Posted on 07/20/2007 11:50:57 PM PDT by hawkeye101
Study Shows More Iowans Go Hungry
A new study shows more Iowans are going hungry.
The study by Drake University found that more than one of every ten households are reporting limited or recurrent lack of access to nutritional and safe food. It also connects a lack of healthy food options to obesity in low-income households.
The 2007 Hunger in Iowa Report indicates that more Iowans are skipping meals or eating cheaper and less healthy food because of their inability to get nutritional food in a social acceptable way.
Other reports were released in 2001 and 2003.
The reports are by Susan Roberts, who has a law degree from Drake specializing in food and agricultural law.
She says every report shows there is hunger in Iowa, and that it's getting worse, even though nationally it's the opposite.
I believe this is incorrect, as most of the world's population would suffer if this were correct. Historically and today in third world countries, most people subsist pretty exclusively on grain (rice, wheat, corn) and legumes.
I believe insulin resistance is more likely to be caused by high consumption of processed carbohydrates or sugars, not by grains and beans. Until quite recently in human history sugar and other processed carbohydrates, notably corn syrup, were not available, certainly not in sufficient quantity to pose a health problem. In addition, they were expensive and thus unavailable to the poor.
Plus, we get back to the fact that the "healthier" starches tend to be the more expensive ones.
Did someone alert John Edwards?????
Whatever attention such areas need does not include any involuntary redistribution of wealth through taxation. It might include government agencies calling attention to the need, preparing initial reports from data usually discovered in the day-to-day business of existing agencies (often agricultural agencies), and then making the appeals to private organizations that already involve themselves in these kinds of projects.
IF we have serious malnutrition problems in certain areas of the United States where people try to work and don’t seem to have enough, then I believe preference should be given to those domestic areas over over any foreign country.
Any government, including ours, or any charitable organization, could literally, easily bankrupt itself, fully exhausting its resources to feed people in African, Asian and island countries. It would take less than a week to empty the bank. The poverty would not thereby cease, and afterward would rage like a wildfire, more out of control than ever. There would be no benefactors remaining who could help.
In African and Island nations, particularly, the root problems cannot be fixed with releases of cash. I believe that most here already know that. It is not the remedy in impoverished American areas either.
There are VERY OFTEN religious, cultural, and clan (sometimes related to race) reasons for poverty and hunger. If we are not allowed to suggest changes to these things, people will often continue in those conditions.
Between jobs in my younger years, it was cheaper to buy bags of potatoes, bread, cheap meat, etc. than fruits, veggies and fish. And, now with all the store brands, food is even cheaper.
Of course, I’m great at rationalizing anything when it comes to food. LOL
Look, you know that and I know that but apparently there are others who are missing this very obvious truth. I think if the study wasn’t biased and produced detailed conclusions we would all see these people are receiving assistance and as I said before, “squandering the assistance on junk”, not because junk is cheaper, but because that’s what they want. Anyone who thinks buying junk food is cheaper than nutritious food simply hasn’t been in a grocery store in a while. You can buy a Twinkie or a pound a beans, your choice. If people were getting fat because they could not afford nutritious food you would expect to see lots of skinny suburbanites and that’s just not the case. In America, Leftists can’t just “help” they have to indoctrinate and keep piling on the “help” to keep their voting class. Food Stamps were stupid at the start and to then allow them to be used to get soda, snack foods, candies, etc. was beyond stupid. None of this had anything to do with the poor. It was about securing a dependency and a sure vote come election time by throwing money at a problem and hoping it went away. I have seen hungry children and it hurts and also I have seen what this article is speaking about and they are not the same. I have seen both among my own people, they left the “old ways” and now obesity and diabetes are rampant in every tribe. I held to what I was taught and I can’t even remember my last potato chip or snack cake. I do have an affinity now for an occasional A&W Rootbeer or those new cherry cordial Hershey’s kisses (ever tried them they’re addictive, lol?), but very rarely. The first problem is ignorance, laziness or passivity, the other is food stamps which should be eliminated for a cheaper, healthier alternative. I have many ideas, but I have prattled enough. :)
Regards,
WildcatClan
It’s very simple. More people can’t afford food, and those who can afford food are too dumb to eat properly balanced and portioned meals.
No contradiction there at all.
I have never seen children that look like the ones in the first photo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are some kids in iowa that go hungry once in a while. They are the one’s who’s parents are on meth and never sleep. They can’t remember what day it is and can’t remember if they fed their kids or not.
“high-starch diets lead to insulin resistance.
I believe this is incorrect, as most of the world’s population would suffer if this were correct. Historically and today in third world countries, most people subsist pretty exclusively on grain (rice, wheat, corn) and legumes.
I believe insulin resistance is more likely to be caused by high consumption of processed carbohydrates or sugars, not by grains and beans. Until quite recently in human history sugar and other processed carbohydrates, notably corn syrup, were not available, certainly not in sufficient quantity to pose a health problem. In addition, they were expensive and thus unavailable to the poor.”
Ding ding, we have a winner.
Fructose, which is in EVERYTHING, sugar, which is more rare now, and refined white flour (removes all the good stuff) is the culprit.
Remove fructose from the diet, and it’s amazing what illnesses just go away.
Go look at one of the prepared lunches, Snackables, or whatever they are called, and look at the amounts of sugars, fructose syrup, and other crap is in them.
Thats why those two kids look the way they do - i remember the show they were on, and they ate primarily a diet of prepared foods and fast food.
The food industry knows what sells, and it’s sweet. Make something sweet, people will buy more. They are fully aware of what they are doing. They only move when forced, like with trans-fats, which they shoved down our throats, literally, for decades, because it was cheaper. Same for fructose.
True indeed. Meth really is a cultural and social "black plague" that Iowa has and will be struggling with for many years to come. What meth does to an individual is appalling, but what it does to innocent family members, especially children, is truly criminal.
Iowa had, by far, the worst economy of any state over the last 50 years (thats another point I like to discuss), but rampant hunger is not a problem Iowa really faces. However, rampant poor nutrition and low physical activity is something that is a problem, just as it is in the rest of the country, and the western world. I drive through the poorest neighborhoods in Des Moines on a weekly basis, and see elementary and secondary schools filled with morbidly obese children at an alarming percentage.
Lazy parenting, in my opinion. Give a kid pop, candy, chips, a TV, and a handful of video games and they won’t come out of their rooms for a whole day. The only thing a kid cares about these days is nintendo or xbox. When I was a kid, the most prized possession was a schwinn. You had to pedal it to make it work. Moms used to cook real food back then from scratch. And there was only one tv per house with only three channels on it. If two of those channels came in well, you were happy. Now every kid has his own tv with cable and his own collection of movies and video games and a cell phone and a computer with internet. There's no reason to ever leave his room, except to go to the store to buy more video games. Why wouldn't kids be fat nowdays?
Pot Roast
Mashed Potatoes
Carrots and Peas
Made-from-Scratch Biscuits
Homemade Apple Pie (o.k., now I'm hungry :))
Since then, we have gradually programmed kids and adults to think that fast food, Doritos, Hostess Cakes, and corn-sweetened beverages are far superior to the good foods of the past, and that eating at fast food places is a mark of societal achievment, with the help from Madison Avenue marketers telling us "We deserve a Break Today". This attitude has even permeated into the lower-income population of the U.S., because 50+ years ago poor people in this country had to buy the bare nutritional essentials to survive, and they had to make everything from scratch. The lower income population now have more access to processed 'glop', and they believe that eating processed fast foods is cheaper than eating healthier foods. Also, they may have seen that eating at fast food places and dining on high sugar and fatty foods was being done by the middle and upper income populations, so they decided to emulate this behavior, not realizing that being poor is hard, but being poor plus overweight and unhealthy is even harder.
The other side of the Food Stamp program is that it is corporate welfare for farmers, food companies and grocery stores. From the taxpayers pocket into their till.
Transfats were also pushed, in the beginning, because they were an alternative to the evil saturated fats that were at the time thought to cause essentially all health problems. They were originally viewed as part of the solution, not as a new problem.
Unintended consequences and all that.
It quite obvious, the fat people are hogging up all of the food. After a while the skinny people are too weak to fight them for it.
I never realize Iowa was like that.
It would be interesting to run comparison of the sugar and fat content of this meal to a Big Mac, fries and coke.
I'm sure the Big Mac is worse, but I suspect not as much worse as a lot of people today think. The "old-style" diets, as in your post, were largely meat and potatoes. Not exactly what we think of today as a healthy diet.
DING DING DING!!!! We have a winner!
LOL! I cn't tell you how many cans/bags of beans, black eyed peas, and lentils I have. Usually I add a little kielbasa or chicken, carrots, onions, and celery and make hearty soups. I'm diabetic, so I have to watch the carbs and don't eat much rice, but a nice bean soup is full of fiber and is good for me.
Strange, every can of beans I buy is the 'Dave Ramsey' brand; the man must be making a mint.
Oh yeah, I live in Iowa. I guess the hungry people aren't shopping where I shop, 'cause none of these folks out here look like they've missed a meal.
Diet’s got to have a lot to do with it.
The neighborhood I live in is having lots of southern Mexicans and Central Americans moving in, probably almost all illegals. Short, thin people.
Some, including their kids, are much fatter than others. I bet an interview, which would probably terrify the poor people, would show a direct correlation between time in America and increased body mass.
A major factor is soda. 75 years ago Coke was sold in 6 oz. containers. Today it is frequently sold in 64 oz. containers. That alone is a truly massive increase in calories. One of those giant containers has something like 700+ calories, all of it fructose from corn syrup, which another poster has pointed out may be uniquely prone to cause various obesity and health problems.
Interestingly, when fructose from corn syrup first started to be widely used it was promoted as being better for health than the old “regular sugar.”
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