What the World Eats

[amykhar]

I found this article to be pretty interesting. It shows a collection of families around the world and the food the family consumes in a week's time. Hungry Planet: What the World Eats | yumsugar - Food, Drink, & Entertaining. The family in Egypt must be pretty well off. I know families there that would spend only about $10 a MONTH on food.

[phoenixx]

The article is interesting, but the commenters on the web pictures are a bunch of sanctimonious gits.

[amykhar]

yep. One woman keeps asking where the veggies are. Somebody needs to tell the woman that fresh vegetables are EXPENSIVE when you are on a really tight food budget.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

amykhar said

yep. One woman keeps asking where the veggies are. Somebody needs to tell the woman that fresh vegetables are EXPENSIVE when you are on a really tight food budget.

Yup. The folks living in the Bronx with no $$ and no local grocery stores would agree.

[lynnzop[$]]

mjfrombuffalo said

Yup. The folks living in the Bronx with no $$ and no local grocery stores would agree.

This may sound silly, but could people in the city who have little $ and/or no local grocery stores do container planting to get fresh veggies? An empty can, some dirt, seeds (even if they are gleaned from a dumpster, I know that sounds gross, but there are ways) and a sunny windowsill are all you really need.

I don't want to come across as being egocentric (that's not the word I'm looking for, but it's the best my frazzled brain can come up with right now) but there are ways to get around the cost of expensive fresh food.

Interesting article and photos, Amy. And Leslie's right...some of those comments are really stupid.

[amykhar]

That might work for a meal or too, but isn't going to bring in consistent fresh produce for the year. Also, pots, soil, seeds, etc. do cost money and sometimes, all the money you have is what you can scrape together to buy mac and cheese. Doing some things to be frugal takes an up front investment that is just totally beyond the truly poor. Some of the frugality articles I've read in magazines could bring me to tears because people who haven't really lived it just don't get it.

[emeleel]

Also, pots, soil, seeds, etc. do cost money and sometimes, all the money you have is what you can scrape together to buy mac and cheese. Doing some things to be frugal takes an up front investment that is just totally beyond the truly poor. Some of the frugality articles I've read in magazines could bring me to tears because people who haven't really lived it just don't get it.

Amen.

Now that DH finally has a decent paying job, we can actually afford to buy in bulk and make good, buggy-filling trips to the regular grocery store. I literally could not afford it before, despite the savings you get, because I didn't have enough to spend all in one big chunk. I had to just buy what I could afford that time and try to stretch it as long as I could, then go back and buy a little more. There was no way I could afford to buy all the accoutrements to raise fruits or veggies at home.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

The urban poor move around a lot, don't have terraces/back yards/porches/stoops where they can safely leave containers for gardening. Nice idea, even though it could be tough to execute. Communities who get together and turn vacant lots into community gardens have some success, but it depends on a stable population and a certain amount of safety to do. Then the owner of the lot comes in and takes the cleaned-up area and sells it or builds on it

[amykhar]

One other thing to note. Cheap food isn't generally the stuff that's good for you. I know that I actually put on more weight when we were truly broke because the kind of stuff I could buy was generally full of fat and carbs. Mac and Cheese. Spaghetti. potatoes. The downside to this is that people see overweight people in the store using food stamps and get the exact wrong impression. The people look overfed, when in fact, they are probably just eating the wrong stuff cause that's what they can afford. It's a shame that this feeds into the whole stereotype about the fat and lazy people on welfare. Granted, some of these people would eat this way even if they did have money because they never learned any better. But, it's something to think about the next time you sniff at a hefty woman using foodstamps to buy junk at the super Wal-Mart.

[hadassahchana[$]]

Exactly what Amy said. When I see anyone with a shopping cart filled with cheap white bread and boxes of mac and cheese, I know how lucky I am to be able to afford lots of fresh fruit and veggies for the boys.

As for growing their own, good idea which really isn't practical. When I had my vegetable garden, it was all along one side of the house - a large garden. I couldn't even grow enough stuff to keep us in fresh salads for a week. The lettuce would produce for a long period of time, but we didn't get enough in any one week to make do. Same with the other things - and that's with my knowldege of how to get the most food from the tiniest amount of space- which takes an enormous amount of work.

Also something you may not know - eating produce which is grown too close to a major street or in a badly polluted neighbourhood is really unsafe to eat. When my veggies were in front of my house (on Dougall, Lynn) I threw away an entire season's crop of everytihg, because the particles were actually grwon into the skin of the vegetables. All of the things I grew on that side were much smaller, too, and the local health unit told me that the lead levels would be unacceptably high. So, we tore it all out so that no one else would steal some to eat. I didn't mind the taking of the food, I minded causing someone else to become ill through no fault of their own. It's also why you can't grow vegetables in the boulevard strips on some streets- too much auto exhaust.

Ok, I'll stop with the garden stuff now. sorry for getting sidetracked.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

There was a term for that kind of weight gain that I learned when I went for my BSW, but I can't remember the phrase now. It had to do with institutional food - to save money, orphanages/schools/prisons/old age homes and other institutions would cut out protein, fruits, and vegetables and depend on rice, macaroni, butter and the like. The residents all looked to investigators as though they were getting enough to eat, the facilities were able to save a lot of money. Now facilities have to show purchase orders and food logs of what they've served as a result.

[lynnzop[$]]

Thanks for the info, it's very enlightening...I am fortunate to live in an area that's relatively pollutant free, and the worst thing we worry about with gardens is enough water.

And you are absolutely right Amy, that the cheap stuff is the worst for you. Think of it this way...I can get a $1 double burger at McD's that's cram full of fat and carbs, with little "good stuff" but it will fill up my teenager quickly. To get the same "fill" quality on fruits and veggies and lean meat will cost me an arm and a leg.

[mtomm[$]]

It doesn't matter what you eat. Your body will only gain weight if you eat too many calories.

Granted, it is easier to overeat your calories on Mac N' Cheese than cucumbers, bell peppers and squash.

After looking at the pics I'm feeling very spoiled.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

EXACTLY THE POINT. And the residents were uniformly tired and sluggish, which also worked in the institutions' favor, since they were less likely to cause problems or hurt themselves being physically active. Further "carb comas" led to further decrease in activity, lowering daily needs for calories and increasing weight gain. They also had poor skin and a bunch of other bad-diet symptoms, and doctors who examined them said they were pretty much starving in the face of plenty because the starch and fat were calorie-high, protein deficient, and nutrient-poor.

When your body says "feed me," it's generally volume that determines satiety*, whether or not it's calorie-dense foods (like fat) or low-calorie foods (like celery sticks). If all that's in your neighborhood or all you can afford are cheap carbs and fat, you'll eat more calories if you maintain the same volume of food that it takes for your stomach to say "I'm full."


*leaving out binge eating and emotional eating

[mtomm[$]]

MMM, carb coma!

And to make bland carbs taste good we fill them full of fat!

And the cheapest meats are full of fat and not protein.