stunned at link between income and obesity

Ignoramus21174 wrote:
$3 is an incredible amount of money. It is much more than what many
third worlders make in a day. It can buy a huge quantity of food.

We don't live in the third world so expectations are somewhat different.

$3 can buy:
- about 15 lbs of flour at Sam's club

A non-veggie or fruit. Everyone knows starches and grains are
inexpensive. Get off that train.

- about same quantity of rice

A non-veggie or fruit.

- over 4 lbs of chicken legs at 69 cents per lb (which is the going price
here)

A non-veggie or fruit. And as far as i can tell the only meat you eat is
chicken. That gets old on the thirday. Longdon broil for kabobs was $6/lb.

- 8 lbs of cabbage

A veggie, which few people actually eat.

- a lot of potatoes (usually over 10 lbs)

Yes, more starches.

1.40 -- 2 lb chicken
0.50 -- 2 lbs rice
0.60 -- 2 lbs cabbage
0.20 -- 100 grams of oil
0.30 -- spices etc
===================
Total: $3.00

Great meal dude.

Ignoramus2977 wrote:
Well, a poor person is a poor person, so they can use tried and true
methods of saving money, from all over the world.

Your context drives your desires which drives which choices you make. In
the depression everyone would and did eat as you suggest. With FF on
every corner and adds hitting you 24 hours a day on the good life, that
way of eating won't be acceptable. You would rather eat FF even if it
was less nutritious and more expensive.

Hm, I thought that you were comparing fast food vs. home cooked
food. If so, then your fast food, normally, would not have much vegs
or fruits either. Your objection is logically fallacious.

I see you have narrowed the issue down to something you feel comfortable
with. The point is the cost of eating a healthy diet of lean meat,
fruit, and veggies is expensive. So given the relative tradeoffs the
cost per calorie of FF is very attractive in the light of taste and
convenience.

The point isn't to construct the cheapest meal possible that nobody
wants to eat and say i told you so.

I am not poor and I eat other meat.

You only mention chicken.

I shopped for food last night and
wrote down a list of prices I encountered. I left it at home, but if
you have any interest, I will post them. The store was not the rock
bottom cheap store, either.

Good, because that's not where people want to shop.

Plenty of meat items could be bought for
$1.29 per lb. Including sausages, etc.

Processed meats are out. High and sodium and kills you for some reasons
i am to stupid to understand.

Cabbage 49 cents (relatively expensive)
Beets 49 cents

Yuck and yuck.

Bananas 49 cents (kind of expensive)
Apples 39 cents

These are two of the most fruits most commonly purchased.
In US dollars i can get apples for 99 cents to 1.49 cents. I never buy
bananas so i don't know the price.


I think that it would be a great meal. Dollar for dollar, it beats
fast food by a wide margin.

Let's do a survey. I think most people would expect better food in prison.

"Stacey Bender" wrote in message
...

I think that it would be a great meal. Dollar for dollar, it beats
fast food by a wide margin.

Let's do a survey. I think most people would expect better food in prison.


I'm pretty sure the prison cafeterias aren't any better than the ones in the
schools. White bread, mac and cheese, pressed chicken sludge, etc.

--
No Husband Has Ever Been Shot While Doing The Dishes

Stacey Bender wrote in message
...
Ignoramus2977 wrote:

Hm, I thought that you were comparing fast food vs. home cooked
food. If so, then your fast food, normally, would not have much
vegs
or fruits either. Your objection is logically fallacious.

I see you have narrowed the issue down to something you feel
comfortable
with. The point is the cost of eating a healthy diet of lean meat,
fruit, and veggies is expensive. So given the relative tradeoffs the
cost per calorie of FF is very attractive in the light of taste and
convenience.

You keep changing your argument and you have to in order to continue
arguing for what is essentially a non-tenable position. You are wrong
about fast food being cheap. You are wrong about fast food being
tasty. You are wrong about healthy food being too expensive for poor
people. You are wrong about healthy food being "icky." Basically the
only thing you've got right in this thread is that fast food is more
convenient than more healthy options. It's been a good troll, but I
think it's old now.

Matthew

Matthew wrote:
You keep changing your argument and you have to in order to continue
arguing for what is essentially a non-tenable position.

I think there are several different arguments going on.

You are wrong about fast food being cheap.

No, not really. It may not be as cheap as some horrible diet from
cabbage, potatoes,rice, and chicken. It is cheap, or at least comparable
to a diet of lean meats, fruits, a veggies, that is healthy food people
would actually want to eat. Given the cost per calorie, the taste, and
convenience, FF is a dominant option, as we see from actual behaviour.


You are wrong about fast food being tasty.

No. Fat, sugar, and salt are the tastiest things to humans by
definition. There's a reason those are the things you can taste and feel.

You are wrong about healthy food being too expensive for poor
people.

The ingredients lists presented here do not usually include any meat
other than chicken or fruits or veggies other than cabbage. As for it
being too expensive, i think it is expensive enough that it slides the
choice into a tradeoff matrix where other factors make FF the preferred
choice. A strong desire for healthy food would shift the calculation
somewhere else, but that's not how most people feel. Value and
convenience and taste win.

You are wrong about healthy food being "icky."

Cabbage is icky to me, so i can't be wrong. The inexpensive meal
presented in previous posts is something people in the US would not eat
if they had any other choice.

Basically the only thing you've got right in this thread is that fast
food is more
convenient than more healthy options.

Obviously you haven't read where shopping, prep, cooking, and cleanup
don't take any time, really. Then you could have completely disagreed
with me and i would have been a super troll instead of just a normal troll.

It's been a good troll, but I think it's old now.

I see you are continuing the long tradition of calling a troll anything
you don't agree with.

Stacey Bender wrote in message
...
Matthew wrote:
You keep changing your argument and you have to in order to
continue
arguing for what is essentially a non-tenable position.

I think there are several different arguments going on.

Sure, but your arguing both sides of some of them.


It's been a good troll, but I think it's old now.

I see you are continuing the long tradition of calling a troll
anything
you don't agree with.

Our definitions of "troll" differ. To me a troll is a post that is
intended to stir up many responses. The wildly inaccurate infomation
in your OP and the crossposting makes it a troll by my definition.
Some trolls, including yours, are beneficial. This one may have
benefited you if you learned some shopping tips for fruits and
vegetables such as buying in season and shopping at farmer's markets.

Matthew

Ignoramus2977 wrote:

1.40 -- 2 lb chicken
0.50 -- 2 lbs rice
0.60 -- 2 lbs cabbage
0.20 -- 100 grams of oil
0.30 -- spices etc
===================
Total: $3.00

Great meal dude.

I think that it would be a great meal. Dollar for dollar, it beats
fast food by a wide margin.

I agree completely. I prepare and eat meals like this every week. Mine
would include some pineapple chunks and an onion. My husband usually has
the rice, I'd rather have more cabbage.

--
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Matthew wrote:
Sure, but your arguing both sides of some of them.

No, because you can only see two sides of a multi sided issue.


Our definitions of "troll" differ. To me a troll is a post that is
intended to stir up many responses.

Your deep insight into my motivations is as flawed as your arguments.

The wildly inaccurate infomation
in your OP and the crossposting makes it a troll by my definition.

What was inaccurate?

Some trolls, including yours, are beneficial. This one may have
benefited you if you learned some shopping tips for fruits and
vegetables such as buying in season and shopping at farmer's markets.

You are a god. Thank you. Next time you might want to actually read
posts instead of morphing them into your pet peeve.

On 2005-04-20, Stacey Bender wrote:
If you earn less than 42K/year, which 50% of the US does, you have
$4/day for food.

How can you possibly eat health for that little? You can't. A head of
lettuce is about $2. Fruit and veggies, even if available, are not
purchasable at that income.

So what are you left with? Fast food, where you can get enough calories
for the money. Eating fast food on limitted income is actually the most
rational thing to do.

Ok, we make slightly more money than that, but we budget (and it's a hard-
line budget, we've *never* gone over) just about $4/day/person. We eat *very*
well. This morning we had arepas with various toppings, lunch was sausages
with organic turkish green beans, dinner is shephard's pie probably with
some broccoli on the side. I've been snacking on fresh oranges and organic
yogurt. There's a pile of apples in the kitchen. Everything comes out of
that budget, including dining out and we currently have a banked surplus.

The fastest way to scuttle our food budget is to eat fast food. In price
per calorie it's not particularly cheap. In price per nutrition terms
it's outright hideous. We've eaten low-carb/high-protein on that budget,
and we currently eat a high-grain/high quality moderate volume carb diet
with no problems whatsoever. In addition, none of us can eat wheat, so
we have to buy more expensive substitutes. It shouldn't be difficult for
anyone to learn to cook and eat less expensively than fast food.

My rule is that I don't spend more than 15 minutes of actual hands-on
cooking for any meal. I'm not slaving away in the kitchen every day,
we don't shop every day. We certainly are not obsessed with eating
cheap, because I pay premiums for local products, organic products,
and products that use ingredients I prefer (sugar instead of high
fructose corn syrup for example).

We've cut our grocery budget to less than $3/person/day (the good
restaurant meal was worth it), and still ate nutritious, high quality
meals. I would believe that obesity is a socioeconomic problem though,
because I think that budgeting and setting aside money for the future
is a socioeconomic thing.

Now - could I eat even *cheaper* if I didn't eat vegetables. Possibly.
I actually find that when I eat the foods that are cheapest per calorie
that I spend more money. I could eat rice for example. It's around $2/lb.
However - when I do that, I eat a *lot* of rice. I eat a bowl of fried
rice, and an hour later I eat another bowl of fried rice, and maybe I
eat some rice with butter, and oh look, we're out of rice and I'm still
unsatisfied. On the other hand, I eat a bowl of full fat yogurt with a
little honey and some cinnamon, I have some turkish green beans and
an orange, and 6 hours later it's the clock reminding me to eat, not
my stomach.

In 1997, I did an experiment and lived for a week on $5. I ate a little
meat, a lot of beans, some less expensive vegetables, and rice. I don't
recall feeling particularly deprived, but it was just me back then. Most
of the week's vegetables did come from cans, as did the beans.

--
Elaine

The rich get richer by acting poor, and the poor get poorer by acting rich.

"Matthew" wrote in message
...

Stacey Bender wrote in message
...
Ignoramus2977 wrote:

Hm, I thought that you were comparing fast food vs. home cooked
food. If so, then your fast food, normally, would not have much
vegs
or fruits either. Your objection is logically fallacious.

I see you have narrowed the issue down to something you feel
comfortable
with. The point is the cost of eating a healthy diet of lean meat,
fruit, and veggies is expensive. So given the relative tradeoffs the
cost per calorie of FF is very attractive in the light of taste and
convenience.

You keep changing your argument and you have to in order to continue
arguing for what is essentially a non-tenable position. You are wrong
about fast food being cheap. You are wrong about fast food being
tasty. You are wrong about healthy food being too expensive for poor
people. You are wrong about healthy food being "icky." Basically the
only thing you've got right in this thread is that fast food is more
convenient than more healthy options. It's been a good troll, but I
think it's old now.

Matthew

I am sorry to say you are probably right.

I also noticed that Stacy has automatically pronounced a lot of vegetables
are "icky" not realizing that there are many ways to prepare them that would
change the flavors in amazing ways.

For instance, cabbage and its relatives are used almost universally all over
the world, and there as many ways of preparing it as there are cultures.
The chinese, the europeans, and just about every culture does something
different with the cabbage family, that you would almost not believe it was
the same vegetable! My local chinese buffet makes a mango coleslaw made
with coconut milk. It is ambrosial, not to mention there is also KimChee
along with all the other sauteed type dishes.

People who do not expose their children to a variety of vegetables, run the
risk that all they will like and eat are the meat and potatoes, bread and
french fries, or the occasional iceberg lettuce salad smothered in gooey
unhealthy dressings.

There is a wealth of variety in our supermarkets, and without trying
different things, you never learn to like anything new. Without variety in
ones diet, you condemn yourself to all the food based illnesses, like
diabetes, overweight etc.

I still say the problem is in lack of education.

--
Best Regards,
Evelyn

(to reply personally, remove 'sox')