“you and Michael and others keep stating that fruits and vegetables are more expensive than whatever alternatives are available to the obese.” I don’t remember saying that(?)

WalMart is I think, now carrying organic produce, which is a real game changer. I think that’s great. Supermarkets listing local farmers and organic is also part of the trend, among other things it draws attention to the produce.

I actually think Whole Foods produce, organic or not, is mediocre. If Aidi or Meijer can sell good, local produce, all the better and it shows the market growth. Getting people to eat better won’t involve everyone shopping Whole Foods, or everyone gardening, or everyone going to farmers markets. But I see all of these trends growing together.

People have gardens because they enjoy the pastime of gardening. At any proper valuation of our labor, gardening as a purely economic persuit makes no sense. The productivity of real farmers is simply too high to make that work.

And if people want organic produce, locally grown, and there is a real market for that, it will be provided. It already is being provided. I just walked into a supermarket yesterday (actually, it’s the hypermarket Meijer) and they had a list of all the local farms that they buy from, and what products those farms offer. They also have a large organic produce section.

The poor are consumers just like anyone else. Seeing as how the biggest contributor to poverty is not working, second order effects that Walmart might have (lowering wages, or whatever else the left blames them with) are not relevant to calculating the benefits to the poor from Walmart.

Is that really true?

First of all, would canned or frozen veggies be that bad an alternative?

Secondly, are vegitables of any kind really more expensive than fast food? Fast food is generally meat. Meat is more expensive than fruits and vegitables?

I shop at Aldi. The fruits and veggies are not fresh, they’re packaged (but not processed). It is wicked cheap. Almost trivially cheap. Based on this experience (and Aldi seems to be expanding to cities, they’re common in and around Chicago and Buffalo) I’m saying that a poor person who wants to eat well can do so. Perhaps not Whole Foods well, but well enough.

Back to gardening. This post and a lot of the current publicity around gardening is about low income people, but of course the phenomenon is happening in middle and upper class neighborhoods without as much publicity. A community garden is a group effort while a family garden is private and so not as noticeable, but just as important. And things like farmer’s markets and food co-ops which started in the alternative culture are moving to include middle-class and low income customers.

Today’s home gardens are sometimes compared to WW II victory gardens and there are similarities, but America’s makeup and habits are very different than the 1940’s. Back then, America was largely still rural and agricultural, or Fordist industrial. Or both — where my family was based, on the Ohio-West Virginia border, people lived in small towns with gardens but the men worked in the coal mines. After most of the family moved to California, both sets of my grandparents had gardens, ate from them and canned for the winter.

My step-grandfather looked and acted like John Wayne. A big man for his generation at 6′+, he was gassed in WWI, was a rancher, gold miner, and lumberman (and somehow never made any money, another story). In another time he would have been called macho, but it was unselfconscious. He hunted and got his limit of deer every fall, which went in the freezer and was a large part of my grandparent’s meat for the year. Then when my grandmother’s arthritis got so bad she couldn’t use her hands, he took over the cooking, cleaning and canning — as far as I know without comment. It wasn’t woman’s work, it was work that needed to be done. I learned a lot from him, even though I would have probably disagreed with his politics totally.

If the trend continues, we’re moving back to the fresh, local, more vegetable diet as well as home and community gardens. I think this will have numerous benefits. I doubt I’ll be deer hunting — it’s become an expensive hobby, I haven’t shot a rifle for 30+ years, and the rest of my family is fairly anti-gun which isn’t unusual but too bad in a way.

It is not as if these people don’t want to eat healthier food. They certainly do. They can’t afford to. That is where projects like urban gardens and Pennsylvania’s FFFI step in. Creating access to affordable healthy food will reduce obesity and other health risks in poor neighborhoods. They will stop eating fast food or canned food, if they know they can stop somewhere in their neighborhood to buy fresh food.

The big obstacle for grocery stores from opening up in many inner city neighborhoods are the start up costs. (or some cases developers underestimate the potential of these markets) Start up costs for development is much higher in urban dense areas than in suburban areas, however studies have shown the long term costs make suburban development much higher. It may involve destroying old buildings, diverting traffic, affecting local residents, and the worry about crime. This is why the PA’s FFFI is so beneficial, it absorbs the start up costs, or at least assist with the start up costs.

Buzzcut-please excuse me while I laugh at your comment about WalMart being the greatest anti-poverty program known to man.

True. But as with anything, it is all a matter of degrees.

Look, divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth are also problems in America. But like obesity, they are much more prevelant the lower down the income ladder you go.

In fact, I think that income itself is an indication of future time orientation. It refects how much you work and how much education you’ve attained.

Obesity is an American problem, not just limited to urban poor or rural poor. The efforts that Michael discusses in his original post appear to have been put in place to increase exposure of healty eating to all people. Some of the activities in the inner city receive more coverage since they are supplying food banks, are geared towards educating the next generation (very important) or are re-using lots from demolished houses. Bottom line: With little effort and little cost, we can do better for ourselves and our children.

I live in a nice, middle class neighborhood with several very nice grocery stores close by. I would say that at least half, if not more, of my neighbors would be considered heavy. At my kids swim team practice early this morning, many of the younger siblings were running around eating their Hot Pockets or Pop Tarts while the moms were reading weight loss magazines and talking about how many “points” were in a tacquito. After practice, they jumped in their mini-vans and drove the half-mile home. I think your definition of “poor future time orientation” applies to more than just the low income.

Even so, as noted, it isn’t like the white rural poor are… slim. Yet another indication that it is poor future time orientation that is the culprit.

Also, keep in mind that just because there are no supermarkets in the ghetto does not mean that the urban poor don’t shop in supermarkets. They do so in other communities.

It’s important to break this down into observable facts and theory.

It’s obvious and easily verifiable that many low income/ poverty stricken communities don’t have good grocery stores. Drive or walk around poor areas and look. That’s not hypothesis, it’s facts on the ground.

WHY this happens is open to discussion and varying hypothesis. Buzzcut’s “poor time orientation” is one and may have some validity. Another is that grocery chains want customers who can buy 2-3 bags for a week and pay cash (check/debit, whatever)and so avoid poor areas. There may be others, and probably there are multiple factors.

This reminds me of when I lived in New York. The common wisdom was that vegetables moved downtown. Fresh produce would first go into stores on the upper East Side, after a week the leftovers would move to middle income neighborhoods like Chelsea or the West Village, another week and the same vegetables would be in the Lower East Side mercados(or uptown in Harlem)and pretty wilted. I never checked this out but judging by the quality of produce in the stores accepted it. Having grown up in california I had something to compare it to.