Want to Get Americans Off Junk Food? Pay Them a Living Wage

[Purveyor]

Working hard for 40 hours a week should guarantee a living wage. Who does it benefit if Americans lack the time, money, and resources to feed their families healthy food?

By Jill Richardson April 9, 2013

Healthy food is expensive and telling people to eat organic, local food is elitist. Have you heard that argument before?

It’s true. Healthy, organic, local food is expensive. Calorie for calorie, you get more for your money at a fast food drive-thru than at a farmer’s market. And the fast food will be cooked and ready to eat, whereas you might need to take your fresh, organic produce home to cook it.

Now, you might say, that’s only a short-term calculation. Today, a $5 burger, fries, and large soda looks like a better deal than a few ounces of spinach, a handful of dried beans, and a bunch of carrots for the same price. But that overlooks the health consequences of either meal. One of these meals, if eaten regularly, will land you in the hospital someday. The other won’t.

Factor the costs of medical care needed to treat diet-related chronic illnesses like heart disease and diabetes into the equation, not to mention the quality of life problems. Can you put a price tag on a year of your life? How about endless hospital visits? Suddenly, the spinach, beans, and carrots look like a better deal.

Yet, this kind of logic assumes that you have enough money right now to make either choice. And millions of Americans don’t. How many families struggling to raise their children and pay their bills simply lack the cash needed to buy healthy foods or the time needed to prepare them?

MORE...

http://www.alternet.org/food/want-get-americans-junk-food-pay-them-living-wage?akid=10310.260530.rGf0hO&rd=1&src=newsletter822302&t=20

[loyalsister]

1. Exactly!

I visited the food bank yesterday only to find among some canned fruit, ham, bread, and protein bars... rice krispy treats, various cakes and pastries, cookies, GUM!! and more junk

[FBaggins]

2. I doubt it.

Thus would be true if price were the predominant factor... but too many people eat poorly because they don't know how to prepare healthy food (or have a taste for it). They would prefer a cheeseburger from the drivethrough to fresh veggies steamed from the garden even if they were much cheaper (which they are).

[madville]

3. I've always found it cheaper to eat healthier

Healthier can certainly be more work, require some creativity and be less convenient in some cases though. Everyone has a different definition of what "healthy" is as well, to some it is being a vegetarian, others it is Palio, low fat, reduced carb, all organic, etc, etc.

I certainly eat healthier and much cheaper than a couple of daily trips through the drive-thru cost. I like cooking though and prepare at least 5 or more servings at a time so I can take my lunch to work or freeze some for later.

[abelenkpe]

4. Pay more work less

More time with family, more time to prepare food from scratch.

[hay rick]

5. Calories are cheap, good nutrition is expensive.

Rightwingers love to point to overweight poor people and say, I told you so, they're fat and lazy and that's why they are poor. And also, they can't really be poor, because they are fat.

Lousy jobs also reinforce the notion that a person is worthless and saps the pride that would motivate a person to take better care of their body.