Reminds me of an interview I read with Jamie Oliver, the Naked Chef. He’s been on a campaign to get the schools in England to serve more nutritious lunches, rather than junk food.
The interviewer said something like “well, isn’t it hard for poor people to eat well because it’s more expensive?”
He was indignant and said “NO.” His reply was something like for the price of a bag of potato chips, you could buy two dozen eggs, a bunch of veggies and so on.
He said it wasn’t the money, it was the choices.
The interviewer was . . . uh . . . next . . .
Choices, stimulation, involved parents. The list could go on and on.
“His reply was something like for the price of a bag of potato chips, you could buy two dozen eggs, a bunch of veggies and so on.”
I have read (and from my own limited observation, I believe it to be true) that a lot of these inner city neighborhoods don’t have regular grocery stores where you can buy said eggs, veggies, etc., though there are 7-11’s and so forth where you can buy doughnuts and chips. Transportation is a big issue for a lot of poor people: it is difficult to buy a bunch of groceries at a regular store and then haul it all home on the bus. (When I was in grad school I had the same problem — there was no grocery store nearby and I didn’t have a car, so getting decent groceries back to my pad took some conniving.) I’m not saying that a lot of poor people could not make better choices, but sometimes it isn’t as simple as it looks.