Food Politics

All the more reason to get people on board with eating locally and supporting CSAs.

One thing some of us can do is grow our own!

I wonder if that cost increase is connected to buying organic vs. conventional?

A friend of mine suggested I start a food co-op, anyone tried this before? He said it saves money. I am thinking about it.

Personal gardens, community gardens, and coops can take the cost for produce right down.
Another hidden perspective on the “cost” of food, would be the health benefits of eating a properly chosen diet, thus making for less money spent on health care and an improved sense of well being. Those who consistently eat poorly chosen diets are more frequently afflicted with fatigue, anemia, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, etc., costing much more to purchase health care and extracting a HUGE cost in quality of life.
SO, pay a tad bit more money now or grow your own produce, and get a payback of much better, cheaper life in terms of health.

There are certainly plenty of efforts around the country to help with this – community gardens, farmers markets, etc. – but much of the problem still comes down to education and motivation. Probably everyone can identify junk food, but probably not so many people make that connection between convenience foods and junk food.

Is frozen lasagna junk food? Not when it’s convenient and relatively inexpensive. Is McDonald’s junk food? Not when it’s immediately cheap and easy to obtain. Here in San Francisco, there’s a McDonalds complete with parking and a drive through right next door to a significant housing project.

How do you reach people trying to stretch what little money they have against the powerful messages of companies like McDonald’s?

And, to continue a bit further, shortly after my last post, I ran across this article through the Fresh Talk blog. It’s an op ed piece in the Kennebec Journal discussing a proposed bill in the Maine legislature that would severely limit the ability of those receiving aid to purchase junk food: http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/view/columns/6124173.html

When I have worked in lower SES areas (as a dietitian), this has always been the complaint of patients/clients regarding eating more fruits and veggies. If they can get a burger or hot dog for two dollars somewhere, their economic situation will determine the choice. And of course the inexpensive junk food is always plentiful in their neighborhoods.

Grow your own! It’s not that hard and you can do it in the smallest backyard. I lived in a house on a 60 x 90 foot lot in a small town in Queens, New York. My dad dug up the entire backyard, put in raised beds, and we grew corn, tomatoes, peppers, string beans, cucumber, lettuce and radishes. Not enough to feed us for a year but we ate tons of fresh produce summer through fall, and we bought from the local farms on Long Island whenever we could. Even when I lived in an apartment I had pots of tomatoes on the deck for something fresh. Buy from your CSA and do whatever you can to eat fresh. Stop buying the packaged junk that passes for food nowadays. Enjoy.

People in the US have no idea how cheap their food is. I work on a mid-sized vegetable farm. We made less on a case of cauliflower last year than my boss made 20 years ago. As far as the farmer is concerned, with the effort and cost it takes to produce, fruits and vegetables should cost twice as much. People should be grateful that food this nutritious is this inexpensive. Yes, everyone should have a garden so that they can appreciate how much work it is to produce their food.

My first instinct was to think — Isn’t that an argument for eliminating the “planting prohibition” on fruits and vegetables (which UFP is against, I believe)? If supply were to increase, then prices would go back down again, presumably, until demand increased to match.

But Margaret raises an important point…There are structural problems in the supply chain, which make it such that it is not profitable or barely profitable for many farmers, yet consumers find it less cost-effective than unhealthy food…

Fruits and vegetables are politically like sugar: The industry is supported by federal regulations keeping prices higher, rather than subsidies. The only difference is that most people are aware of the need to eat more fruits and vegetables, and the need to eat less sugar. (There are those who consider obesity a carbohydrate deficiency, but I’m not one of them.)

Sheila has a great point.

Consider that taking care of your body and choosing the right foods as an investment in HEALTHCARE which will most likely lessen the need and frequency for SickCare
HealthCare = PREvention, healthy eating, physical activity, checkups,etc.

Margaret has some really good ideas. Start your own garden so that you may appreciate the work to produce the produce.
–>consider fruits and vegetables SEEM so expensive since through wheat, corn (animal feed/corn syrup) and soy subsidies and other incentives USDA really has ARTIFICIALLY LOWERED the costs of meat, dairy, and the many food-like things with processed wheat, soy and/or High Fructose Corn Syrup in them.
What would be the impact of vegetable and fruit consumption if the US gov’t stopped the Corporate Welfare of the agribusiness’ Corn Subsidies in the Farm Bill?

[...] price of fruits and vegetables has gone up and people are eating less. Time to get digging a garden or find a [...]

Indeed! It’s hard enough convincing people to eat healthier without having to make it appear that they have to stretch their dollars in order to do it. Why buy fresh produce to make a salad when I can just buy one from a fast food chain on the cheap? Or fresh fruit, when I can choose from the myriad number of calorie loaded smoothies that are out there? America needs to start making sustainable farming and (preferably local!) foodstuffs more lucrative.

This is why I love co-ops and farmers markets.