It's hard... (4.00 / 3)

My wife and I just got back from a Willie Nelson concert (he's 76 years old!!) at Summerfest (in Milwaukee). I found myself buying a sub, then some popcorn, and later some ice cream.  In the morning we ate not so well at a restaurant before coming home.

I am somewhat overweight but not obese. Yet I find it really hard not to eat badly when we go places.  I know well that I should not, having heart problems, knowing the locavore literature, etc.  I know!  But I still do. I get hungry, my taste buds want food they like and I fall prey.

They've been trained over many years to like this kind food and I still have been unable, after 20-odd years, to re-train my taste buds to like the food that I should eat. Dieticians beware: it is NOT easy.

---

by: DennisP @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:18:36 PM CDT

Like a stack of Lego blocks, (4.00 / 1)

diet, health, diseases, time to cook healthy meals, how to know what a healthy meal is, are all interconnected.

People make/grow food to make money. A long time ago, it was decided that more money could be made selling more units of cheaper food than selling fewer units of better food. "Taste" can be applied to almost anything, whether it be healthy, digestible and nutritious or not.

Fats and sugars are the cheapest means to achieving a "product."

Elisabeth Warren talks about the coming collapse of the Middle Class from the standpoint of overwork and inability to keep up with health care. (58 minute lecture at UC Berkeley) [highly recommended]

The rise of the two-wage-earner family has left less time to prepare wholesome food. The incessant hammering of television advertising has given the impression that prepared foods are a solution. After all, no one's starving. Quite the contrary, everyone's well fed - with cheap fats and sugars.

If you only thing you make widely available cheaply is crappy food, there's not much choice, is there.

Yankee Frugality: use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without.

---

by: Anonymous Bosch @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 16:01:54 PM CDT

Well said AB! (4.00 / 2)

If you only thing you make widely available cheaply is crappy food, there's not much choice, is there.

---

by: madfoodskills @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 16:46:14 PM CDT

[ Parent ]