Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker
I don't have a problem with her "encouraging" healthy diets. I just don't want her to spend my money doing it. When she says she wants to spend $400 Million to eradicate 'food deserts', that goes beyond just encouragement. The reason inner cities don't have super markets is that they get robbed Michelle!!!
Disagree. Stupid fatasses who don't get off the couch are killing America.
Processed food is hardly the culprit. It's one of those boogeymen that are pointed at all the time. Just like when someone sees the word "chemical" and freaks out. It's the same reason we don't call an MRI machine what it is. I'll give you a hint, it has the word "nuclear" in it. *GASP*
I think there is something to the food desert thing. They have done some really fascinating studies regarding low income and obesity/malnutrition. In California it would take 70% of a poverty line salary to eat a healthy diet. The most affordable foods are no longer the healthy ones. They are the highly processed foods with lots of corn syrup and salt and not a lot of nutrients. Not only that but eating that type of food resets the brain to crave more of the same and after eating it the message from the brain is to sleep. The density of calories to amt of food is huge. Even people who are very active can get pretty fat eating that stuff.
One of the Lutheran colleges had a nutrition class assignment for a semester that had the students try and plan how to eat on a low income budget and then live thier plan. They were interviewed and most of them couldn't make it work by the end of the month. There were kids going to school and given time to plan to eat healthy.
If that 400M starts people on the way to breaking the cycle of obesity, heart disease and diabetes then it might be well worth the $. Guess who doesn't want us to eat healthy. Lottsa companies making lottsa trash food that sell it to the public schools and to the masses.
Many people unable to afford much of the healthier choices and if you go to many cities there are no large grocery stores. Imagine buying all your food at convienience store at those prices. If you don't have a car you also have a harder time buying in bulk which would save you some $.
There is an amazing level of ignorance about what is healthy. This ignorance is not just the inner city folks. I see it in my suburban practice all the time. People that think Vitamin water and gatorade should replace milk, folks that think fried fish is healthy because it is fish...
Add that many of the schools are feeding kids the free lunches that are a teaching lesson for an early heart attack. Can't speak for what others have in their area but a typical lunch week here is fried meat, french fries, corn/ or/ pasta, sauce, bread and butter/or/ hot dog, fries, corn/ or tacos, corn, french fries/ or pizza/ or/ french toast or pancakes, sausage. Milk- chocolate, strawberry or regular. This would be a offering for lunches in one week. Once in awhile they have salad with iceburg lettuce and maybe a tomato, rarely cooked carrots. No green veggies at all, no grilled meats, fish is always fried and breaded, 2 starches, fried meat, lots of breads. Then no PE class, no recess because we need the academic time. Yep, those stupid fat people.
