this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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"Food insecurity" also means someone is more likely to go for garbage, empty calorie food like ramen, cheap fatty/highly processed meats, and barely any fresh vegetables due to financial reasons. You can be obese and malnourished at the same time.
Good food is more expensive than shitty food in the US. Our whole food economy is centered around fats and sugar.
I don't disagree in regard to the general nutritiousness of their options. At the same time there is extremely poor education around food and life skills in general. Presented with two options most people in America would choose the least healthful one.
The poor don't get many options. Ever been to a food bank in America? It depends a bit on each bank but 99/100 you are going to get more carbs than veggies. You almost always get one or two boxes of sugary cereal crap, one loaf of bread, and a mountain of pasta since it never goes bad.
If you do get veggies they are likely rejects no one else wanted to buy. If you are lucky they are just ugly. If you are unlucky they are already starting to go and you have to cut around rot and eat them in a couple days. You will likely get canned veggies that are unpopular like cannelloni beans or something. If it's frozen veggies they are likely frost burned to the point of barely being edible.
Whenever we have hit a tough patch and needed help from a food bank we gained weight and feel like shit. Meanwhile the best diet that ever worked for me (keto) required fresh veggies and plenty of butter (or other fats), eggs, and meat. It isn't cheap when you are broke and you really have no choice. It's a societal issue, just knowing what is right yourself won't help if everyone else is ignorant.
Poor options doesn't mean no options. People aren't starving or "not eating" as the meme suggests. I never said "Poor people have it great, get everything they want and have a great diet". My point is that poor people have so much food (of varying quality) that they are obese which is in contrast to the rest of the world. Don't forget that most middle class Americans are obese too. Statistically most people in America eat poorly regardless of their income.
Fair enough, in that you are absolutely right. From my experience the poor who are hungry are usually the ones with bigger issues, drugs, violence etc.
I was just trying to stress that the poor are only left with bad options. It's a systemic issue stemming from capitalism and lobbying to create the unhealthy diet paradigm that the U.S. is only starting to shake. Even for middle class, there is always the drive to save a few bucks which leads to worse diet.