To the Editor: Tribune article misrepresents poor people’s dietary choices
Nearly half a century on, Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty is turning out to be against mostly roadside- and suicide-bombs. That is to say, against brainwashing and brainwashed people, which and whom are doing us and themselves in.
It’s not a crime to be poor (thank goodness), and it’s not a crime to be fat (speak for yourself), but in the brave new world we find ourselves in—there’s never, ever, before been fat poor people—it is (what else?) our society that is criminally responsible for these new partners in crime.
Although it hasn’t actually happened to me yet, everywhere today, poor people are forced at gunpoint to live on junk food and other high-fat, high-calorie foods. To state this scientifically, they’re too poor to make any but the worst possible ingestion selections.
But with a little more money and a little more—etc.—they’d also, surely and incrementally, become concerned with the care and feeding of the “horse” they get around on. But only then!
A scholarly treatise in the news pages of the Nov. 10 Chicago Tribune, “What is your diabetes risk?” explained that currently they don’t have much alternative to consuming “nutrient-poor, energy-dense foods that increase one’s type 2 diabetes risk.”
What a pseudo-scientific article like this, in the mainstream media, was doing was not informing, but rather indoctrinating. Witness its non sequitur proviso, “especially women”! No, poverty-causes-type-2-diabetes is a half-baked, politically correct theory looking for, and insidiously being given, legitimacy.
Its preordained conclusion is its unspoken message: Just as it is our society that is responsible if a skinny person has nothing to eat, it’s also responsible if he becomes fat through every fault of his own.
Norman Bleed
Rockford
From the Dec. 1-7, 2010 issue
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6 Comments
Poor people are not forced to eat junk food and things that are bad for them. Food is cheap in this country compared to anywhere else in the world. Too cheap, I say. To the point that all of us eat way more than we need to sustain health. Try shopping at Valli Produce for fresh, healthy produce. It is very reasonable, cheaper than frozen, prepared foods, and much healthier. People are just too lazy and ignorant to make nutritious, healthy means, and like to eat way more than they need. I count myself in those that eat too much, but I eat several fresh fruit per day, and rarely eat prepared foods.
Nobama4Me, please let me educate you on the plight of the truly poor. They can NOT afford foods at Valli. They do not buy frozen or prepared foods too expensive. They make a lot of pasta (all varieties) as those meals go a long way with few dollars to spend. Meat usually goes by the wayside as it is expensive. Produce does NOT fill a hungry child’s belly. Since you believe you eat too much, how about you donate those excess dollars you spend to overeat and give healthy foods to a food pantry. Oh by the way, have you ever gotten food from a food pantry—not healthy or nutritious at all but will fill a hungry stomach or two for a few days.
I have seen planty of LINK card users at the grocery store with the check out belt piled high with frozen pizzas, etc. I do donate to pantries. My family has made food for and volunteered to serve at Rockford Rescue Mission.
@Nobama4Me
Using Valli Foods as your source of healthful foods, measure the cost in travel, time, and manpower to shoulder home a week’s groceries to a home west of Kilburn Avenue or south of Cedar street on a bus. Then measure the same to less than full service stores that exist in the destination areas. Does the food still cost the same?
Travel to any of the stores in the target home areas and match the choices you have at Valli.
Just try.
If you cite WALMART at either location near these target areas, I again ask you to actually make the trip.
Now start in any portion of the “home” area and buy something less than healthful, then compare the same costs in time, travel and manpower.
You can repeat this experiment easily in other depressed areas of Rockford and achieve similar results.
Good food choice outlets are not available in areas of poverty in the same abundance as poor food choices.
If the poor food choices are so easily acquired, which foods do you think will comprise the diets of those with lesser incomes?
I have to say, since I have become unemployed, in January, we’ve had to go to food pantries. Yes, I got emergency services through the LINK program, but have since been denied for reasons not explained to me. That is not my point. This is: we have had to survive on whatever is given to us at the food pantries we visit. No, we’re not big on navy beans, but I still have 7 lbs of them and I’m not going to let them go to waste. I also have literally pounds of rice and spaghetti. Yes, meat has gone by the wayside. I get some, if affordable at the Aldi, because its cheaper there. I’ve never been to Valli Foods, so I really can’t comment about that. I DO know that since I can’t eat any junk food, because I simply cannot afford it, I have lost over 100 lbs. If I had a Link card, I’d probably buy meat, and maybe a frozen pizza or 2, but they would be “treats”. I agree with Sam Clark when he says: “Good food choice outlets are not available in areas of poverty in the same abundance as poor food choices.” They just aren’t as readily available. If I’ve got a choice of taking a bus to the store, or walking to the closest fast food place, of course I’m going to stay close, it just make sense.
..and now we can strongly suspect that junk food and fast food are available to link card users [following the charges for improper use of link cards in the recent westside store closures].
The poor often use a completely different set of trade rules than many of the customers Valli Produce receives. [wink: Many customers of link card misuse are not as poor as some would assume!]