workingchemistry:ebhenah:worth-beyond-a-number-scale:theacenightwatch:alithea:canisfamiliaris:Is Jun
workingchemistry:ebhenah:worth-beyond-a-number-scale:theacenightwatch:alithea:canisfamiliaris:Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?The answer is NO.The “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has become a reflexive part of how we explain why so many Americans are overweight, particularly those with lower incomes. I frequently read confident statements like, “when a bag of chips is cheaper than a head of broccoli …” or “it’s more affordable to feed a family of four at McDonald’s than to cook a healthy meal for them at home.”(via sunfoundation)this bullshit fills me with a very specific kind of rage. so, TIME TO DEBUNK!that meal from mcdonalds takes virtually no time to acquire AND is available almost anywhere.the second meal? that “salad” is lettuce … with nothing else, not even dressing unless its just olive oil or some milk i guess? gross.also thats the price of each serving, not an entire loaf of bread, a bottle of olive oil, etc. that stuff adds up which means you have to have a lot of money at one time to buy it all.that meal probably took an hour and a half to make, which is a long fucking time when you work multiple jobs or are caring for a lot of people or dont have help! seriously, if you are a single parent of three who works, is spending an hour and a half every night preparing a meal a likely option?same with beans and rice! also, you know whats a fucking bummer? eating beans and rice every night because you are poor. ask any person who has done it and they will tell you (you can start with me).there is a “nutrition” argument here that lacks a follow up: poor people are more likely to be doing physical labor and need more than 571 calories per meal.you know who is less likely to know how to bake or prepare a chicken? people without access to the internet, or libraries, or who werent taught how to by their parents because their parents worked all the time. access to healthy foods is a classist issue and classism is cyclical, you fucking morons.seriously, these sorts of infographics make me want to fucking flip tables. do you know why people don’t eat more fresh fruits and vegetables? because fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive, because they take a long time to prepare, because they dont live near a grocery store that has a decent produce section, because they dont have reliable transportation to get groceries to and from the grocery store, because they dont have the energy to plan all of the shit that is involved in making healthy, intentional, filling, balanced meals. basically: poor people get fucked, and then we get BLAMED for being lazy.eating “healthy”, aka access to fresh fruits and vegetables, is a privilege, first, foremost, always. so fuck you new york times and your ignorant goddamn infographic.there are SYSTEMATIC REASONS that we do not have equal access to fresh fruits and vegetables. they are very REAL problems. besides, you know, systematic poverty in america, the total mis-distribution of farm subsidies is a perfect place to start. read about that, then either get bent or start working on the actual problem.In which fad dieters forget about the dollar menuThat’s exactly what I thought. Poor people aren’t even buying big macs with sides. They’re buying dollar menu items because they’re a dollar. Also, BMI isn’t scientific, weight is not an indicator of health, and neither weight nor health are indicators of worth.So their entire “point” was BS from the beginning.The price of food from a restaurant includes a valuation for the time taken to prepare it. Time has value. The time spent buying ingredients, preparing them, serving them AND CLEANING UP AFTERWARDS is factored into the cost of the McDonald’s meal but NOT the ‘home cooked meal’.Not only does the time-starved, cash-strapped, and overworked poor person not have to shop, clean, peel, slice, and cook the food, they also do not have to deal with cleaning up afterwards. No food scraps in their kitchen, no pots and pans to scrub, no leftovers to store, no dishes to do. Do not assume that people have clean water, consistent power for safe food storage, or working appliances just because they are able to buy some big macs and fries! Those are real issues faced by poor people in developed nations all the time. Doesn’t matter how cheap raw chicken is if you have no way to store it or cook it!Beyond that, not only is this kind of “just cook at home, it’s cheaper” mindset classist (as was pointed out) it is also inherently misogynistic and is strongly tied to the devaluation in our culture of work associated with women, especially that of mothers.Meal prep and clean-up was considered the domain of housewives and mothers- a demographic whose contributions have always been seriously under-appreciated and economically-invisible. It is a classic example of unpaid labor and a significant time-suck for a demographic that is increasingly time-starved- especially with the continued rise in low-income single mothers and the shrinking access to financial resources.I saw beans and rice and wanted to cry. Please never never tell a poor person to eat beans and rice. -- source link