Can the Poor Afford Real Food?
This ran in the Dallas Morning News on August 27, 2006.
Eat Real, America
It's a myth that poor
people can't afford healthful foods
Great question. I've been working for poor people all my life. They're called farmers. This subgroup of American society - about 2 percent of the population - should not be on the hook to sell the food they grow any cheaper. Most American farm businesses lose money, and too many American farmers eat industrial food themselves.
I grew up poor on real food. I got "reduced" lunches at school - meaning they were subsidized, and I stood in line for the regular lunch tray with meat + two veg, not in the a la carte queue. My mother taught us to shop at the edges of the supermarket - meat, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs, produce - not in the middle, where the high-cost, high-profit, low-nutritional-value foods lurk. We didn't waste money on processed foods like soda or cereal. We didn't eat fake foods.
Mom used to say, "No matter how little money we have, we'll always buy butter, olive oil and maple syrup." We grew our own vegetables, of course, and ate plenty of those.
But in the winter we went to Magruder's, the local supermarket chain famous for affordable produce, which we bought in large quantities and on sale. Our staples were whole chicken (not breasts), chicken liver, canned tuna, eggs, undyed cheddar, lentils and whole grains. Was the beef grass-fed, the chicken pastured, the cheddar artisanal? No. We bought supermarket meat, poultry, fish and dairy. Only later, when we had more money and were more conscious about the growing market for local food, did we start to buy grass-fed and pastured meat and dairy from local farmers.
I've been on a food budget since I left home. I buy produce on sale and pantry goods like canned wild salmon in large amounts. I eat the frugal cuts - soup bones, not T-bones - and I pack my lunch when I travel. When my favorite exotic foods (chickpeas, dark chocolate) are on sale, I stock up.
If you have to choose, as I do, which foods to spend more money on, try this rule of thumb: The higher up the food chain you eat, the more it matters how the food was produced. Pesticides and other toxins concentrate as they move up the food chain. Thus, I'm willing to spend more on nutrient-dense foods (meat, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs) than on fruit and vegetables. It's more important to eat "clean" butter than "clean" lettuce.
If you eat junk food, fast food, industrial food (skim milk, corn oil) and fake food (margarine, soy "burgers"), you'll be better off with real food from the edges of the supermarket - even if the only choice is industrial meat, milk and eggs or farmed salmon. "Eat your vegetables" is good advice, whether or not you can afford organic. You can bet all those studies showing that people who eat more fruit and vegetables are healthier were done on industrial, not ecological, carrots and broccoli.
What about the poor, the people who don't have access to supermarkets or enough money to spend on food? If asked how I would improve the diets of people who can't find or afford real food, I would not start with a pastured chicken in every pot. That's too costly and difficult. But there are things the federal government should do, including:
- Ban trans fats, as Denmark has.
- Remove poor-quality and industrial foods from government food programs.
- Replace those with whole milk and yogurt, butter, fresh fruit and vegetables, canned fish (especially wild salmon and small, oily fish, such as herring and sardines), beef, pork and poultry.
- Get corn syrup out of schools and whole milk in.
- Require infant formula makers to add the essential omega-3 fats babies need for their brains to develop. Remove soy (which is far too rich in estrogens for babies and disrupts thyroid function) and corn syrup from infant formula. Devise public and workplace policies to make nursing easier.
Additionally, local, state and federal property should be available rent-free to farmers' markets. The WIC and Senior Farmers' Market Nutrition Program - which puts coupons for fresh fruits and vegetables in the hands of low-income seniors and women with children, who may spend them only on fresh produce and only at approved local food markets - should be greatly expanded.
Does local food cost more? Self-appointed populists point out that the mesclun at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City is $32 a pound. Yes, some farmers sell it for that. I don't buy it myself, but that's not the only kind of lettuce available. I shopped around on one recent visit and found great deals on local lettuce, and lots of it, for well under $2 a pound.
That's how shopping for local food should be: Buy in season, get to know your market, understand when it pays to buy ecological foods and take advantage of deals. If only the land-grant universities, government and home-ec classes taught this sort of thing - instead of nonsense about nonfat milk and polyunsaturated corn oil - then perhaps we'd be getting somewhere on obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
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