Nutritional inequality: 91% due to demand, only 9% due to availability (food deserts)

[Jolly_Penguin]

Good food isn't always expensive. It just takes more work to prepare than the processed junk.

This is true. I did it myself when i was a student.

But we should look also to if the working poor have as much time and energy so to prepare such food for themselves, if they have the knowledge of what to eat and how to prepare it, if they have working tools to prepare it with, and if they are as able to prioritize their nutrition or if other more immediate life and death concerns keep their attention away from it.

 

[Toni]

...we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%...

So they offered expensive food to people who never heard of it?

What does this prove exactly?

That people won't buy food that they cannot afford. Or food that is unfamiliar to them. Includes time to shop/prep/cook/serve. And also have the available resources to prep a meal outside of the time/money thing. If you have only bare minimum cooking implements and pots/pans and a cooking surface that is not functioning or not functioning well, and/or a refrigerator that is unreliable, one is quite limited on what one can actually prepare. I know this from days when I not only had no money but had a poorly functioning stove and fridge and very few kitchen pots/pans or utensils.

Once, I was splurging and baking a cake for someone and lacking even a hand mixer, I beat everything by hand. It was very time consuming.

Also, a great many people do not venture much outside of what is familiar. This includes people who are well educated and very solidly middle class to upper middle class. I have a sibling who...simply does not cook. Can but won't. Fridge is barely stocked and stocked only with stuff to make sandwiches and soft drinks. Sibling is a pharmacist so it's not like there is no awareness of implications of eating a bad diet. We all grew up in a home where it was extremely rare for us to eat out anywhere, even a fast food restaurant. Like, maybe a handful of times when I was growing up. All meals were made at home, although Mom did love easy prep stuff, both because she didn't really enjoy cooking and also because it seemed more 'modern' and less 'poor' to her. I think I am the only one of my siblings who has ever made...spaghetti sauce from scratch. Or a cake. Or cookies. Or tacos. Because why do that if you can buy it in a box or can or jar?? All of my siblings are well educated and solidly middle class to upper middle class.

I have one kid who simply will not cook, another who is actively exploring many different techniques and recipes and the others fall between with interest rising and falling depending on a lot of things, including what's going on in their lives at the moment. They'd ALL be better off if they simply made use of the pots and pans they were gifted when they first moved out on their own.

 

[ZiprHead]

...we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%...

So they offered expensive food to people who never heard of it?

What does this prove exactly?

Good food isn't always expensive. It just takes more work to prepare than the processed junk.

I think that's a big part of it. When you are working two or more jobs and trying to take care of kids, food prep time will suffer.

 

[Toni]

Good food isn't always expensive. It just takes more work to prepare than the processed junk.

I think that's a big part of it. When you are working two or more jobs and trying to take care of kids, food prep time will suffer.

It isn't just time. It's also the stress, quite possibly depression and anxiety that make it harder to cope with difficult circumstances. And some people who have no money want to do for their kids what they imagine that more well to do families do: take them to McDonalds or whatever. Buy them that soda or candy or piece of junk. They know they will never be able to afford to live in the nice neighborhoods to take fancy vacations so small luxuries that seem attainable are tempting.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Aren't people responsible for anything? It's always faceless evil business in your world.

Yes. Exactly.

Let's hold all those assholes who poisoned the food supply deliberately for profit responsible.

Food determines your next generation. That and education.

We should be caring most about those two things and making sure as many as possible are getting the best possible. It should not be a game for profit.

This should be thought of as national security. Real national security.

What are businesses made of? People.

I understand you now--you want no responsibility for your fate, you want life handed to you on a silver platter and you think it's some big conspiracy that life isn't how you want it to be.

 

[untermensche]

Aren't people responsible for anything? It's always faceless evil business in your world.

Yes. Exactly.

Let's hold all those assholes who poisoned the food supply deliberately for profit responsible.

Food determines your next generation. That and education.

We should be caring most about those two things and making sure as many as possible are getting the best possible. It should not be a game for profit.

This should be thought of as national security. Real national security.

What are businesses made of? People.

I understand you now--you want no responsibility for your fate, you want life handed to you on a silver platter and you think it's some big conspiracy that life isn't how you want it to be.

This is on the third grade level of understanding.

Corporations are rigid dictatorships.

All decisions are made at the top.

The people at the top of these processed food corporations deliberately have decided to poison the food supply. For profit.

Nobody asked them to.

And they should be eliminated and the food supply should not be a for-profit game.

The next generation will be filled with obesity and diabetes because of the choices of the scum you defend.

 

[repoman]

I 100% co-sign that, untermensche.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What are businesses made of? People.

I understand you now--you want no responsibility for your fate, you want life handed to you on a silver platter and you think it's some big conspiracy that life isn't how you want it to be.

This is on the third grade level of understanding.

Corporations are rigid dictatorships.

All decisions are made at the top.

The people at the top of these processed food corporations deliberately have decided to poison the food supply. For profit.

Nobody asked them to.

And they should be eliminated and the food supply should not be a for-profit game.

The next generation will be filled with obesity and diabetes because of the choices of the scum you defend.

You have presented no evidence of poisoning of the food supply.

And you ignored the fact that it's people making the decisions--yet you seem to feel that people have no responsibility for decisions.

 

[Mumbles]

The authors indicate that that demand explains about 91% of "nutritional inequality which "In turn, these income-related demand differences are partially explained by education, nutrition knowledge, and regional preferences. "
IMO, diet preferences are mostly habit-formed. It takes time to establish such habits. The results of this paper are based on two "event" studies, when new stores with healthy food opened up in the areas. It is not surprising that their openings did not change eating patterns in the short run (one year).

So, I think this paper may be onto something, but the results are not terribly convincing.

This was my view as well. And it also fails to address long-term habits of people who do live in food deserts. The only real conclusion appears to be "people form habits when in certain environments long-term", which we pretty much knew already.

 

[lpetrich]

What are businesses made of? People.

What are criminals? People.

- - - Updated - - -

Aren't people responsible for anything? It's always faceless evil business in your world.

So if you demand the punishment of someone who mugged you, does that means that you are a helpless victim who refuses to take responsibility for having enabled your mugger?

 

[untermensche]

What are businesses made of? People.

I understand you now--you want no responsibility for your fate, you want life handed to you on a silver platter and you think it's some big conspiracy that life isn't how you want it to be.

This is on the third grade level of understanding.

Corporations are rigid dictatorships.

All decisions are made at the top.

The people at the top of these processed food corporations deliberately have decided to poison the food supply. For profit.

Nobody asked them to.

And they should be eliminated and the food supply should not be a for-profit game.

The next generation will be filled with obesity and diabetes because of the choices of the scum you defend.

You have presented no evidence of poisoning of the food supply.

And you ignored the fact that it's people making the decisions--yet you seem to feel that people have no responsibility for decisions.

I hate to inform you but the food supply is horribly toxic. It has been made that way deliberately by scum in search of profit.

The animals raised for meat are raised in tortuous conditions and are full of disease. The meat is full of steroids and antibiotics.

Processed food is full of added chemicals and sugar. It is highly addictive and low in nutritional value besides sugar. It is also carcinogenic.

The food supply is causing obesity and diabetes. It is bankrupting the healthcare system.

Our system where the food supply is a game for profit is absolute insanity.

Humans are showing themselves to have more greed than sense.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Google food science mouthfeel obesity and pick your poison.
Google salt sugar fat.

This crap is engineered to be addictive. When you're born into an environment of salt, sugar, and fat, this is what you're used to. A person can not, will not start eating fresh fruits and vegetables after a life time of eating nothing but energy dense junk.

Jason, Jolly Penguin, and Toni are correct in their statements and I'll take it one step further in stating that at the lowest end, when there is no functioning stove or frig or more likely mom has but a couple hours with the kids between her day time bullshit job and her night time bullshit job, supper is an extra value meal from McDonald's most days of the week. Mom might know it's bad for the kids and some day I'm sure she hopes to change the situation but for now it keeps them from complaining about being hungry.

We train our brains to like or at least become accustom to certain foods, good or bad. This is as much about nutritional education as it is wealth.
It doesn't have to be bad food, but it takes some time to switch over. Some might see a person's station in life, the choices they make, the food they eat as their own damn fault. It's not, not wholly, not by a long shot. When a chemist specializing in food science instead of a person trained in the culinary arts is preparing your meal, you should have some concern or at least be inquisitive as to whether or not the food you are eating is nutritional or maybe, just maybe it's that the major players in the food industry are fighting for stomach share.

You can learn a lot being a vegan for six months. That is if you have the willpower these poor people making bad choices obviously lack. Go ahead. Do it. Then at the end of the six months, treat yourself to your favorite unhealthy meal. You deserve it.

 

[untermensche]

Thanks. I forgot to mention salt.

Too much salt intake immediately causes the body to retain water which raises the blood pressure.

 

[Toni]

Thanks. I forgot to mention salt.

Too much salt intake immediately causes the body to retain water which raises the blood pressure.

Yep. And salt is an easy flavor enhancer--the most common and most over used in American diets at ALL levels. But much more so in fast food/convenience foods.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

This is on the third grade level of understanding.

Corporations are rigid dictatorships.

All decisions are made at the top.

The people at the top of these processed food corporations deliberately have decided to poison the food supply. For profit.

Nobody asked them to.

And they should be eliminated and the food supply should not be a for-profit game.

The next generation will be filled with obesity and diabetes because of the choices of the scum you defend.

Indeed, and I see a parallel here to universal health care. We all benefit from everybody being healthy, so we pool together on universal health care for all to the benefit of society. So why don't we do the same with food? I guess that's what food stamps are, but we need more of it.

 

[untermensche]

We need a government alternative to the toxic for-profit food supply and health insurance.

Let people sell toxic food and bad insurance but educate people to what is best and offer a non-profit alternative.

 

[SimpleDon]

We study the causes of “nutritional inequality”: why the wealthy tend to eat more healthfully than the poor in the U.S. Using two event study designs exploiting entry of new supermarkets and households’ moves to healthier neighborhoods, we reject that neighborhood environments have economically meaningful effects on healthy eating. Using a structural demand model, we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%, while the remaining 91% is driven by differences in demand. In turn, these income-related demand differences are partially explained by education, nutrition knowledge, and regional preferences. These findings contrast with discussions of nutritional inequality that emphasize supply-side issues such as food deserts.

https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/AllcottDiamondDube_FoodDeserts.pdf

So "food deserts" actually explain very little of lower income households eating habits.

Imagine, our premier neoliberal on this site admitting that supply side economics is a failure.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What are businesses made of? People.

What are criminals? People.

- - - Updated - - -

Aren't people responsible for anything? It's always faceless evil business in your world.

So if you demand the punishment of someone who mugged you, does that means that you are a helpless victim who refuses to take responsibility for having enabled your mugger?

The problem is that he places 100% of responsibility on "business"--never mind that businesses are made of people.

 

[Axulus]

We study the causes of “nutritional inequality”: why the wealthy tend to eat more healthfully than the poor in the U.S. Using two event study designs exploiting entry of new supermarkets and households’ moves to healthier neighborhoods, we reject that neighborhood environments have economically meaningful effects on healthy eating. Using a structural demand model, we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%, while the remaining 91% is driven by differences in demand. In turn, these income-related demand differences are partially explained by education, nutrition knowledge, and regional preferences. These findings contrast with discussions of nutritional inequality that emphasize supply-side issues such as food deserts.

https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/AllcottDiamondDube_FoodDeserts.pdf

So "food deserts" actually explain very little of lower income households eating habits.

Imagine, our premier neoliberal on this site admitting that supply side economics is a failure.

You aren't making any sense. This paper is essentially reporting findings that food deserts exist because of the lack of demand in those areas.

What does this have to do with "supply side economics" and an alleged failure?

 

[Axulus]

You have presented no evidence of poisoning of the food supply.

And you ignored the fact that it's people making the decisions--yet you seem to feel that people have no responsibility for decisions.

I hate to inform you but the food supply is horribly toxic. It has been made that way deliberately by scum in search of profit.

The animals raised for meat are raised in tortuous conditions and are full of disease. The meat is full of steroids and antibiotics.

Processed food is full of added chemicals and sugar. It is highly addictive and low in nutritional value besides sugar. It is also carcinogenic.

The food supply is causing obesity and diabetes. It is bankrupting the healthcare system.

Our system where the food supply is a game for profit is absolute insanity.

Humans are showing themselves to have more greed than sense.

The for profit system tailors the food supply to what people will purchase when presented with choices at the prices those choices cost to produce, not the choices you think people should be making.

If a company produces something it thinks or that you think people should be choosing but actually don't, it will fail.

This reality begets the underlying authoritarianism in your ideology: you wish to prevent people from making choices you don't like, and you support the use of government to achieve it.