"Nutritious food is becoming a luxury item and increasingly inaccessible to an ever larger number of people," Adam Drewnowski, director of the University of Washington's Center for Public Health Nutrition, has said
Dean Ornish (Bill Clinton’s much-ignored health consultant) has shown that the principle way to avoid or stave off most of the killers of Westerners (such as atherosclerosis and diabetes) is to adopt a diet which:
Is comprised mostly of beans, vegetables, fruits, and grains
Uses simple sugars and animal-derived foods sparingly
Avoids trans-fats and other freakish fats
This is not news and Dean is not alone in his conclusions. Bill Clinton’s bigget problem is that he never put down the cheeseburgers, but if he’d heeded Ornish’s message he would have avoided much pain.
So, let’s address the quote with a hypothetical low-income, low-mobility grandmother who lives in Seattle close to the corner of S Orcas St and Renton Ave S, has no car, is not car-pooling, doesn’t know mayor Nickels, has undependable friends, and can‘t carry very much. How does she stock the larder?
Bus to the Cash-N-Carry at 1915 21st Ave S. Cost to her: 30 minutes, short walk, and her bus pass.
Buy 25 lb bag of brown rice, 25 lb bag of lentils, one gallon peanut oil, 10 lbs onions, 10 lbs potatoes, and 1 lb bacon (some people seem to need meat, and bacon is noticeable even in tiny amounts)
Cost: $65.00?
Cab home: $16.00 (11.00 for fare and 5.00 to bribe the driver to carry the groceries inside.)
Now, what has she bought for $71.00 and 1.5 hours of moseying/shopping? About 100,000 fairly healthy calories, enough for a sedentary person to live off of for two months. Obviously, this is not the only food she would eat, but it could easily be her primary stock and would require few additions. Even if she has no one else to depend on, if she uses the simple method of bussing to and cabbing from, she can buy lots of foods from restaurant supply stores that last for months in a closet/pantry and large bags of frozen vegetables which last for months in a freezer from any lame to reasonable grocery store. Pedestrian produce like apples and bananas can be found anywhere, including 7-11s.
So, who would eat like this? I would, and have, and prefer to. After October of ‘08 I decided I wanted to have months worth of food around in case of three contingencies, and ate for several weeks foods like:
Potato lentil soup:
1 cup lentils
4 cups water
1 medium onion (small chunks)
1 medium potato (big chunks)
2 t Better Than Bullion (approximately)
Simmered or pressure-cooked until the lentils are al dente. Finished with lemon and black or red pepper. This is one of my favorite foods.
Brown rice with frozen vegetables, garlic, soy sauce, lima beans, navy beans, black-eyed peas, pinto beans, or many other choices.
So, this Drewnowski character and anyone else who says something about an American inner-city like, “nutritious food is becoming a luxury item…” is bucking for grant money or a job, is a liar, or is a satanist. In America, the only things keeping people from healthy groceries are their parents, their own choices, or the inability to round up an average of a few dollars daily (at most) from somewhere or someone. We don't need "federal New Market Tax Credits" to close the "Grocery Gap" or any other subsidy to provide food. All that's required is ten minutes of thought from a reformed liberal and the will to eat well.
