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

[Horatio Parker]

You missed the point of my post. That good public information about nutrition is lacking especially when compared to the resources devoted to promoting unhealthy food. The resulting lack of food desert demand is then cited as proof that people don't know any better. The crux really is that it's in (almost) everyone's best interest to at least try to get people to eat healthier.

I'm not objecting to trying to get people to eat healthier. I'm objecting to blaming the stores for the problem.

Who's blaming the stores? Not me...

 

[ronburgundy]

You missed the point of my post. That good public information about nutrition is lacking especially when compared to the resources devoted to promoting unhealthy food. The resulting lack of food desert demand is then cited as proof that people don't know any better. The crux really is that it's in (almost) everyone's best interest to at least try to get people to eat healthier.

I'm not objecting to trying to get people to eat healthier. I'm objecting to blaming the stores for the problem.

It isn't a matter of moral "blame". It's a matter of accurately understanding the complex causal reality of these "food deserts", and the linked article does nothing to support your claim that consumer preferences are the root cause.

Recognizing the fact that supermarkets avoid poor areas for reasons other than demand doesn't mean you have to lay moral blame on the stores. Some factors that lead stores to avoid poor areas include:
1. The uneven flow of business due to the once-a-month "income" (food stamps) of many of their customers. It is harder for stores to operate and cover work shifts when 80% of the demand is in the first week of the month
2. Higher insurance and security costs, due to higher crime in the area
3. Fewer available employees with needed skills, thus requiring more training
4. Long term uncertainty regarding the economics of the area. Building a supermarket is costly turning any profit requires several years of operation. Poor areas often undergo drastic changes that can undermine a supermarkets customer base.

These are all legit concerns that make Supermarket's hesitant to build in poor areas, and as such, show that the "free market" is not capable of solving this problem. Yet, it is also not the fault of most of the residents who live there and desire more healthy options (or would desire such options had they not been conditioned by growing up without such options).
Factors outside their control lead to lack of affordable healthy food options, so they have a less healthy diet and more health problems.
Its just another way that being poor is very costly and leads to countless obstacles to positive future outcomes that people who grow up with more wealth do not face.

IOW, it isn't about "blaming" the stores, but about not blaming the poor diet of poor people on some absurd notion of their magical free-will choice to eat less healthy that is unrestrained by the environments in which they exist.

 

[TV and credit cards]

It isn't a matter of moral "blame". It's a matter of accurately understanding the complex causal reality of these "food deserts", and the linked article does nothing to support your claim that consumer preferences are the root cause.

Recognizing the fact that supermarkets avoid poor areas for reasons other than demand doesn't mean you have to lay moral blame on the stores. Some factors that lead stores to avoid poor areas include:
1. The uneven flow of business due to the once-a-month "income" (food stamps) of many of their customers. It is harder for stores to operate and cover work shifts when 80% of the demand is in the first week of the month
2. Higher insurance and security costs, due to higher crime in the area
3. Fewer available employees with needed skills, thus requiring more training
4. Long term uncertainty regarding the economics of the area. Building a supermarket is costly turning any profit requires several years of operation. Poor areas often undergo drastic changes that can undermine a supermarkets customer base.

These are all legit concerns that make Supermarket's hesitant to build in poor areas, and as such, show that the "free market" is not capable of solving this problem. Yet, it is also not the fault of most of the residents who live there and desire more healthy options (or would desire such options had they not been conditioned by growing up without such options).
Factors outside their control lead to lack of affordable healthy food options, so they have a less healthy diet and more health problems.
Its just another way that being poor is very costly and leads to countless obstacles to positive future outcomes that people who grow up with more wealth do not face.

IOW, it isn't about "blaming" the stores, but about not blaming the poor diet of poor people on some absurd notion of their magical free-will choice to eat less healthy that is unrestrained by the environments in which they exist.

Perhaps the mortgage crisis would have been a good opportunity to help mitigate the problem of food deserts. Like the hedge funds and private equity firms that bought up foreclosed properties, HUD should have gotten in the game and provided funding to purchase foreclosed properties in better neighborhoods and relocate many of the poor under something like the scatter-site housing program.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Perhaps the mortgage crisis would have been a good opportunity to help mitigate the problem of food deserts. Like the hedge funds and private equity firms that bought up foreclosed properties, HUD should have gotten in the game and provided funding to purchase foreclosed properties in better neighborhoods and relocate many of the poor under something like the scatter-site housing program.

Which would have resulted in major objections from the people already living there. This is an issue of skin, but of a different type: skin in the game. Homeowners do not like non-owners in their neighborhood because it drives down the neighborhood. Those who aren't even paying the rental costs are even worse.

Simple example: In our 20 years here I have seen the police on our block three times. Two of those visits were to ones that weren't owner occupied--AFIAK the only two that weren't. The third was happenstance--they were chasing a guy, he went to ground on our street. (While they didn't indicate exactly what lead up to it I suspect the road layout got him cornered. It's a typical reasonably modern layout--an awful lot of roads don't go through. He was coming from the south, if some cops were coming from the north I would put it about 50:50 that the spot he ends up trapped is our street.)

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

As someone who has been poor several times during my life, the description of poor people as rubes who are constantly fooled by advertisers to be something truly absurd.

It is also yet another example of progressive condescension. Gods I hate that. "We know what is good for you, you don't know what is good for you. You are making the wrong choices because you aren't choosing what I would choose."

 

[DBT]

Advertising works for a reason. Not because people are 'rubes' but basically because saturation marketing essentially makes the advertised product a household name, something familiar. A product that may be trusted over unknown brands, as perceived by the consumer.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

As someone who has been poor several times during my life, the description of poor people as rubes who are constantly fooled by advertisers to be something truly absurd.

It is also yet another example of progressive condescension. Gods I hate that. "We know what is good for you, you don't know what is good for you. You are making the wrong choices because you aren't choosing what I would choose."

Not sure if you meant progressive in the political sense. Maybe you meant political and not progressive because all politics does this.

I've never been poor in that I was food or housing insecure,, but I've certainly been poor in an intellectual sense, meaning that I did not know what was in my best interests, the reasons for that being unimportant. It's not that I questioned what was in my best interests, but that I lacked sufficient knowledge to even formulate questions on subjects.

There are plenty of poor folks like this around. Some of them are filthy rich but most are materially poor, the poor we're talking about here.

 

[Horatio Parker]

As someone who has been poor several times during my life, the description of poor people as rubes who are constantly fooled by advertisers to be something truly absurd.

It is also yet another example of progressive condescension. Gods I hate that. "We know what is good for you, you don't know what is good for you. You are making the wrong choices because you aren't choosing what I would choose."

Sure, who can argue with anyone who rationally chooses a diet leading to hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure etc.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

As someone who has been poor several times during my life, the description of poor people as rubes who are constantly fooled by advertisers to be something truly absurd.

It is also yet another example of progressive condescension. Gods I hate that. "We know what is good for you, you don't know what is good for you. You are making the wrong choices because you aren't choosing what I would choose."

Sure, who can argue with anyone who rationally chooses a diet leading to hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure etc.

Game theory maybe? Not everyone's going to score with the hot blonde or the hunk so you maximize your gain accordingly. Destructive behavior explained, no need to judge the behavior or the person.

Or maybe addictive eating is the emotional equivalent of scoring with the hot partner.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

As someone who has been poor several times during my life, the description of poor people as rubes who are constantly fooled by advertisers to be something truly absurd.

It is also yet another example of progressive condescension. Gods I hate that. "We know what is good for you, you don't know what is good for you. You are making the wrong choices because you aren't choosing what I would choose."

Not sure if you meant progressive in the political sense. Maybe you meant political and not progressive because all politics does this.

I did mean "progressive", because when you are poor it isn't the conservatives coming around trying to "help" you all the time. The conservatives make you listen to a sermon but then give you food. Progressives say "oh we are so caring, so you have to do exactly as we say and thank us for it." The assumption of the conservatives is that you need Jesus. The assumption of the progressives is that they ARE Jesus.

As someone who has been poor several times during my life, the description of poor people as rubes who are constantly fooled by advertisers to be something truly absurd.

It is also yet another example of progressive condescension. Gods I hate that. "We know what is good for you, you don't know what is good for you. You are making the wrong choices because you aren't choosing what I would choose."

Sure, who can argue with anyone who rationally chooses a diet leading to hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure etc.

You eat what you can afford, even if it is less healthy. The actual choice is bad food or no food, and given just that what do you choose?

 

[Horatio Parker]

You eat what you can afford, even if it is less healthy. The actual choice is bad food or no food, and given just that what do you choose?

So your position is that a healthy diet is unaffordable to the poor?

Is that also your personal experience?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I did mean "progressive", because when you are poor it isn't the conservatives coming around trying to "help" you all the time. The conservatives make you listen to a sermon but then give you food. Progressives say "oh we are so caring, so you have to do exactly as we say and thank us for it." The assumption of the conservatives is that you need Jesus. The assumption of the progressives is that they ARE Jesus.

As someone who has been poor several times during my life, the description of poor people as rubes who are constantly fooled by advertisers to be something truly absurd.

It is also yet another example of progressive condescension. Gods I hate that. "We know what is good for you, you don't know what is good for you. You are making the wrong choices because you aren't choosing what I would choose."

Sure, who can argue with anyone who rationally chooses a diet leading to hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure etc.

You eat what you can afford, even if it is less healthy. The actual choice is bad food or no food, and given just that what do you choose?

I'm not certain the Jesus allusion.

Pensions, social security, healthcare, food stamps... These are things conservatives want to remove, not provide. These are liberal programs. So I'm afraid I'm unable to grasp what you are trying to state here, attributing such things to conservative tendencies.

And just to add to the previous post, a healthy diet may be inconvenient but it is hardly unaffordable. That much has already been demonstrated.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Have you ever had to factor in "how much will the gas cost to go to the supermarket"? If you have not had to figure that out then you do not have the experience that a healthy diet is actually less affordable in some ways.

When even the cost of going to the store is something you have to think about, you make as few trips as possible. I hope that makes sense to you.

When you make as few trips as possible, you buy more durable goods. Fresh produce is great, and goes bad in three days. You buy frozen until your freezer is full, you buy boxed and packaged to fill the shelves, until you need to make the next shopping trip. EBT does help defray the cost of the groceries themselves, but there is no EBT to get you to the store in the first place.

Do you know what "long shelf life" means in terms of ingredients and health value? In general, the longer the shelf life the shorter your life. But if you don't eat you have an even shorter life. Or you could spend the grocery money on frequent trips to the store and have nothing left to shop with when you get there.

So, conservatives say you need Jesus, and progressives say they ARE Jesus. They provide all the "benefits" with such condescending faux-caring that to anyone who is on the receiving end of their "generosity" can clearly see what their true motive is. It isn't "I want to help you", it is "I want you to see me helping you and be grateful to me for helping you, I am your savior." Personal experience from a family where we had to include the cost of gas in our grocery trip.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When you make as few trips as possible, you buy more durable goods. Fresh produce is great, and goes bad in three days.

Three days? There's a ton of produce in the house right now--and the last time we were at the grocery was 5 days ago.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Have you ever had to factor in "how much will the gas cost to go to the supermarket"? If you have not had to figure that out then you do not have the experience that a healthy diet is actually less affordable in some ways.

When even the cost of going to the store is something you have to think about, you make as few trips as possible. I hope that makes sense to you.

When you make as few trips as possible, you buy more durable goods. Fresh produce is great, and goes bad in three days. You buy frozen until your freezer is full, you buy boxed and packaged to fill the shelves, until you need to make the next shopping trip. EBT does help defray the cost of the groceries themselves, but there is no EBT to get you to the store in the first place.

Do you know what "long shelf life" means in terms of ingredients and health value? In general, the longer the shelf life the shorter your life. But if you don't eat you have an even shorter life. Or you could spend the grocery money on frequent trips to the store and have nothing left to shop with when you get there.

So, conservatives say you need Jesus, and progressives say they ARE Jesus. They provide all the "benefits" with such condescending faux-caring that to anyone who is on the receiving end of their "generosity" can clearly see what their true motive is. It isn't "I want to help you", it is "I want you to see me helping you and be grateful to me for helping you, I am your savior." Personal experience from a family where we had to include the cost of gas in our grocery trip.

I wasn't thinking of the transportation cost so you would be correct there. I did consider that what I take as basic necessities such as a freezer, stove sink, etc. are things I know many people do not have.

But the cost of the food is very similar, if fresh produce is eliminated.

And I understand your Jesus allusion. Remember though that one men's Jesus is another man's anti Christ. I like to think I judge people by their behavior, not their speech. It's that truth thing, you know, truth is something you discover, not something you receive. Something like that.