The Poor Get Diabetes, the Rich Get Local and Organic

[flashl]

The following is an excerpt from Mark Winne's new book, Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty.

As a class, lower income people have been well represented in some of the best-covered food stories of our day, particularly hunger, obesity, and diabetes. As these issues have faded in and out of the public's eye over the last 25 years, another food trend was rapidly becoming a national obsession -- namely, local and organic.

At about the same time that Berkeley diva Alice Waters was first showing us how to bestow style and grace on something as ordinary as a local tomato, the Reagan administration's anti-poor policies were driving an unprecedented number of people into soup kitchens and food banks ....

Yuppie families reacted first. Like every parent since time immemorial, these parents wanted what was best for their children, and the emerging evidence that our food supply was tainted accelerated their desire for the healthiest and safest food possible ...

In low-income circles, however, such food anxieties got little traction. Between getting to a food store where the bananas weren't black and having enough money to buy any food at all, low-income shoppers had little inclination to parse the differences between grass-fed and grass-finished. But this didn't imply that their awareness of organic food was non-existent, nor did it mean that low-income consumers were less likely to buy organic if they had the chance ...

While it may be some time before we see a Whole Foods open in East Harlem, non-profit organizations like the Philadelphia-based Food Trust have secured millions of dollars in state financing to develop food stores in underserved urban and rural Pennsylvania communities. As part of an overall economic development strategy, these stores are not only providing new sources of healthy and affordable food to low-income families, they are also expanding employment opportunities and the local property tax base.

AlterNet - Read Full Text

Not sure if this group is responsible for a study that I read several years ago about organic food benefits and urban centers. Those researchers increased the health status of residents in urban neighborhoods by changing quality of food.

[midnight]

1. That article is so good. "Resetting the food table".

It is about time. I have always seen a connection between food and health.

[ProgressIn2008]

2. Very good article, thanks. nt

[NMDemDist2]

3. i was buying some canned tomatoes today to restock the pantry and

every single one of them had sugar, most had High Fructose Corn Syrup

:banghead:

[grasswire]

5. that makes me furious

Even pickled beets are made with HFCS now.

I would like to know the backstory. Who sold American food producers on HFCS en masse? Were there articles in trade publications about the fiscal benefits? Were there kickbacks? Massive sales promotions?

What happened?

[mrcheerful]

13. Sugar and syrup are used to kill the acid taste tomatoes get when canned.

Which has started the myth that sugar kills the tomatoes acids. Sugar nor syrup kills the acids found in tomatoes, but many poor people believe that by adding sugar to anything prepared with tomatoes they are ridding the acids from tomatoes. So they end up with extra sugar in their diets. I have ate stuff made with tomatoes that was so sweet it gave me tooth aches.

Btw, remember corporations do things the cheapest way they can, adding sugar is one way. Vinager would actually kill the acids, but it costs more and gives tomatoes a not so pleasent taste. It's about profits, not whats good for you.

edited to add the last bit of info.

[Hellenic_Pagan]

4. Hey, I grew up "poor"

and my family had to grow our food ourself. We also traded with neighbors and other families from what we had too much of for things we didnt grow ourself.

More people who have the opporunity should have organic or just plain gardens at their homes. its easy to grow good fruits, vegetables and herbs yourself. You can even grow many kinds of plants indoors in containers.

If you cant grow everything yourself, like i currently cant, because i live in the city, you should try shopping at your local farmer's market. that way you buy local products and help local farmers to support their family and live thier lifestyle.

Its way better than eating cheap food that you get in the store, or spending too much to buy "homegrown" or "organic" at a yuppie store.

I laugh whenever i hear that this is some kinda new fad or something, its just we are going back to eating like our grandparents and ancestors did.

[bobbolink]

8. could you please come help me get a garden started in my car????

You know, all this muddleclass SHOULDS are getting very exhasperating!

You clearly know NOTHING about poverty, yet you pontificate!

The book is pointing out the horrible disparity, yet you still want to put it on poor folk1

PLEASE, get yourself educated about poverty!

[Sarah Ibarruri]

10. That is so true. I have never been poor, but my mom was...

Poor is when

...........you don't have a place to have a garden,

...........even if there is a public plot of land where you can maybe eek out a space to plant something, poor is when you don't have any time left over in the week to plant something, after working the 2 or 3 jobs you need to survive

...........poor is when you live in an area where, if you get a secret garden going in a 1 square foot area of land in a public plot of land, you will have no vegetable because the other, equally hungry and poor people will steal it

........... poor is being too sick to have energy to even think of having a garden

............poor is never having had the luxury of knowing how to have a garden

............poor is very bad.

[bobbolink]

11. There you have it! Yet, there are so many latte liberals who like to prescribe to poor folk just

how to live.

:mad:

[slampoet]

12. I Sell at a farmer's market and I can't afford to buy my food from them.

I have taken a look at seven different famer's markets. They are all PREMIUM prices. Currently I have to drive over 60 miles above Boston to get to the point where any farm stand is priced under ""homegrown" or "organic" at a yuppie store."


Here in New England getting to and from a reasonable priced farm can be an 80-120 mile trip.




Grow up "Pagan".


You don't have all the answers for other people.


Maturity is seeing that you at best have the solutions for your own life.

[Naturyl]

6. Yep, this very true. n/t

[Uncle Sinister]

7. That sounds exactly like where I live.

Out here in Portland, We love to brag on our food conciousness. We've got the locovores, and the bioregionalists, and the organic vegans. We've got rich farmland and clean water. We've got growers and distributors who "get it" about sustainability and local agriculture.

And one out of three families has trouble putting food on the table. Makes me nuts sometimes. And yeah, in the poorer neighborhoods, it's way harder to even get access to healthier food, much less be able to afford it. But the little corner store has frozen pizza, so that's what gets eaten.

[bobbolink]

9. Thank you for seeing and understanding.

I've had my own organic garden, many years ago.

Ironically, I was in the midst of a very poor neighborhood.

We MUST start seeing more clearly, and not all wrapped up in our separate little groups!