This is why I don't take the newspaper anymore: I'm tired of the sob stories.
The latest is an article in The New York Times about how people in flophouses can't afford unprocessed food. They use the term "working class" to describe people living with no reliable stove or refrigerator or pots, pans and other basic utensils, which annoys me as someone living in a working-class neighborhood. We have our problems, but a lack of a working appliances and cooking utensils is pretty unusual. Some of the people interviewed in a book the article referred to said they were evicted from their last place, but there's no reason given (there never is in the news).
First, I have to wonder whether people without cooking utensils care about cooking. It's just as well if they don't--moving to a place with working appliances really should be more important than figuring out how to sit down to poached salmon and asparagus in a lemon-butter sauce at home. And I doubt that people in such circumstances really would use extra grocery money to buy their children fresh fruit. Kids threw away fresh fruit by the ton when school lunches were "upgraded" in 2012.
Second, does eating unprocessed foods fix obesity? Not necessarily. Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes has photos of overweight people who living on home cooking; the Pima Indians are among them. And readers of a certain age may remember pictures of overweight sunbathers in the Soviet Union, where, so I'm told by internet friends who grew up there, they likewise ate home cooking.
So what can people of limited means do? Some people living in "food deserts" can buy real food in their area. I know this because I live near a "food desert," and there are literally 30 places to buy food within a four-mile radius of it. In fact, there used to be a small grocery co-op in the middle of the food desert. That's right--you can have a grocery store in the middle of a food desert. The co-op folded last year due to financial difficulties. Not enough low-income people were interested in buying local, organic, pasture-raised (read: expensive) groceries. In any case, yes, it's possible to buy real food on $29 per week (as of 2015). In less time than it takes to get coffee and an egg and sausage biscuit at the McDonald's a few blocks away, I can make the same thing (sans biscuit) at home.
Fast food isn't such a bad option. Just get a burger and salad and throw away the bun. Hey, it worked for Tom Naughton--and he even ate the bun!
The latest is an article in The New York Times about how people in flophouses can't afford unprocessed food. They use the term "working class" to describe people living with no reliable stove or refrigerator or pots, pans and other basic utensils, which annoys me as someone living in a working-class neighborhood. We have our problems, but a lack of a working appliances and cooking utensils is pretty unusual. Some of the people interviewed in a book the article referred to said they were evicted from their last place, but there's no reason given (there never is in the news).
First, I have to wonder whether people without cooking utensils care about cooking. It's just as well if they don't--moving to a place with working appliances really should be more important than figuring out how to sit down to poached salmon and asparagus in a lemon-butter sauce at home. And I doubt that people in such circumstances really would use extra grocery money to buy their children fresh fruit. Kids threw away fresh fruit by the ton when school lunches were "upgraded" in 2012.
Second, does eating unprocessed foods fix obesity? Not necessarily. Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes has photos of overweight people who living on home cooking; the Pima Indians are among them. And readers of a certain age may remember pictures of overweight sunbathers in the Soviet Union, where, so I'm told by internet friends who grew up there, they likewise ate home cooking.
So what can people of limited means do? Some people living in "food deserts" can buy real food in their area. I know this because I live near a "food desert," and there are literally 30 places to buy food within a four-mile radius of it. In fact, there used to be a small grocery co-op in the middle of the food desert. That's right--you can have a grocery store in the middle of a food desert. The co-op folded last year due to financial difficulties. Not enough low-income people were interested in buying local, organic, pasture-raised (read: expensive) groceries. In any case, yes, it's possible to buy real food on $29 per week (as of 2015). In less time than it takes to get coffee and an egg and sausage biscuit at the McDonald's a few blocks away, I can make the same thing (sans biscuit) at home.
Fast food isn't such a bad option. Just get a burger and salad and throw away the bun. Hey, it worked for Tom Naughton--and he even ate the bun!
Comments
But you can't beat making your own burgers :)
All the best Jan