The issue in large part is just that, processing. Most people at or under the poverty line here in Phoenix live in a place that has a refrigerator, and MAYBE a stove top, no oven. A mircowave, as those are pretty cheap, and quick. Food processor, blender? Things like that to prepare food are expensive, and worse, TIME CONSUMING. If you're working two 40 a week jobs, you barely have time to SLEEP, let alone prepare a meal. And you don't have a spouse staying at home prepping one, they work two, just to pay for everything.
So what are you left with? Preproccessed, already prepared food, and fast food. Which is to say, foods high in high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils and proccessed fats. Unhealty. The cost of the food be damned, its the TIME cost of eating healthy. (You're also ignoring demand and volume, and the change on price and cost through that, tied into marketing) On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 12:20 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > leaking pen wrote: >> The obese problem will go away? No. A good portion of the obesity >> problem in the us is becuase cheap food is unhealthy food. Its not >> just overeating, its that some people can only afford crap to eat. > > And here is an irony, indeed an incomprehensible situation -- > incomprehensible, that is, if you ignore the government subsidies and > taxes which have led to this situation. > > To wit, a vegan diet is *far* less energy and resource intensive than a > meat-based diet, and it's generally healthier. It's absurd to say that, > globally, people "can't afford" to eat healthy food; in fact it's the > other way around: As a species we can't afford to eat as unhealthfully > as we have been eating (at least in the U.S., Canada, and Europe). We > just don't have the resources to support such a diet across the whole globe. > > The trouble is the free markets aren't all that free and prices are > extremely distorted by a range of factors. McDonald's beef, from steers > fed on and corn and soybeans and fish (yes, fish), should *not* be > cheaper than a mess of potage made from the corn and soybeans, with the > rare and expensive fish left out. Yet, it certainly appears to be. > > Post processing vegetable food by running it through a cow is not an > efficient way to prepare it for market, and it sure shouldn't make the > end result *cheaper*. > > Dig far enough into the tax structure, grazing subsidies, transportation > subsidies, water subsidies, and I think you'll eventually dig out the > answer to this conundrum, but I don't think the explanation is simple. > >
