Overweight people now outnumber the hungry

[deadparrot]

The number of overweight people in the world has overtaken the number of malnourished for the first time, with a billion people considered heavier than advised.

While almost one in six of the estimated world population of 6.5 billion is now overweight or obese, about 800 million people do not have enough to eat, an international conference in Australia was told yesterday.

"The reality is that globally far more obesity than under-nutrition exists," said Prof Barry Popkin, a nutritionist from the University of North Carolina.

As Prof Popkin said that the transition from a starving world to an obese one was accelerating, experts gathered at a meeting near Brisbane of the International Association of Agricultural Economists said the lead in the fight against expanding waistlines would have to be taken by governments.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/15/wfat15.xml

[China_cat]

1. Overweight does not necessarily mean

well nourished.

The poor are often overweight because of the calories and fat contents of the foods they CAN afford.

[melnjones]

4. exactly...

You can be overweight with tons of deficiencies (vitamin, mineral). In fact, it's common.

[SmokingJacket]

5. Exactly -- call it misnourished.

Boxes and boxes of cheap macaroni and cheese will make you fat, but not provide much in the way of vitamins and other nutrients.

[KittyWampus]

83. A bag of rice and a bag of lentils is very cheap and very nourishing

I know, having lived hand to mouth for a while.

Stop making excuses for people who willfully remain ignorant regarding what foods are healthy.

[ima_sinnic]

88. I have been eating lentils for the past 30 yrs as a staple

--at 79 cents for a pound they are especially "expensive" now--NOT
--they cook fast (about 1/2 hour) and taste great made into tacos (saute in some canola oil first with garlic and cumin) with cheese, salsa, chopped onion, and lettuce, guacamole or chopped avocado if desired -- very high in fiber, no saturated fat (except in the cheese and taco shells), loaded with vitamins/minerals -- I served these at a party back in the 70s and a vegetarian took one bite and had to get me to SWEAR that there was no meat in them, they tasted so meatlike to her.
I agree with you.

[bitchkitty]

151. Gotta jump in here -

Take a bag of lentejas, washed and picked over. Seed and chop some tomatoes, an onion and a clove or two of garlic - cook until tomatoes disintegrate. I eat then with a dollop of sour cream. YUM!!!

[Dervill Crow]

89. Mac'n'cheese is more of a comfort food.

Preparing healthy food is more time consuming than opening a box or a can, and that comes into play when people are working two jobs.

Just sayin'.

[KittyWampus]

111. Crock Pot- don't even have to be there.

:)

[PretzelzRule]

120. yes

my crockpot is a cherished friend...

[Dervill Crow]

121. Yep, I love my crockpot.

Between the crockpot and the bread machine you could have home cooking without being home. I don't like leaving things turned on when no one is home because I'm fearful of a fire and my dog being trapped inside, but not everyone is as neurotic as I am. :scared:

[sadiesworld]

161. It's probably not a good idea to leave a crockpot turned on

if, like many poor people, you live in an older rundown building which may have questionable electrical wiring. Of course, in the event of an electrical fire we could then denigrate the poor for making poor housing choices (or just for being stupid enough to leave the crockpot turned on).

[ananda]

8. Also..

.. many of the overweight are the poor who buy cheap foods loaded with
high fructose corn syrup and the wrong kinds of fats.

They are overloading with bad carbs.

However, I can't say that the rest of society isn't doing the same thing, just
that it's easier to stay thin and healthy if you have money and a safe place
to live.

Sue

[sui generis]

15. there are also cheap foods not loaded with corn syrup

and saturated fats.

Poverty has nothing to do with being overweight ("overmisundernourished") - that's a complete and utter myth and I'll go balls-to-tits with anyone who claims that being poor makes one overweight. Being depressed makes people smoke. Being rich makes people snort coke. Being short makes people **crap I got nothin'**:P. :shrug:

Americans are fat. Visit Hong Kong or Shanghai or the middle east, or south asia; it's embarrassing to come back to an American airport. Visit a walking city like NYC or San Fran and there are a lot fewer misoverundernourished people walking around, generally speaking.

There you go, I probably just got added to the no-fly list.

[LordLovesAWorkingMan]

18. you are right on

So right on. There are tribes of Indians in Mexico whose diet consists of corn, beans, and some indigenous plants, and they are among the healthiest people in the world. I don't guess they have too many plasma TVs, nor tongue-clucking chefs to prepare their meals a la Oprah.

In this country, though, where we are told we are worthless without having hands full of sugar and oil, it's way too easy to be poor and fat.

[zalinda]

25. There is more to the story

A tribe in New Mexico (I think)was having a HUGE outbreak of diabetes. Big obesity problem, and they had no idea why. Scientists went and and found out that the tribe had been eating like "normal" Americans and had been gaining weight. They also found that the tribe had a low metabolism rate. What they did was have some people go back to their native ways of eating, corn, beans and flat breads. They started to lose weight. It was processed food that was killing them.

And, I remember a program about a traveler going to Argentina, and living with the gauchos for a week. They basically ate bread and beef for every meal, with very few veggies or fruits, if any at all. These were not fat people.

zalinda

[LordLovesAWorkingMan]

28. The Pima Indians are a good study

Diabetes has ravaged these poor folks on the US side, whereas the Mexican Pima who have maintained their traditional diet have no such health issues.


Gee, thanks, Hostess Twinkies.

[slampoet]

34. Whenever my partner goes back to Mexico

where she grew up.


She returns having lost 20+ pounds, even the time that she was only gone 10 days!!

[Jed Dilligan]

19. Balls to tits

Generally the area of the greatest fat deposits.

But seriously, don't you recognize that these bad ingredients are in most of the packaged and prepared food, that people lack cooking skills (working mothers and cuts in non-college-track educational programs don't translate to kids learning to cook), and that the poorest neighborhoods are served only by fast food outlets and "grocery" stores that are really liquor stores?

[bunyip]

52. True.

And not just in the US.
:(

[TheFarseer]

165. Of course that's it

people don't know how to cook anymore. If you can saute vegetables and chicken and cook some rice, you are going to be way ahead of someone who goes to McDonalds or pops a frozen pizza in the oven but lots of people probably think they don't have time or it's too much work.

[Megahurtz]

36. I think you're right. n/t

[wickerwoman]

70. You're wrong.

I live in China. There’s a vegetable market on every other block and you can buy a week’s worth of fresh vegetables for about $2. They have an efficient public transportation system and dense public housing, which means most people live within an easy walk of a good grocery store. And “fast food” in China means noodles and veggies- you can buy them everywhere for a quarter of the price of a McDonald’s hamburger or KFC.

In most of America, if you don’t have a car (because you’re too poor to afford one), you’re screwed. My choices were to walk forty minutes each way to a grocery store with rotten bug infested broccoli for $4 a head or take a bus an hour each way. And if you’re really poor and living in a motel next to an interstate highway you probably don’t have a real kitchen (or even a burner) at “home”. Chinese construction workers living in trucks can still go to mobile outdoor cooking stops and get rice, vegetables and fish for about $1. Poor American workers are stuck with fast food and microwaveable crap.

Your post shows a profound ignorance of the situation of the working poor both in China and in America.

[sui generis]

73. well until the last sentence there

I was trying to figure out what the hell you were saying.

Now I know. Profound ignorance being that I don't agree that poor people in America are helpless to prevent becoming fat or that people in China would be fat if they didn't have to walk everywhere?

What's your point again?

Poor American workers can just as easily buy dried beans and onions and rice as any rich person, for the same amount. Choosing to go to a drive-through fast food place for a hamburger is done for convenience, not net worth. It is inconvenient to cook and prepare a meal regardless of your income bracket, and the ignorance here is presuming that anyone who has any money at all has a private chef and nutritionist apportioning out their dreadfully healthy meals for them. That's ignorance, and it appears to be yours. Sorry - you started, so I'll have to finish it.

For the most part, obese people in America are obese because they make poor eating choices, not because they are poor. Everyone expects a drive through fast food microwave instant meal for instant nutrition - it is not and has never been that way throughout human history. That's a recent unrealistic expectation, but the fact is that you can make the right choices even on a budget.

Nobody is making people on food stamps buy Coca Cola when they could as easily buy enough tea bags or even instant tea to make more than ten times the volume, AND control how much sugar they take in with their liquids. Nobody has EVER made the claim that anything that's not a food staple even remotely belongs in your grocery basket at the supermarket, regardless of your income.

I shop every week for my family - and 90 percent of what I get comes from the produce section. I don't buy soda, candy, cookies, chips, cakes, snacks, nothing. I do buy milk and yogurt and pick through the meat specials, avoid canned foods and package mixes, but I shop like a general store farmer more than a city slicker, and I can tell you I spend less at checkout than some people WITH food stamps are spending on orange soda, doritos, velveeta, microwave mac & cheese and fried chicken tv dinners. I buy fruit and veggies by the bag, go to farmer's markets, and when we do snack it's usually on a bowl of cherries or grapes, or whatever's in season.

Your post is judgemental and unreasonable. If you want something you have to work for it. If you want physical and nutritional health, for the most part, you have to work for it regardless of your income. People expect instant nutrition - there is no such thing.

Everyone burns calories at the same rate, and everyone stores calories more or less at the same rate, with tiny nods to metabolism here and there that again have nothing to do with income.

For the record, we are primarily speaking of American obesity, not subsistence level poverty in Somalia (or China). For the most part, we are fat because we make ourselves fat. Nobody else is doing it to us. Nobody else is to blame.

[Scout]

77. you've just revealed how ignorant you really are...

Everyone burns calories at the same rate, and everyone stores calories more or less at the same rate, with tiny nods to metabolism here and there that again have nothing to do with income.

uh huh, yeah sure, if you believe that I have some property to sell you...

[sui generis]

78. revealed?

I wasn't hiding anything. Please make a case, not an assertion, or risk sounding like an idiot.

Catabolic and metabolic processes are very well understood, down to the molecule of the ATP cycle.

I don't believe you have anything but lard to sell me.

[Megahurtz]

84. Lol!

:D

[wickerwoman]

126. Have you ever worked an 80 hour week?

I have. I remember coming home from 16 hour shifts (which were really 18 hour shifts when you added commuting time) and being too tired to watch television. I would stare at the wall until I fell asleep. And I didn't have children. I did laundry recreationally. As I said before, the nearest grocery store was a forty minute walk each way. Factor in shopping time and each trip to the store was four hours. When you're getting four or five hours sleep a night, that's four hours that ain't gonna happen week after week after week. And the food at that store was filthy. I found spiders and caterpillars in the vegetables. I picked up a package of fish once and my hand touched a cockroach. I picked up a jar of peanut butter and saw, perfectly defined in the dust on the lid, a trail of rat tracks. Who is going to put up with that shit when they can get a hoagie from the deli or a $7 pizza? It's bully for you that you're in a situation where you can buy reasonably sanitary produce and get it home. Not everybody is in that situation. And a little more humility would be a lot more flattering on you.

You implied that Asians are thin because they are hard-working and cook for themselves and Americans are fat because they are lazy and addicted to convenienve. I think you're dead wrong. As I said before, Chinese people, no matter where they live, have quick and easy access to vegetables. I'll bet the average Chinese person eats fast food twice as often as Americans do. It's just that their fast food happens to be healthier than ours. And most Chinese companies provide two nutritionally balanced meals for free every work day so they only really have to worry about breakfast on work days. If American companies offered free nutrionally balanced cooked meals for their workers what do you think would happen to obesity rates in America?

I gained 50 pounds when I was poor and working 80 hours a week. I lost 50 pounds without dieting as soon as I got a middle-class income. What was that again about no link between income and weight?

[heliarc]

128. This discussion is interesting ...

I wrote a twenty page diatribe about this but decided not to post. Seems everyone here is trying to blame obesity on one thing across very wide cultural divides. I imagine the problem is different every where you go. I frankly didn't see much obesity in Hong Kong while I was living there. Didn't see much in Spain while living there. Didn't see much in Sasebo or Tokyo either. Where I see obesity is in LA, Miami, and Philadelphia.

Order of Obesity from most obese to least (my own lame observations): Miami, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Cambrils,Spain Sasebo, Japan, Tokyo, Japan.

Not sure what I'm trying to say by that except that every where I go I seem to see different reasons why people are or are not obese. In Spain I think the thin bug has something to do with the amount of time people spend smoking, sleeping and drinking coffee and dancing in clubs (all ages). In Los Angeles I think it has a lot to do with class and race. In Japan, I think the lack of obesity has something to do with the cost of living, and walking everywhere + Smoking... Hong Kong's a little fattier because of the amount of Pork, Beef, noodles and viscous fatty sauces in their diets.

So, to little old unscientific me it seems like a whole myriad of reasons can contribute to obesity and no one reason has a monopoly on the others. My two cents. I'm gonna get flamed I know it.

[loyalsister]

132. Poor people don't eat much fast food

They can't afford it!
What they do eat is food offered by a local food bank. Ever been to one?
Ours is full of junk food. Macaroni and cheese, frozen foods, and lots of candy. Because they get stuff that stores easily and despite expiration will be edible.

[phylny]

158. Two poor families that I worked with ate fast food all the time.

They were out at Taco Bell or McDonalds many times per week. They did not live near any grocery story (only a small convenience store), they did not have transportation, and they were, unfortunately, not well educated.

The grandmother and mother were very overweight. Kids not so much. Yet.

PS, I'm overweight, and it's because I do not exercise and I eat too much.

[skids]

142. If I only could K&R a comment. n/t

[Blue_State_Elitist]

82. There is a major obesity problem

in poor areas of New York city because often the poor turn to low cost fast food. I worked at an organization to fight hunger in Upper Manhattan where this was our main issue.

[Matariki]

90. what did your organization do?

How did you deal with that issue? do you disagree that there are low cost foods that are healthy? is stuff like rice and beans really not available in those areas you worked, or did people just not want to eat them?

(these are sincere questions to you as someone who has first-hand knowledge of the situation, not a challenge or arguement with your post.)

[sui generis]

106. but do they "turn to" it out of convenience or because they have

no other choice? I think there are very very few people who truly have no other choice but to buy junk food instead of real staples. Some of that is clearly education, and not the cost of food.

I'm not trying to be contrarian and say that I believe all people have the same food purchasing choices, or even the same values and education about what to buy and how to prepare a healthy meal, but to just throw hands in air and say low income is a direct cause of obesity is factually incorrect. "For the most part" I would say that poor purchasing and nutritional choices result in obesity regardless of income.

And face it, diet alone controls nothing, and weight/girth alone are not an accurate indicator of physical health. It's just that I think people throw in the towel at the slightest excuse and worse, make absurd claims that people who aren't living at the poverty level have an advantage in the weight department, which makes anyone who disagrees "insensitive" at best. A box of tea bags can make 25 gallons of tea for $2.00 bucks, yet people claim that one of their dietary "staples" is soda, and then they buy the Sam's gazillion-pack of Dr. Pepper and complain that brocolli is too expensive.

Heh, I used to live at St. Nicholas & Amsterdam, then at Sickles when I was a starving student in Manhattan, before finally Movin' On Down, To the West Side, To a Dee Lux Brownstone, In the Sky-hihghghghghgh. :P

[IronLionZion]

10. In America and the western world

healthy food is more expensive and less accessible than junk food. Affordable garbage can be found in any corner store and fast food restaurant anywhere in the US.

That's largely why in America, lower income Americans tend to be fatter than the higher income Americans.

[KurtNYC]

12. I think there is more to that

There is greater pressure on the middle and upper class to be thin. And they have greater resources to achieve that. And there is discrimination against larger people in the work place which may deny them income.

Obesity also correlates strongly with church attendance. Some have theorized that there are few comforts affordable to those of lower income. But 2 comforts they can afford are church and food.

[slampoet]

17. I've got a great example!

I'm relatively poor but employed. I try to shop at discount groceries but I can't find produce that lasts more than a day and doesn't have bugs. So i have tried shopping at the farmer's market near my house in Rhode Island. Damn it is expensive and the bread i buy there gets bugs 2 days after I bring it home (without removing it from the airtight packaging!!! ew!!)

However! If i simply drive 40 miles to the north and go to Worcester, MA i can get all sorts of wonderful organic and CHEAP produce and other foods.

I did an experiment. I priced food at the local regular and discount grocery chain in RI. Priced it out at the farmer's market in RI. And then I went up to Worcester and bought the same things.

The result? Grocery chain - $38
Discount Chain - about $30 but there really weren't enough fresh items available to compare.
Farmer's Market - $45
Worcester Produce stand - $16

If anybody thinks that it is just a matter of Worcester being closer to the farms also know that Seafood and Fish are also cheaper in landlocked Worcester, MA than in Rhode Island.

And again remember that Worcester is only 40 miles away!! The fact is that certain areas are dead zones for decent food. If you don't have a car then you have no chance of getting access to good quality food.

[Megahurtz]

39. But the trick is not to

literally gorge oneself with that affordable garbage! :think:

[Matariki]

42. beans and rice are healthy and cheap

seasonal vegetables are cheap. see the above posts about native diets.

it's just FASTER and EASIER to get a burger at mcdonalds than to make a pot of beans and rice and some fried onions and greens.

[Megahurtz]

44. Yeah I think people have become really lazy. n/t

[Matariki]

47. god knows i am ;-)

[heliarc]

129. Yeah...

But eat them in the quantities that you see people eat them in Miami Cuban restaurants with the amount of butter they melt over them. You've got a fatty meal for sure. Anything's healthy to a point.

[alarimer]

136. Who has the time and money to buy fresh vegetables

every day? I know I don't have the time to shop every day. So I only have fresh fruits and vegetables a few days a month at best (but frozen ones are good substitute- forget canned, yuck!). It isn't that fruits and vegetables are so expensive; it's that they spoil fairly quickly, which makes them relatively more expensive. I throw more bananas away than I atually eat sometimes because they ripen so fast here and I find them disgusting when they get too soft. But that's just me.

I suspect that if I were having to work 80 hours a week, I would not be working out at all and I would have no time to prepare a good meal. At best I would open a can of something or microwave some premade dinner.

So I can't blame people for being obese. Mostly it is beyond their control, especially if they are poor and working inhumane hours.

[BenDavid]

24. I do agree with your

statement. Poorer people have a greater tendency to eat those foods that are high and I mean HIGH in saturated fat, and trans fatty acids.You too can see this too in middle class and high income folks as well. I could write a book about calories & diet and am quite sure that all members of DU could write one as well. I do recall a segment of ALL IN THE FAMILY when Archie was trying to lose weight and he told Gloria, " why is it that every time a lab mice dies, we lose something else good to eat." My only suggestion would be for folks to have 3 to 4 servings a day of fruit. 3 to 4 servings of good veggies, and if you really want too have more energy then make yourself a good protein smoothie. 2 scoops of whey protein powder, one cup of strawberries, stevia plus or spleenda to taste for sweetness, and 1/2 cup of water...Blend it well and sit in the freezer and before you go to bed place in the refrig. and tomorow morning drink the whole thing, and see if you have a better morning.....

[LeftyMom]

97. The whey is a bad idea

It's a potent allergen, expensive, and most Americans get too damned much protein and are doing a number on thier kidneys already.

A few cents worth of beans at lunch or some whole wheat toast at breakfast would be a healthier choice as par as protein sources go. The last thing people need to do is eat more processed, isolated, concentrated fake food.

For that matter, strawberries (when in season and ripe) are quite sweet and no added sweetner should be needed. Slicing them (or whatever fruit is in season) up over some oatmeal would be a very cheap and healthy breakfast that would provide quite a bit of nutrition and energy for the day.

[Centered]

33. Agree

you know it really says alot when a bottle of water is more expensive than a can of soda.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

107. That's because of the government subsidies to put HFCS into

everything.

[Spider Jerusalem]

140. And price supports that keep sugar 5-7¢/lb higher in the US..

than the actual price on world markets, coupled with tariffs and quotas on importation of cane and beet sugar from outside the US. Which is as much a result of the political influence of the US sugar industry working to keep their profits up as it is of the influence of the corn industry.

[Skittles]

40. very true

I am shocked at how much fresh fruit costs :o

[China_cat]

41. And it's not even GOOD fresh fruit

if you buy it at the grocery store, it's been picked before it ripened and brought to look like ripe fruit with chemicals.

We buy at the farmer's market but SC doesn't give you much variety in home grown. Strawberries (and the best ones are the pick yourself), peaches and kiwi locally. Same price or a bit more than the grocery but the taste and texture are worth it.

[JerseygirlCT]

118. Yes, it is possible to be obese AND malnourished. nt

[Mr. Mojo Risin]

2. Am I mistaken or....................

is there an obvious solution to both issues.

Obesity / Malnourishment

[slackmaster]

6. Do you have some kind of, er, modest proposal?

:D

[MissB]

87. bwahahahahaha

[KurtNYC]

11. That reminds me of the line

"If only Mamma Cass had shared some of that sandwich with Karen Carpenter." (my intent in citing that is the irony; NOT an attempt at humor. ) But the world isn't that simple.

Most of the undernourished are in war torn areas. Food has never been cheaper or more plentiful in the history of the world. The answer for undernourishment is peace and stability.

[krispos42]

20. Feed the fat to the starving, Kill 2 birds with one stone...

:rofl:

Or am I the only one who saw The Daily Shows's report on 'hufu'?

Of course, I'm fat myself, so I could be in trouble...


http://www.eathufu.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hufu
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/samantha_bee/index.jhtml

To see the Comedy Central video, scroll down to the bottom and click on "Flesh in the Pan"

edit:
awww, man, the eathufu link is dead! I wanted to nosh a little...

[neoblues]

127. Ah, Soylent Green with a high fat content...

What was the orgininal off-colour joke/phrase...? "feed the homelss to the hungry?" --Republican solution to homelessness and hunger.

[rock]

3. So the malnourished are disappearing and

the survivors are getting fatter. Hmm. Is this a cause and effect?

[kurth]

7. Calorie dense foods are cheaper in the U.S.

than veggies and fruits.

[heliarc]

130. This may be true...

Depends I think... I go to a produce market that is DIRT cheap because it doesn't worry about Grade A... so it stocks veggies with blemishes rather than letting that stuff go to waste.

But I think that part of the problem is that fresh veggies are more difficult to package, and prepare. There's a box and container culture out there that makes it easier to use "instant" everything. Or at least they try to sell you that nonsense, and for people working a 70 hour week it may actually be worth it to avoid wandering around the vegetable section bagging and selecting veggies that they are going to have to trim, chop, boil, then clean up after. Why not just grab a frozen whatsit and throw it in the microwave?

[kenny blankenship]

9. Give us your tired, your poor, your hungry huddled masses...

...and we'll eat 'em.

GET IN MY BEL-LEIGH !!!

[MrPrax]

13. ROFL

Oh my....

Once upon a time it was the posters providing the laughs -- now it's the headlines itself.

Yes yes...Can't 'weigh' for the next researcher to conclude that with all those 'fat' people being located on one side of the world, the planet might go off balance...

It's science!!!

:rofl:

[AngryAmish]

14. By any reasonable standard this is good news

It is popular to be concerned and see trouble around every item in the news. But let this news sink in. For the first time our kind left the trees more people are in danger of getting ill from too much food then getting ill from too little food.

Hunger is disappearing from our planet. There is famine, true. But only in the most ill-run and destitute places on earth.

This is the happiest news I have heard ion a long time.

[kurth]

16. Yep. Death by famine is very slow and extremely painful

[krispos42]

22. It is truly a unique period in history

There has never been a time where so many have so much to eat. Historically fatness was a sign of prosperity, of connection and wealth.

It does serve to highlight (and underline, and boldface) the difference between wealthy and poor countries, the contrast between the land of plenty and the land of poverty.

Unfortunately, now we have to fight thousands of generations of instincts regarding food storage in our bodies. Our instincts say "eat as much as you can before the next famine!!!!", and that is now killing us, as Bill Mahr notes in "When you Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden". And it probably isn't helping our image in the world. Not hurting it much, perhaps, but not helping any.

Well, with any luck Bush will cause a worldwide economic collapse due to the inability of the US to pay 9 trillion dollars in bonded national debt. Then it will be every man for himself as the agriculture and financial systems collapse. I don't know what the people in New York City or Los Angeles will eat when there's no food to ship to them. Pigeons, I guess.

Good thing I live in a farm state. Mmmmmmm.... corn, pheasant, and venison.

[Posteritatis]

27. ... I hadn't thought of it that way

Thanks for the different perspective; I'm gonna have to chew on that (pardon the pun) for awhile.

[Matariki]

49. I'm glad someone said this!

yes! it's good news, not bad.

it's funny how negative we can get here - in fact i'm surprised someone hasn't blame bush* for people getting fatter :evilgrin:

[Dervill Crow]

123. Lots of people do tend to eat when they are angry.

OTOH, * = Ipecac. It probably balances out.

:puke:

[Barrett808]

133. I fear this isn't the good news it might appear to be at first glance

I don't think it's correct to interpret this as "people are eating too much food" -- they're eating too much of the wrong kinds of food. More than anything, this study suggests to me the results of mass-marketing Coke and Pepsi.

To my mind, the worst news in this study is that more people will demand more food than the planet can sustain. More rainforests will be felled to feed the demand, more ocean fisheries will be fished out, and more petrochemical agriculture will displace and poison what remains of the natural world.

So the problem now isn't just overpopulation; it's overpopulation with exaggerated and misnourished appetities.

Not good news.

[FlaGranny]

21. Many overweight people

are malnourished. Just because they're heavy does not mean they're getting all the vitamins and minerals, proteins and stuff that make you healthy. It's just not the case.

Edit: I'm just saying one does not exclude the other.

[zbdent]

23. Well, at least we know,

we'll eat well, if things go really bad ...

Mmmmm, soylent green ....

[calico1]

26. A lot of overweight people are actually

malnourished because they got that way eating poor quality foods and not much in the way of fruits, veggies, fiber, etc. Those tend to be missing from the diet.

[acmavm]

29. Let me describe how it goes for some people in this country:

You're near the end of the month, got a week or so to go and only a few bucks. So what does one do, especially if they have a family?

You buy in bulk what will get you through, you don't buy expensive fresh vegetables and fruit. In fact with a package of frozen corn going for $2.00 a pack now, you don't buy much frozen either. Back in the day it was expensive as well. You get the 3 for whatever canned crap that's on sale. Very few nutrients, but it is a vegetable.

Canned fruit is pretty much out of the question. When I was young it was semi-affordable. Two bucks for a can of fruit cocktail now makes it a luxury item or a special treat if your food money doesn't stretch as far as you need it to. But

You buy tons of potatoes, bread and pancake mix. Oh yes, a bag of sugar to go with with that bread and pancake mix. One part water and two parts sugar makes simple syrup.

If you can find a sale on some ground beef, snap it up. But that shit is expensive now, not 3 lbs for a dollar like the days I'm describing (and are still a reality for thousands of Americans today).

You eat fried potatoes and pancakes and french toast constantly. If you did get some meat, you cream it and put it on mashed potatoes. Hell, maybe you hit the jackpot and prefab mac and cheese was on sale three for a dollar. So you can pad out the menu with that. Gives a little variety.

Now, hopefully there aren't little kids. Because milk has to stretch for cooking and if there are kids, it really needs to stretch. So what you do is buy that horrific dry milk and then start diluting what whole milk you buy. It's disgusting at first but you get used to it. And in mac and cheese, no one can tell.

Little Debbies is a big item with the poor. A box of brownies or cakes is just over a dollar. If you've got kids, they really think they've hit the lottery if you got some of those things for a snack.

Toast is not only breakfast, it's snacks too. Ick, Milk toast, toast and jelly (if you have jelly), buttered toast (a misnomer because it's almost always margarine). Turns my stomach as I type.

There are a few more items in the pantry (if you're lucky) but the cost of food items goes up constantly. And amazingly enough, even though the cost goes up and the can (or box or whatever) size stays the same, you get less. Look at the front of the can (or the box or whatever).

This is a way of life for some people folks. Reading some of the arrogant shit replies to this article where the poster says the main cause of obesity can be attributed to a poor understanding about nutrition and what is good for people to eat is really screwed up. Screwed up, arrogant, and shows a boatload of ignorance.

EDIT: I'm not saying poverty is the BIGGEST reason for obesity, but it is one of the largest factors. There isn't a city in the country where hunger and poverty aren't on the increase. And there's not a food pantry in the country that hasn't seen its donations drop like a rock.

You know the one of the biggest donations to the pantries? Bread and other bakery products.

[slampoet]

30. Excellent post!!

That is how I used to live before I started making just a little more and now have the transitional delema that I detailed in post #17.

I understand nutrition (trained chef) and still had to eat like that when I wasn't copping free food from my kitchen jobs.

Once I stopped working kitchen-oriented jobs, one of the promises that i made to my partner was to start to eat better things even if we felt hungry and didn't pay a few bills. (she still can't even look at that frozen ground turkey in a tube)

Unfortunatly we will loose that battle as soon as the car breaks down or gas gets so high that we can't drive 40 miles to Worcester to grocery shop.

[zalinda]

31. And remember

fruits and veggies whiz right through you. Who hasn't heard of being hungry an hour after eating a Chinese meal. Those products that are high in fat, stay in the stomach longer so you don't get hungry faster.

Also, working 2 jobs does not make you want to make a meal from scratch. Boxed mac and cheese, hot dogs and a can of green beans, makes a satisfying, quick meal for many families.

zalinda

[acmavm]

32. Very true.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

109. Your body gets used to it.

Many people feel hungry after switching to a vegetarian diet, but your body quickly adapts. Soon you can eat a lighter meal like Chinese food without being hungry an hour afterwards. Most people ingest way too much refined carbs, meat, and fat. After starting to eat healthier, your body will feel satiated without having to fill it up with shit like hot dogs.

[China_cat]

37. All of what you've said

and then add a single mom working full time (or 2 or 3 part time jobs) then coming home only to realize that there's still cleaning, laundry, homework supervision, possibly a PTA meeting, and actually trying to spend some time with the kids. Only to find the kids hungry and the constant whine of 'when's dinner, I'm staaaaaaaaaaaaarved'.

Easier and quicker to haul out the mac and cheese and hope to give yourself a few extra minutes to maybe take a bathroom break.


(Been there, done it and wouldn't wish in anyone other than a Republican politician who's trying to tell me how good I have it since I have a job.)

[Matariki]

43. your understanding of nutrition isn't so great

all the things you've described could be substituted for nutritious food for probably less money. believe me, i've been there. i've had to make $10 last for a week's worth of groceries, and not in the distant past either. rice and beans (not canned) are very cheap and much more nutritious than potatoes and pancake mix and sugar. i get a huge block of tofu for $1.60 and freeze half of it. lots and lots of onions, they're super healthy. a whole chicken on sale for $3-$4 can last the entire week, down to the bones for soup. hell, there's been times when i've gone out and got dandelion or plantain leaves and clover flowers for salads.

all this requires a little bit more cooking and preparation than canned or frozen or fast food, but it's all healthier than 'little debby' cakes or whatever.

[zalinda]

45. It also means knowing how to cook

I make huge pots of vegetable soup, when the veggie prices are right. I freeze the soup and then can add other things to it when I thaw it out like potatoes, rice or pasta. I sometimes add meat, sometimes not. I also cook beans in my crockpot overnight, and then make either chili or soup or something else with it and freeze some up for later.

Yes, there are ways to eat better, but tofu is one of the things that poor people probably would not touch. If fact, I haven't used it because I don't know enough about making it taste good. Again, you have to remember, it's feeling like your stomach is full and staying full. This is one of the reasons most eat fried chicken rather that baked chicken, fat stays with you longer.

When you are used to only seeing poor, seeing anything else is very difficult.

zalinda

[Matariki]

46. 'poor' people all over the world eat tofu and soy

just not americans. sometimes it seems we americans seem to believe we're owed convenience.

[Lisa]

48. in the 1970s, I was the only kid in my class who'd eaten tofu

My family was one of the few Asian households in our neighborhood. Our school district included both wealthy and working-class areas -- some Italian and Eastern European families, but most of the kids were from British or northern European stock (their ancestors had arrived anytime between the mid-1800s to the postwar era). The Italian kids were used to different kinds of greens, but most families only had the loathed "boiled sprouts" and such.

I remember bringing tofu and other Japanese foods as a "show and tell" item one day. People were amazed! (Our local grocery store didn't stock tofu until just after "Shogun" premiered on TV, and they didn't refrigerate it ... after it started to stink, they tossed it, and didn't try again until the late 1990s.)

[Matariki]

50. yeah, i'm lucky to live on the west coast

i can get fresh tofu, made locally, for really cheap.

[Lisa]

100. we're really spoiled out here!

My folks received a "make your own tofu" kit from relatives in Japan, and they were relieved because it saved them a long drive to Toronto to stock up. I moved here in the 1990s, and have noticed not just a wide variety of locally-grown Asian vegetables in not just the Chinese-owned but also the mainstream grocery stores. Plus, organic produce is widely available (and not just at the seasonal farmer's markets).

When I went back home to see my folks, I was actually a bit shocked by how drab the food selection was. My hometown was recently cited by Health Canada as having a major obesity problem, and I don't think that it's a coincidence, that it's also the place where Tim Horton's donuts got its start! The Italian-run grocer had some nice fresh produce, and so did the farmer's market, but even though my hometown is bigger than where I live now (and barely half an hour from some of the richest farmland in Ontario), a lot of stores were rather disappointing. My mom gets bulk grains and beans at a local health-food co-op, but this is not how the majority of people around town eat. Many of the people I went through high school with are still rather conservative about their meals ... even those with college degrees were wary of "funny" Asian dishes, or even of tomatoes which were a color other than red! I could not get two of my friends to try the sushi I'd just made (even though one is an epidemiologist and the other has a background in early childhood education, including nutritional training). They apologized profusely, because they didn't want to hurt my feelings, but they literally could not bring themselves to eat "raw fish" (actually it was smoked salmon), even once they'd unwrapped and discarded the seaweed -- which is packed with nutrients and quite savory.

The kids with Italian, Portugese, East Indian, Asian, or Mennonite background tended to have a healthier mix of foods. But a lot of people were still eating stuff right out of the 1950s (fried or over-boiled), with modern junk food (chips, Big Gulps, etc.) mixed in.

What you said earlier -- I agree that a lot of people just don't have information on how to cook -- and aren't being encouraged to do so. There are a lot of direct and indirect social factors (including but not limited to poverty) which are probably playing a role. For example, my home-ec class in an underfunded school with makeshift cooking facilities, was dismal -- with an emphasis on recipes like pork chops in mushroom-soup sauce, and NOTHING on reading labels or doing meals from scratch. In my blue-collar town, cooking was viewed as "women's work", and guys were actually proud of not knowing their way around the kitchen. (An interest in cooking, as in art, music, and books, was seen as "too gay".) I think it makes a difference if there's already a cultural interest in food, since the guys from Mediterranean backgrounds were just as macho, but expressed more interest in learning how to cook their favorite foods. The last time I saw our high-school president and athletic star, he was behind his family's booth at the downtown market, doling out "the best Italian mozzarella" and questioning the freshness of the rapini offered by the guy opposite!

My mom was a public health nurse, and reported that she was seeing an inordinate number of old widowed (or never married) males who did not even know how to make tea, because "the wife always took care of it". Both my folks were alive during the Depression, and their families survived by eating garden and wild-picked vegetables (and knowing how to "stretch" a pot roast or chicken with rice, beans, etc.) -- but that generation is rapidly dwindling, and it's understandable that people born afterwards would not have been as interested in how life was like back then. Practically our whole society has been fed this story about how prosperous our society is now ... how convenient everything is, including the food ... and "home cooking" is a disagreeable chore done in the olden days. As other posters have pointed out, having a "hippie", "farming hick", or "ethnic" background (and being proud enough to assert it even when derided) can actually be an advantage when it comes to accepting a wider variety of foods (many of them cheaper and more nutritious than the mainstream North America diet). It's interesting to compare early 20th century textbooks with the types of meals nutritionists advocate today. Even Fanny Farmer was short on things like broccoli (not accepted until well into the 20th century, possibly due to the growing influence of Italian cooking). Believe it or not, there was a time when salads and even pasta were viewed as either too posh or too ethnic for most households.

p.s. one summer I worked up north, and the cook at our camp was "old school". He became quite indignant when some of us suggested rice as a substitute for the endless potatoes and gravy (he strode around the kitchen wearing logging boots, grumbling about "damned southern kids"). When he finally did make rice, he insisted on adding large dollops of butter to it. (It's quite possible to cook rice without oil or butter, and not have it stick to the pot ... as I learned from my Japanese parents.) I've since learned that his starch and fat/laden recipes were pretty representative of a lot of cooking in isolated parts of Canada, even today. There are certainly locations where getting store-bought vegetables can be difficult (and expensive), even if you go with frozen or canned. That's where supplementing groceries with "country foods" you hunt or pick yourself in the wild can be crucial not just for nutrition, but affordability. One reason why the Inuit and northern Indians are so concerned about being able to maintain access to their traditional lands.

[Scout]

55. are you always so rude and arrogant? n/t

[Matariki]

57. just when people whine about what should be good & welcome news

how does the topic of less people starving in the world end up in a diatribe about how poor people can only afford to be fat?

[slampoet]

63. Funny how the arrogant people who propose tofu...

... and cabbage and beans are the first to move away from me when I fart.

[Matariki]

65. we're rotten that way ;-)

[Megahurtz]

86. Sounds like you have a shitty diet.

:silly:

[tabasco]

60. The post was not rude or arrogant at all.

Merely a counterpoint, and a good one, to another post.

[sui generis]

79. mirror mirror, on the wall /nt

[tabasco]

59. Thank goodness for beans.

I have been poor and lived on beans and rice and bullion cubes and hot sauce.

Even when I'm not poor I eat the heck out of some beans.

For some reason I didn't eat a lot of potatos when I was poor.

I just didn't think about it. If I did, I probably would have eaten a lot of them (because they do go a long way). :shrug:

I'm not really poor now and still shop at the bent can store most of the time. Some people would not be seen there because someone might think they are poor. I have a lawyer friend who does well and shops there too.

[slampoet]

62. yes but,

beans need to soak overnight and if you soak them for two days by mistake they make your kitchen smell like hell.

Not really good for a whole family especially growing kids.

Soaking beans overnight and cooking decent rice for 40 minutes isn't just a little additional cooking.
It's more than quintuple of the prep time.

[tabasco]

64. Beans are an exceptionally nutritous food.

You can quick soak them for an hour and then cook them.

High in protein, fiber, and vitamins. Sounds pretty damn good for growing kids to me.

[MUSTANG_2004]

80. Not prep time

You're mixing "prep" time with "cook" time. The amount of prep time:

Rice:
2 minutes to measure and pour rice and water into a steamer. Then let the steamer do the rest of the work for 40 minutes.

Beans:
5 minutes to put it in the crock pot with cold water to let it soak over night.
5 minutes in the morning to drain the water, refill it, and let it cook all day.

Neither food takes long at all. And it costs literally pennies for a very healthy meal.

[KittyWampus]

85. lentils do NOT need to soak overnight... and there are such things as

crockpots... easily found in garage sales.

[ima_sinnic]

92. lentils cook in 30-40 minutes with no soaking (nt)

[Dervill Crow]

124. Beano is pretty expensive, though. n/t

[Dervill Crow]

94. And the kids are going to do that cooking while you're working?

It's not just the money, it's the time.

[Matariki]

96. what, so you have to wait an extra 10 or 15 minutes while that rice boils?

big deal. how is that harder than mac and cheese?

[Dervill Crow]

122. Most kids would make Minute Rice and dump mushroom soup on it.

Might as well have the mac'n'cheese.

Every once in a while we will have a "kid food" night. Hamburger gravy and mashed potatoes. Personally, I would rather have brown rice and red beans.

[jpgray]

51. Total copout. Rice and cabbage are cheap as hell, and easy to make

How many obese rural North Koreans do you see? Roughly zero. It's not easy to eat well, but it's not outrageously unaffordable either. A giant econo-box of condensed rice is going to be waaay cheaper than the caloric equivalent in mac&cheese, Little Debbie or what have you.

[AngryAmish]

68. Then why are North Koreans so tiny?

Averaging 3-5 inches shorter than S. Koreans. Lack of fat and protein. People say kids are too fat in America also ignore that they are bigger than ever. Fat and protein plus tons of other calories (and lack of childhood diseases) make big people.

[Matariki]

69. because south koreans often don't get even one meal a day

and food is rationed there.

[nodehopper]

153. you mean north koreans, right?

[Matariki]

157. yeah. sorry.

[Megahurtz]

91. I've seen plenty of People in the U.S. that

are fat and short. They're getting plenty of fat and protein! :shrug:

[Beausoir]

53. Good post. Seems people just can't see past the ignorance about obesity.

Fat haters have unrelenting and ill-informed misconceptions about obesity.

I will add to your post that the majority of poor people do not have reliable transportation to get to a decent grocery store. All this talk about fresh tofu and vegetables sounds good, but those items are NOT readily available in some poorer urban areas and if you don't have transportation, you do your grocery shopping at the nearest convenience store.

[Matariki]

54. bullshit

i've lived in urban areas without a car and i could always get rice and beans and vegetables - sure, the best vegetables usually don't end up downtown, but still vegetables. i've eaten plenty of onions and cabbage in my day and i'm probably healthier for it. Tofu isn't the point, it's what happens to be cheap and available in the city i live because there's a large asian population. I'm sure you can get (for instance) a whole chicken, which is inexpensive and goes a long way.

all this talk about poor nutrition being unavoidable, as if it were something someone else does to you, is a misconception. as if people have no control over what they eat, as if people are the poor victims of some evil outside 'other', as if urban grocery stores only sell twinkies and diet coke. hell, i've known people who eat more healthy diets than that from what they get at the food-bank.

So how do you get from the point that a simple diet of unprocessed food is cheaper and healthier, to the idea that "fat haters have unrelenting and ill-informed misconceptions about obesity"?

[Beausoir]

58. Are you actually suggesting that fresh produce is readily available in

poor neighborhoods?

Because if you are, I'd like to see your idea of a poor neighborhood.

Limited transportation is a huge factor in whether people have access to quality food. If you can't accept that fact, there is nothing you have to say that I am interested in.

Walk a mile in someone's shoes before you start blasting the poor for their limited food sources.

[Matariki]

61. i don't know what every city is like

first off, i apologize for replying to your post with 'bullshit'. I'm getting a little unnecessarily testy. The number of people that can find bad news in anything seems to be increasing on this board. I'd think that a world where more people are overweight than starving should be welcome news. I also think that we Americans have a pretty bad diet out of habit and laziness than out of necessity. I've also noticed that when the discussion of obesity comes up, a lot of arguments break out over what amounts to the issue of personal responsibility.

i've lived in some pretty poor neighborhoods in seattle and philadelphia, doing the 'starving artist' thing. i've been able to eat a simple but healthy diet in those places on very little money. I know that what you're saying is correct about a lack of decent fresh food in poor neighborhoods - but in all but a few neighborhoods you should be able to find *some* vegetables - onions, carrots, cabbage, something? Happily, there are people who are getting pro-active to try and remedy that problem, grassroots programs to get local produce into inner-city stores at decent prices. Here's one example for what it may be worth to you: http://www.thefoodtrust.org/php/programs/super.market.campaign.php

Anyway, the scope of this discussion isn't really limited to the poorest inner-city neighborhoods where there is only a convenience store nearby. That's fortunately still the exception. I personally don't think the bulk of the problem is so much one of poverty - it's just that most people would *rather* have a McDonald's hamburger over a bowl of rice and beans, even though the rice and beans are cheaper and healthier. And really it's not because the burger tastes better in some objective reality, but we've trained our bodies to crave sugars and fats, so we'll pick that over other choices. And, by the looks of it, argue til we're blue that it's the only choice we have.

[slampoet]

66. How quaint and fashionable that you had a Choice.

[Name removed]

67. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[acmavm]

71. I didn't get a chance to look back at this thread until this morning

so I missed all the arrogant drivel that you posted. In you feeling of supreme self importance you mistated a number of facts.

One, poor people and people who are transportation challenged DO HAVE A HARD time getting to a grocery store. In fact, I went for three years without a car. I just got one two weeks ago. I had to rely on a ride to the store because the little corner store we had in this neighborhood for years got run out of business by the big chain stores about the same time I started depending on buses. The only problem was that the big stores were too damn far to walk to. So even though I could pay for groceries, I had to wait to go when I could get someone to take me. I didn't have the luxury of being able to get to the store whenever I wanted or in some cases needed. I relied on Quik Shops oftentimes.

Second, the pathetic screed that the cure all is tofu. We should be eating tofu. You can eat all the tofu you like. Or maybe it was the other smarmy poster who came up with this crap. But this post about

<snip>
how's the victim thing working out for you? it must be comforting at least to know that whatever problems you may have are someone else's fault, huh?
<snip>

shows what an empty and miserable person you have to be. Do you derive some kind of pleasure from your arrogant pronouncements that are, I guess, supposed to make everyone believe you know everything there is to know about life and how life's situation's may affect other people and how they are supposed to be handled? Are you really lacking in the intelligence department so badly that you think that anyone was really blaming SOMEONE ELSE for these problems? The 'blame' is being put on poverty, not another person. (I guess though if there is anyone that can be 'blamed' for anything it's arrogant asses who don't care that some people have to live the way I described.)

How come you're just posting on DU? Why aren't all the world political and religious leaders beating on your door begging you, in your infinite wisdom, to come to the rescue of the world and make your mighty pronouncements and solve all our problems? Seems to me you're wasting your talents.

[Matariki]

81. looks like i pushed your buttons too

if you read my post, you'll realize that *tofu* was not the point. the point was blaming other people for the food choices you make. i was relating how i dealt with the problem of having $10 to $20 a week for groceries, living in the city, without transportation.

Do you honestly think that the majority of people in this country can only shop at the 'quik mart', and that they're the only ones making poor food choices? i think you have some issues.

if that makes you angry and makes you feel you need to call me arrogant, well you should maybe look at that.

[acmavm]

93. No, I'm looking at you wondering what your problem is and if

there is any way at all to solve it.

[Matariki]

95. honestly

what do you find objectionable about the suggestion that a person can eat a healthy diet for as little money as a crappy diet?

Are you really suggesting that *most* poor people don't have access to rice and beans and onions and such?

How do you eat? Is this personal?

[acmavm]

101. What's objectionable? 1) You didn't make suggestions, you

were insulting and rude, insinuating that people are playing the victim card over something they generally can't help if they are on a limited income. 2) Are you suggesting a total diet of rice and beans and onions and such? That's already part of what the poor eat. And they eat it a lot. But living solely on rice and beans, unless you a spartan indidual like yourself, is hardly reasonable. Nor is a constant diet of rice and beans healthy, regardless of what you may think. Even throwing in the onions. 3) How I eat is none of your business.

End of discussion.

[Matariki]

104. You are clearly overreacting

proving my point that I've touched on some personal issue you have.

of course a person can live on rice and beans and cheap seasonal vegetable (and tofu or chicken and so forth), we humans have been doing that forever. why do you say it's unreasonable, because you personally don't like food like that? if you follow the thread you'll see that the discussion is about the problem of cheap and readily available processed foods making people overweight and undernourished. I have been *trying* to make the valid point that cheap and healthy foods are also readily available - but there seem to be a number of folk, including yourself, that just don't want to hear that.

now, if you point out specifically where i've been rude, i will apologize to you.

[MissMillie]

159. not all rice is created equal

the cheap white rice is just as unhealthy as many of the quick starchy foods considered by most hear to be bad news (nutrition-wise anyway).

[Megahurtz]

98. Wow. I would MOVE before I was forced to rely on

Quik Shops for my staple foods bleh!:puke:

This type of thing could be in the catagory of what the other poster is saying.
Don't be a victim. If you're helpless and limited in one place then move to another.
I would! Even without a car, it can be done.

It's all in the priorities we have and the choices we make.
It sounds like you chose to live there and shop at Quick Shops for your staple foods.

If I was that limited and oppressed I'd get the hell outta' Dodge!:yoiks:

[acmavm]

102. I OWN THE HOUSE and pay less than most pay for rent.

[Megahurtz]

105. Well, then again, that's a choice.

Personally, I wouldn't want to live in a place that was so limited just because I owned a house.
I would sell it and buy another house in a less oppressed area. My priorities would be different.

But that's just me.:shrug:

[MUSTANG_2004]

110. Wal-Mart

It's interesting that everyone here agrees that finding suitable grocery stores in cities is difficult. It seems like the Wal-Mart haters are forgetting this when they push Wal-Marts and other superstores out of cities.

[Megahurtz]

99. You have a Choice too. n/t

[sui generis]

113. well said and fair

but isn't that the point - ?

Being poor also leads to alcoholism, crime and drug abuse and while that may be true statistically, those are all still "for the most part" choices made and an exercise (or lack of) in personal responsibility. The real fact is that choices one makes that lead to obesity don't much care how much you make per year; it's just easy to get fat in today's processed food world unless you really just assess and cut out the junk and make an honest effort.

It's hard to comment on "what is" without someone taking it as judgement or getting defensive. I have had to drag myself out of my deathbed (exaggerating) to cook or my SO would have just eaten potato chips until I started stinking and the mortgage company called. (**if he reads this I am in SUCH deep doo doo** :rofl:) But if I complain he does get defensive. Some people absolutely won't address real nutrition for deeply ingrained reasons - his mother made entry into the kitchen by males a capital crime (so he says, I know better now :P), but I swear if I insisted on him cooking I would get a bowl of potato chips and a frozen corney dog for dinner, at least until I came to my senses.

[Matariki]

115. hehheh - that's funny

i had a SO who thought mayonnaise was one of the major food groups. i had to look the other way whenever he ate a sandwich :P

[heliarc]

131. Right on!

And not only that, but take a close look at the name brand items in the stores that pose as simple homemade healthy items. Most of the time there's Sugar added... Corn syrup in Tomato Sauce, or spaghetti even. Tomato sauce should be tomatoes, thyme or your favorite herbs, Onions, Garlic, carrots + Salt and pepper... that's all there is to a basic tomatoe sauce. What the heck are these companies doing adding all this sugar and/or corn syrup. It makes me crazy

[sui generis]

74. where are all these expensive fresh vegetables?

it's a myth.

a bag of potatos costs how much where you live?

a bag of onions?

a head of lettuce?

a bag of tomatos, apples? whole celery, carrots?

Excuses. Cooking requires effort. Nutrition requires effort. Nobody is going to hand anyone a lovely healthy body at the drive through. Green veggies, bags of in season fruit, Rice, beans, onions, sausage, whole chicken, untrimmed briskets & tough roasts, milk, flour, butter, potatos. Skip the sodas. Skip the burger. Skip the chips. Skip the wonderbread. Skip the watery canned goo.

If you take that crap OUT of your grocery basket, suddenly the real food is perfectly affordable. If you think you can't live without sodas & chips, of course you would find a bag of apples for two bucks outrageous. Why you could buy a whole nother bag of chips for that.

[slampoet]

75. Please see my post #17

[NVMojo]

35. overweight does not mean rich and adequately nourished ...poor

get fat on white flour, white sugar and other processed cheap crap.

[China_cat]

38. Let me clarify something

I'm overweight. And I'm well nourished because I buy what's needed to do so.

But I can't walk and breathe at the same time for more than about 20 feet. You can imagine what that does to the idea of exercize. I'm holding...not gaining, but neither can I lose without bringing my caloric intake down to about 400 calories per day.

I'd rather be able to think, thank you.

[Drum]

56. eat the rich n/t

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

72. Best argument for cannibalism I've ever heard.

[pinerow]

76. The hungry die quicker than the obese...the obese reproduce

faster than the dead...do the math...:wtf:

[AngryAmish]

103. Who would win in a fair fight?

Obese on one side v. malnourished on the other.

[Spinoza]

108. Beans and Rice?

Tofu? Organic blah blah blah? Is everyone nuts? Give my my Big Mac and Fries with a strawberry milk shake. There are some things worth dying for and a Big Mac and Fries is one of them. (And top that off with a good cigar.)

[MUSTANG_2004]

112. Yes, beans and rice

I know this from experience; switch to a healthy diet long enough to get over the cravings for junk food, and then if you go back to McDonald's you'll wonder how you ever ate the stuff.

That said, tofu has no appeal, and I think organic is mostly a marketing scheme, but a junk-free diet (or at least mostly junk free) makes a big difference in how you feel.

[Matariki]

114. tofu has no appeal?

you just don't know how to cook it. if you slice it and put it in the freezer, it gets a wonderful toothy texture. if you simmer it in broth it takes on the flavor. or brush it with bar-b-que sauce and bake. but to each his own. you're absolutely right about food craving s though. sugar and fats are addictive. actually i think your body craves whatever it's used to. i crave vegetables more than ice-cream. and beer most of all :evilgrin:

[ellisonz]

116. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

toothy texture...:puke:

[Matariki]

119. toothy

Definition: delicious

Synonyms: acceptable, agreeable, aperitive, appetizing, attractive, cool, copasetic, delectable, delightful, delish, divine, enjoyable, fair, flavorsome, good-tasting, groovy, heavenly, home cooking, hunky-dory, luscious, mellow, mouthwatering, peachy, pleasant, relishing, sapid, saporific, saporous, satisfactory, savory, scrumptious, sugar-coated*, sweetened, tasteful, tasty, tempting, toothsome, toothy*, yummy*

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/toothy

- sheesh -

[Dervill Crow]

125. I'll have to try that.

I bet my husband would eat anything that had barbeque sauce on it and not bat an eye. It would still be sugary, but it wouldn't be as bad as the stuff he cooks.

Cool.

[Left Is Write]

137. I don't like tofu. It has no appeal for me, with rare exceptions.

I do, however, like beans and rice. :)

[Raine]

135. Better REALLY enjoy them then cause

eating that way along with smoking is going to make life a lot shorter. :-(

[SoCalDem]

117. Cheap starchy foods pack on the pounds, but do not nourish

:(

[kineneb]

134. ok, all you arguing about poverty and obesity

And now from the voice of one of those dealing with these problems...

In the Real World (tm), the poor do not have the same food choices as those in the middle class. I am well educated and know how to cook. But when you run out of money before the end of the month, and all there is to eat is the stuff from the commodities give-away, you are stuck. There is no choice about buying fresh vegetables or fruit, There Is No Money. Fast food is obviously not an option. Then there is the exhaustion and depression of on-going poverty (subject for a different thread).

If you have food in the house, that is what you eat. If you are fortunate, there are canned vegies and fruit in the cupboard, otherwise, there are starches, maybe fats, and not much else. Rice and beans may be fine for some, but not everyone has the facilities to prepare them, and others cannot eat beans.

The rural poor have almost as many problems getting proper nutrition as do the urban poor. There are few grocery stores and a car is really needed to get there; prices are generally as high as in the cities, and cars take money for gas and upkeep My personal advantage is having a small garden, but we pay extra for that in the form of a higher water bill (this is California- stuff grows, but only if you water it). So the struggle continues.

Compounding our situation is the fact that as a dialysis patient, Hubby is supposed to eat a special high-protien diet; beans are not a question, they are not on his diet, and he is violently allergic to them. Priority goes to providing him a reasonable quantity of protien-containing foods he can digest. For the anti-depressants I must take, I also need a higher protien intake. I don't need lectures on my diet; I do the best I can, given our fixed income and the extreme stresses in my life.

Sometimes a box of mac-n-cheese just makes me happy.

rant /off

[madville]

138. You can eat healthy on limited dollars

I tend to look at obesity being the product of laziness, not income level or food availability in a given area. All it takes is a little effort to work out a reasonable diet plan on almost any budget. It really irks me when people say "poor" people can't eat healthy on a limited budget. I'll share the tips I used when I had limited funds for food:

- The old staple beans/peas/lentils and rice, I figured at one time a 300 calorie serving cost me about $0.15, should still be close to that.

- No fresh fruits ? Buy the little jars of baby food. The fruits are usually all natural, read the ingredients. One serving, 70-100 calorie jars usually can be found on sale for $0.20-$0.35 a piece. I always liked baby food because it was a good snack and typically stored longer than fresh fruit.

- No fresh vegetables ? Buy frozen, many say they actually contain more nutrients because they are preserved soon after picking. In my neck of the woods frozen vegetables are typically the same price or cheaper by the pound and can be prepared more quickly. I ate a one pound frozen bag of mustard greens split between lunch and supper today, one pound frozen $1.19, one pound fresh $1.99 and then you have to wash and cut them up.

- Need some "real" protein. Buy cheap store brand Tuna and eat a can every other day so you don;t overload on sodium. Eggs are still fairly cheap last time I checked.

[kineneb]

139. that is jolly well, if...

you have lots of time and energy. I am the caretaker for Hubby who is disabled (diabetes, dialysis, heart problems). I am exhausted. I have been handling his case with all the federal, state and local agencies. I was driving him to dialysis 3 days a week, 50 miles round trip. He now has medical transportation, which is saving my sanity and our gas budget. But he still has lots of medical appointments and tests which take up a lot of time. We must eat two different diets, due to his medical problems.

I am simply too tired to deal with cooking. As to rice and beans- nice if your digestive tract likes them, but much too starchy for me and Hubby can't touch beans at all. Lentils won't work either. I get canned fruit and vegetables from the cheap grocery outlet, and when they are on sale at the regular grocery. Eating lots of canned tuna is a wonderful way to get mercury poisoning; I stick with the free peanut butter from the Gleaners. And I have been told to limit intake of high cholesterol foods, so there went eggs.

Part of the problem is hopelessness; if you know nothing will change your situation, you give up. Our income level is fixed by Hubby's disability and medical needs. We are stuck here. So many others are in a similar situation. There is no way out, and sometimes the only fun thing left is "comfort" food.

So in our case, it is poverty, exhaustion, and hopelessness. Oh, and toss in depression, while we are at it. And do not attempt to give me the "bootstraps" lecture; those, along with the boots, were jerked away by a system that forces people into poverty to get medical care.

[madville]

145. about the tuna

That is why I said get the cheaper tuna, the chunk light. You would be correct about the more expensive white albacore tuna or fresh tuna steaks because they generally come from older fish which have more time to absorb mercury. The cheap chunk light tuna I was mentioning comes from smaller, younger fish and has very low amounts of mercury, about 25% of what the other forms of Tuna have. The canned white meat chicken at the dollar stores around here is pretty good also and a fast/easy protein source.

I usually only eat the egg whites, that cuts out the cholesterol and saturated fat but you still get the protein.

Canned fruits and even those little plastic fruit cups now are usually very high in sugars from the high fructose corn syrup they are packed in, I try to stay away from that stuff, give the baby food fruits a shot, much healthier.

When I first started eating more beans/lentils years ago my body didn't like it either, it takes awhile for your GI tract to adjust. I always hear people say they can't eat beans, they are just not used to them.

Sorry about your situation. If you don't mind me asking, how much of a roll did poor diet and/or obesity play in creating those medical problems in the first place ?

[kineneb]

156. health issues

Yes, Hubby did not eat exactly right, but he seems to have also drawn a bad genetic hand as well. You see, he is only 59, and most people with his problems are in their 70s and 80s. He tried to maintian his glucose levels, but for a long time, he had what is called "brittle diabetes" where glucose levels are all over the place, and do not respond to medication.

I don't see rice and beans as an answer; I don't even really like beans that much. Also, I am not going to heat up the kitchen cooking, then pay even more to run the AC, which Hubby must have, due to the medical conditions. If I find chicken on sale, I buy it and freeze it in pieces. Hubby gets low-fat hamburger, as that is one of the few foods I can get him to eat regularly. The Forman grill is our favorite appliance.

Walk a mile in my shoes before anyone condemns me.

And for the record, I am not obese, only somewhat heavy. This is a common problem for those of us on psych meds. Hubby is underweight and on a high-protien diet due to the dialysis.

I know what I should do, I am just too damned tired and depressed to do it. And it won't get better in the future. The only way the situation will change is when Hubby finally dies of all his medical problems. Until then, we are locked into the world of poverty-level income and Medicaid rules. Is it any wonder food becomes a treat?

[wickerwoman]

144. You can go to the moon too,

as long as you don't need to breathe oxygen.

It really irks me when people who work like dogs are accused of being "lazy" because they're overweight. I only knew one person when I was working minimum wage jobs who didn't have a weight problem and that's because he took speed to get through his second shift. And he was still fired for falling asleep on the job. So let's go over it one more time:

I used to work two full time jobs and I didn't have a car. The buses only ran once every hour so if I was working two shifts the same day, I wasn't home for 22 hours at a stretch. I slept in 3 or 4 hour installments then got up and went back to work. This went on for months and months. My night shift job got off at 5:00 am but the buses didn't start running until 6:30 so I had to sit around for an hour and a half trying like hell to stay awake so I didn't miss the bus and end up late to my next job. Tea doesn't make a dent in that kind of exhaustion. I needed Jolt or Mountain Dew just so I didn't fall asleep on the bus and miss my stop and probably have my bag stolen. And working night shifts totally screws up your system. I would have no appetite one second and be starving an hour later.

The nearest grocery store was a forty minute walk each way and the food was absolutely disgusting and I didn't have a car so I needed to carry it back and even with a little cart, I still couldn't bring back more than three or four days food at a time. So each trip to the grocery store is 4 hours and I need two trips a week- where are those 8 hours supposed to come from? And that doesn't even include meal planning and cooking and washing dishes (I didn't have a dishwasher).

And I didn't even have kids and I had a real kitchen. What is someone living out of their car supposed to do with a bag of beans?

It's an empirical fact that the poorer you are in America, the more likely you are to be obese. How would you explain it if you see no connection between poverty and obesity? Do you really want to go with "laziness" when you're talking about people who work more than 60 hours a week?

[Matariki]

146. that all sucks

it's unfortunate you had to go through all that. is your life better these days?

what would you suggest as a solution to the problem? particularly in relation to food.

I guess my other question would be, where do you see the line between your own responsibility for your health and your life and what aspects of your life do you feel society is responsible for?

[wickerwoman]

149. Yes, my life is much better

and has been for some time. And I'm actually quite glad that I went through that period in my life because it's given me a lot more humility and gratitude for the things I have now.

I think American society is structured in a way that pretty much guarantees that people living on the margins will be fat and malnourished. (With the exception of some remarkable people, who I think need to be acknowledged as the exception rather than the rule). People live way too far away from their work because there is no low-income housing available close by. Nobody should have hour and a half long commutes. That's easy to fix- build low-income housing closer to industrial centers. And public transportation in America is absolutely disgraceful. Find me another country in the world where you have to wait an hour for a bus in a major metropolitan area (as you do in Seattle and large parts of New Jersey). I also think it would help for the government to give major tax incentives to small grocery stores in urban areas and to inspect the hell out of "ghetto" grocery stores. It would also help if the government reduced subsidies on sugar, corn and beef and used that money to subsidize transportation of fresh produce into impoverished urban areas.

I'd love to see something like a school lunch program in American companies. It's part of the "noblesse oblige" corporate culture of China that they provide free meals to employees. They are delivered hot at dinner time by local restaurants. I think something like that would go a long way towards making poor workers lives easier, but I'm not holding my breath.

I do accept responsiblity for what I put in my mouth, but I think there are times and situations where people's lives are completely out of control and therefore their eating is too. To say that people in those situations are "lazy" seems to me to be cruel. There are about a million things we can do to make sure people's lives (and eating) don't get so completely out of hand. (I had more but I have to get back to work- I'll check in tomorrow :-) )

[Matariki]

150. agreed - those are all good ideas

Do you live in Seattle? The public transportation sucks here, definitely. There are some individual routes that are good, but they don't connect well to each other or run frequently enough. And driving isn't a whole lot better. I worked at Microsoft and sometimes my commute home would take 2 hours - which is why I don't work there anymore. I would just sit in my car and cry. Wouldn't feel like doing much more than cracking open a beer when I got home. And the cost of housing, well let's not go there. I get irked over that. I wish people wouldn't look at real-estate as 'an investment'. But I wish a lot of things. The adage is to pick one issue you care about and work on it, right?

It *is* very insensitive using the word 'lazy' on an individual level - but in the broad, cultural sense I'd say that we have created a society that demands convenience - a sort of cultural laziness. From the food we eat to way we get our information. We've gone about it ass-backwards. Instead of the convenience of, say, efficient public transportation and shorter work weeks, we've opted instead for drive-through junk food and fox news.

[madville]

147. I guess I just

I guess I just associate laziness with also lacking in self control and being uneducated when in comes to nutrition. Being poor does not make someone eat 3000+ calories of food a day and become obese, a lack of self control does. If anything, being poor and obese should make someone cut their food intake in an effort to save money, less calories going in equal saved $$$.

I worked tons of hours when I was younger in low paying jobs. The guy that brought one ham sandwich from home tended to be in better shape than the guy that ate a double cheeseburger and fries every meal with 1/2 gallon of Coca-cola. Then when I got a better job in an office setting it was the same thing. Then when I got a better job in a tech field guess what, there were obese people and in-shape people, guess who tended to have a lack of self control while making poor dietary decisions and who didn't.

I am simply talking about someone APPEARING to be in shape or obese. Either could easily be severly lacking in nutrients. I just don't get how being poor makes someone eat more calories and put on more fat than someone with better means. I wish someone could explain how poverty makes someone eat 3000 calories a day and become obese over time against their own free will.

[Matariki]

148. i work in the tech industry too

where long hours, mountain dew and pizza are the norm. blech. these are people who are certainly not living in poverty, but still making crappy food choices. I suppose they could blame employers for providing the pizza and mountain dew (and long hours) - but one day when they wake up with heart problems and diabetes, having someone to blame is going to be cold comfort.

[anotherdrew]

141. everyone see: honey we're killing the kids

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_we%27re_killing_the_kids

[Matariki]

143. it would be interesting to see how many participants stuck with it

It's amazing to me that people don't see the correlation between their health, energy level, depression and the food they're eating. It's a vicious circle really, eating bad and then becoming too sick and tired and depressed to even cook. It's sad really.

The problem is complex - more than just available food choices and poverty, cooking skills and education. It seems like some transition happened in our culture that we didn't properly prepare for. Industrialization, television, women working outside the home. We went from one mode of living to another without planning for it. We should all be working 20 hour weeks, what with industrialization and a doubled work-force. Then we'd have time to take care of our families and ourselves, no? And that would probably mean addressing 'who owns the means of production' and all that. Dangerous stuff.

[RazzleCat]

152. Just Too Tired

I know how to cook healthy, and I have transportation (expensive, but have it), and easy access to decent grocery stores. What I don't have is the energy to cook a good and healthy meal 3x a day. Here is my average day. Alarm goes off 4:30 am, shower dress, pick up house, walk dog, get to work by 6am. Work, involves running around like a chicken with its head cut off. My job is a combination of physical, and mental. If I am lucky I can get a 30 minutes slow down during the day to eat anything. Finish up work around 4:30pm, drive home in traffic arrive home about 5-5:30 (later if their is an accident). Lets look here already half of the day gone. When I arrive home I am dead beat, right now we are in a long term heat wave, I spend up to 6 hours outside in the heat doing physical work (yes I drink water on site). All I have the energy for is a flop down, and stare at the walls. The comments that I could cook a healthy meal are correct, but they just don't take into account that I can hardley get up the energy to wash to grit off myself, let alone get some laundry done, spend time with my child (age 15), or see my honey. My average food cooking consists of a turkey sandwich, cup of yogurt, and maybe a piece of fruit, but keep in mind I have to get to the store to do this and I did mention that I have a 15 year old, he can eat a whole weeks worth of food in a day, then we are screwed, yep out of money and now no more fresh food for the rest of the week. I have explained over and over and over to him, honey this is it, when its gone were out, but he just does not give a dam, so my average meal is more along the lines of a bowl of cereal (I like bran) and a glass of ice tea. Now I am not "poor", but I don't have much, I am getting over a 5 year unemployment hump, add in that I am making less than I did, and the cost of living has gone up and my grocery budget is tight, about $40.oo per week for 3x meals for two persons. Add in dog food, and cat food, and its a tight squeeze. I can not emphasise enough how much plain old exhaustion keeps one from cooking, I just don't have the energy to come home and cook, or plan that meal the night prior and get it all in a crock pot. I try for the healthy, but I know I am not making the grade. With all of the above bitch I am going to try and do better, I have a coupon for 20% off any single book, so going to go to the store and see if their is a book that has what I need, i.e. a weeks worth of inexpensive meals, with shopping list and prep planning all set out for me. Note I said I eat a lot of sandwiches and yogurt, why? fast easy and not so unhealthy. I don't have the brain power or energy left to plan out a weeks shopping list with "planned overs" bulk purchase of fresh items to use over and over in different recipes (all items I did when unemployed, and that planning would take me upto 3 to 4 hours to figure out how to use up every item with out any loss, plus I had the time then to slow cook cheap items and do tons of home prep, cutting, cleaning, soaking, et al). Working as hard as I do just plain means I am too tired to spend yet another 5-10 hours a week planning, prepping, and cooking, I just don't have it left in me to do it. So before you dump on the working poor keep the above in mind, like I said not poor, not wealthy (about 38,000 annual, but insurance eats up 600 a month), so my options while better than many are still limited.

[against all enemies]

154. FINALLY, I'm a Democrat in the majority of something!!!!

[gula]

155. Heard an intersting radio show yesterday re kid's obesity:

1 soft drink a day = 40% chance, 3 = 100%. If that weren't scary enough artifically sweetened drinks don't change this.

Wonder if somebody can back this up.

[Akim]

160. One should fast more than one eats. That is the key to health & happiness.

[Thickasabrick]

163. I totally agree. Most Americans are still following the myth that

a person needs 3 meals a day - when basically 1 would do. They did a study on longevity - the really old and healthy people were the ones that ate less than 800 calories a day.

In my experience, fasting a day a week makes me feel better.

[mockmonkey]

162. I'm Fat

and I'm hungry so screw you ALL!:wtf:

[demgurl]

164. I do not think there is any one reason for obesity.

My reason is that I am a food addict. That is the hardest addiction to "break" since you can not break it, you must simply try to control it.

Try being addicted to food. Being a food addict is not just a quaint little term. It can mean as many varied things from binging (and possibly purging), taking food from the garbage when you put it there to try and stop yourself (and then eating said food from the garbage), it can be almost anything where the thought of food consumes you but you know you must eat since that is what "keeps you alive". It is awful and I would not wish it on anyone.

I did a post on this a while back and it would seem I am not the only food addict in the bunch. It has nothing to do with laziness or lack of self control - you would never say that about a crack addict or an alcoholic.

Being a food addict means struggling every single day and sometimes breaking down in tears because it is so hard. It is a struggle you must face at least three times a day and with each meal. It is a struggle you must face when people do not know you are an addict and they try to tempt you into eating food. I had this happen two weeks ago at a child's birthday party. They had pizza and offered me some. I told them I was on a diet but they kept insisting. I did fend them off with my husband's help. (thank goodness for him)

You can say what you want but until you have walked in someone else's shoes then you can not judge them. You do not know how much energy that single mom working two jobs has. And she can not go looking for information on something that is healthier or cheaper if she has no idea it is out there. We can not judge her for running out of food a week early and having to go to the food bank and accept what they have or go hungry.

You can't judge an addict if you do not know what they go through every single day. I envy other addicts who have quit - just because they can quit, but I must eat food every day of my life.

There can be many reasons for obesity and some include not caring enough to eat properly or a lack of information on how to eat a nutritional meal. Some people may not like beans, rice and cabbage. I do not like two of those item. I am a very picky eater and even gave up a free trip to Greece because I was not sure how many items they would have that I could eat. Some people eat because of stress or other conditions and it is cathartic. Those people sometimes do not even realize what they are doing. Others may eat because they are addicts.

I don't think any of us should rush to judgment on this issue.