Lets fight fat people!

@DrewDad,

True, but do you factor in labor for taking care of your children? Maybe it would be cheaper to hire some thirteen year old to take care of your kids instead of yourself. Hey, I bet you could find some homeless guy who would do it really cheap. Would it be the same quality? Is time always the most important thing?

I have to say DD, although you give every indication of being a loving Daddy, I get the feeling your kids eat a lot of unhealthy crap and you justify it by poo-pooing science, ignoring the environmental impact and even the possible risks to your kids long-term health. Didn't you once ask if it was a big deal for schools to serve meat contaminated with e-coli to kids? Whatever happened to quality of life over money and convenience?

(Actually, if you figure in the environmental costs of processed food you would come out even more ahead by eating local organic or IPM foods - but that's a different thread.)

1 Reply

@Green Witch,

Green Witch wrote:

True, but do you factor in labor for taking care of your children? Maybe it would be cheaper to hire some thirteen year old to take care of your kids instead of yourself. Hey, I bet you could find some homeless guy who would do it really cheap. Would it be the same quality? Is time always the most important thing?

I never said time is the most important thing. I said you were not factoring time into your economics, which is true.

Green Witch wrote:

I have to say DD, although you give every indication of being a loving Daddy, I get the feeling your kids eat a lot of unhealthy crap

I'm unsure how you arrive at that feeling, since I don't think your privy to my family's diet. You're assuming quite a bit.

Green Witch wrote:

and you justify it by poo-pooing science, ignoring the environmental impact and even the possible risks to your kids long-term health.

You don't know what you're talking about. Nutrition and healthy food choices is a fairly constant topic of conversation in my family. As for me poo-pooing science, it speaks volumes to how little you know about me if you think that's the case.

Green Witch wrote:

Didn't you once ask if it was a big deal for schools to serve meat contaminated with e-coli to kids?

No, I didn't ask that. What I said was that although fast-food restaurants have higher standards than those set for school lunches, it doesn't mean that the standards for school lunches are too low. I asked, "are kids actually at risk using the school standards?"

Green Witch wrote:

Whatever happened to quality of life over money and convenience?

Whatever happened to reading comprehension?

Green Witch wrote:

(Actually, if you figure in the environmental costs of processed food you would come out even more ahead by eating local organic or IPM foods - but that's a different thread.)

If someone actually managed to define "organic farming" in a meaningful way, I might agree with you. Speaking of E-coli, weren't some "organic farms" dinged recently for having contaminated produce?

As always, it is up to the consumer to be discriminating. Do not presume that you know better than I do what is important to me.

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@Green Witch,

Green Witch wrote:

Frozen pizzas cost 3x what a homemade pizza would cost. Canned soup can cost 5x more than the same soup made from scratch.

I'll just take on these two.

I prefer homemade pizza and homemade soup, but they cost a considerable amount more to prepare than buying frozen/tinned, not less. I can get a very good quality frozen pizza for less than $4 Cdn. I cannot buy the ingredients to make that pizza for anything like $1.50. I cannot make 4 servings of Setanta's favourite soup for less than $0.10 Cdn.

There are good arguments for homemade, but the cost argument isn't always one of them (especially with examples like these).

1 Reply

Good DD, I'm glad my impressions were wrong. We've clashed on a few food related topics and that is where my impressions came from.

I agree "organic" has become a fuzzy word, but it's an easy to fix if you just know who grows, raises and slaughters your food. Even people in cities have access to farmer's markets or non-factory brands. Research is easier than ever and yes it takes time, but I'm glad we agree that time is not an issue when pursing quality of life and the future earth we leave for our children.

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@ehBeth,

I'm sorry I don't have my hard number breakdowns handy, but I'll try and remember here- I have to disagree ehBeth. A moderately decent frozen pizza (no BHA, BHT, high sodium, potassium bromate, HFCS etc) is about $8 where I live. A little flour, water, olive oil, cheese and sauce (broken down per serving) comes out to about $1 each for three people. I can feed 6 people on a $3 pot of soup - it's free (not including my farm labor and seed) when I pick the stuff out back. You actually have soup in Canada for about 20 cents (is that exchange right?) a can? How do you get 4 servings from one can? Soup around here (non organic) is $1.99 and it feeds one, maybe two if they each just have a cup. I'm not sure we are comparing apples (so to speak) to apples.

1 Reply

@Green Witch,

Green Witch wrote:

I'm glad we agree that time is not an issue when pursing quality of life and the future earth we leave for our children.

I did not agree to that. Quite the opposite, in fact. Time is definitely an issue. It is not the only issue, or the most important issue, but it is an issue.

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Just a quick add to the above. I've never had a good frozen pizza, but since that's what we are talking and not pizza parlor pizza, here is a site that figures a pizza to feed a small family would be $5 (she's including toppings):

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2009/03/13/a-guide-to-making-inexpensive-and-delicious-homemade-pizza/

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@DrewDad,

What do you consider the most important issue if it not the health or the future of your children?

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@Green Witch,

I think the point is that the moderately decent stuff is more expensive than the not even moderately decent stuff, so when people don't have a lot of money OR a lot of time, it's not surprising that they tend to get the stuff that is cheap. And the cheapest stuff is often the crappiest, taste-wise and health-wise.

1 Reply

@Green Witch,

I think the focus got shifted at some point. I started out (not that this tangent started with me) talking about how poverty influences obesity. It's not as simple as "well they should just make their own food with fresh ingredients" -- this is indeed better and indeed possible at times but often significantly more difficult than it is for middle-class people with more time, money, and access to fresh ingredients.

I saw DrewDad's comments as being more about that than anything about his own family's nutritional choices. From stuff he's said here, they seem pretty health-conscious to me.

1 Reply

@sozobe,

I'm not surprised, Soz. I'm just someone who believes we do not do ourselves any favors by settling for the lowest common denominators in life. In the long run I believe we save neither time nor money.

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@Green Witch,

I agree with that I think... as it applies to really poor people though, especially the working poor, I think it's a little simplistic. I'd love to see something more systemic to allow them to make healthy choices as easily as those of us with more money can.

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@sozobe,

For 20 years I've taught poor, sometimes very poor, people how to eat healthy for very little money. It can be done - I admit it takes education and the will to do it, but few people go back to their old Wonderbread ways when they learn the alternatives.

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@Green Witch,

Fabulous -- now take your experience, generalize it into a national campaign, and start grant-writing. Very Happy

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@sozobe,

You mean on top of the grant writing I do for environmental and small-scale farming causes? On top of my 8 hours a week of volunteer work I do for the local literacy/ESL program? I've started five food banks/soup kitchens in the last 20 years and only recently resigned from the one I was supervisor of for the last 6 years. I also run a full-time agricultural and ecological landscaping business with my husband. I think someone else is going to have to start the national campaign - although I think Alice Waters, Michael Pollan and Michele Obama have given it a good kickstart.

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@Green Witch,

I agree, and I'm interested in where things will go with that. School lunches are my current bugbear.

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@Green Witch,

To clarify -- I don't disagree at all with the premise that people can eat more healthily on less money than many realize, and am all for education efforts. The reason I spoke up is that you seemed to be pretty drastically misconstruing what DrewDad had to say. Kudos to you on all the activism in this field that you've done and continue to do.

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@Green Witch,

Green Witch wrote:

For 20 years I've taught poor, sometimes very poor, people how to eat healthy for very little money. ...

Did any of them lose weight? How much? If not, what measure of success do you use (e.g. longitudinal morbidity/mortality) over said 20 years?

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@sozobe,

Do you have any farms nearby? Within 50 miles? Our school program got started when some parents approached local farmers and asked them about supplying the school cafeteria - the farmers jumped on the chance to have the guaranteed income (although schools pay real sloooow). Ohio already has a state program to start more vegetable gardens into schools. You would need to contact your local Master Gardener's program for details. I seem to recall there is even state funding available, but my information is probably at least a year old by now.

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@shewolfnm,

shewolfnm wrote:

@DrewDad,
wait..

that IS what you meant eh?

me needs more coffee this AM

If only shewolf's keyboard had a comma, this horrible misunderstanding between her and drewdad could have been avoided.

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