Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Prohibiting new fast food restaurants in poor neighborhoods

Cynthetiq · 08-05-2008, 07:54 PM

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Originally Posted by filtherton

So poor folks buy more junk food because they've counted the calories?

I don't know about that. $4 to buy some hot pockets fills me up just as much as $3.50 for an organic frozen burrito and a plum.

Maybe for you, but the average consumer doesn't buy an organic frozen burrito or a plum. I doubt the fellows in South Central LA are eating organic frozen burritos.

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Originally Posted by Willravel

Ah, but you've made a rookie mistake: basing everything on calories. Compare my menu to the McDonalds menu on calories and I've had my ass handed to me, but it's not that simple at all. My diet featured variety, vitamins and minerals, fiber, healthy fats, and not even the whisper of a preservative or artificial additive. What does this mean? This means a more balanced diet will mean a better metabolism and better general health.

For anyone in school, test my theory. On test day, have a McDonalds Sausage and egg abortion sandwich with hash fried so deep that you can taste gasoline. And shoot, for kicks, wash it down with a diet cola. Next test rolls around have a small bowl of shredded wheat in soy milk and some heart healthy eggs with mushrooms, peppers, and a glass of water (which washes down a multivitimin). Roughly the same caloric count (plus or minus). In addition to getting more than twice the volume of food, you're going to have more energy. BUT HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?! It's the quality of the calorie, of course.

Not only that, but the fact that you've had a substantially higher mass of food also means you feel more full and aren't hungry for a while longer. This is why people who count calories don't starve.

Until you compensate for quality of calorie and the mass of the food, you're missing a lot of the equation and you're presenting an incorrect answer.

again, you don't know what you are talking about. While there is something to the nutrition values, there isn't when it comes to the cost of the nutrition versus the total cost of food. Healthier food costs more to produce and costs more to purchase. It is that simple.

I've been spending alot of free time talking to nutritionists, food scientists, food service workers, food manufacturers for the better part of my spare time in the past 3 years.

http://www.csrees.usda.gov/newsroom/...ce_of_food.pdf

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I19 March 2008 - Recent studies show that the cost of high-calorie foods are less likely to be affected by inflation and, on average, cost less than low-calorie foods. With obesity plaguing the United States, this trend may hinder low-income families from adopting a low-calorie diet.

Funding from USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) enabled researchers at the University of Washington to examine the price trends of different food choices.

Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health and Nutrition at the University of Washington, and colleagues checked the prices of 372 foods sold at local supermarkets in the Seattle area, comparing the prices with calorie density. High-calorie foods included items like peanut butter and granola, while the lowest-calorie foods were mostly fresh fruits and vegetables.

Defined this way, low-calorie foods tend to be rich in nutrients like vitamins and minerals. Conversely, high-calorie foods are rich in calories, but tend to be low in nutrients. The study found that lower-calorie foods cost more per calorie, while more calorie-dense foods showed a lower cost per calorie. Bargain shoppers get a better deal purchasing high-calorie foods rather than low-calorie foods. This study then explored the effect of inflation on the lower- versus higher-calorie foods.

The researchers found the price of calorie-dense food was less likely to rise as a result of inflation. During the 2-year study, the price of high-calorie food decreased by 1.8 percent, whereas the price of low-calorie foods increased by 19.5 percent. Considering most bargain shoppers are trying to stretch their incomes as far as possible, the findings may help explain why the highest rates of obesity are among people in lower-income groups.

Based on a standard 2000-calorie diet, the researchers found a diet consisting primarily of calorie-dense foods costs $3.52 a day, but a diet consisting primarily of low-calorie food costs $36.32 a day. The average American eats a variety of foods throughout the day, spending $7 a day.

"If you have $3 to feed yourself, your choices gravitate toward foods which give you the most calories per dollar,'' Drewnowski said. "Not only are the empty calories cheaper, but the healthy foods are becoming more and more expensive. Fresh vegetables and fruits are rapidly becoming luxury goods."

Those facts may better explain the popularity of calorie-dense foods in the food selection patterns among groups with limited economic resources. Nutrition education programs can address this challenge and provide additional help for planning healthy meals.

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Nearly One-third Of The Calories In The US Diet Comprised Of Junk Food, Researcher Finds
ScienceDaily (June 2, 2004) — BERKELEY – A new analysis of the foods Americans eat finds that sugary snacks and sodas reign supreme over healthier options such as vegetables and fruit.

Gladys Block, professor of epidemiology and public health nutrition at the University of California, Berkeley, has quantified the types of foods the United States population eats and ranked them by the amount of calories they contribute.

Her findings, published in the June issue of the Journal of Food Chemistry and Analysis, reveal that three food groups - sweets and desserts, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages - comprise almost 25 percent of all calories consumed by Americans. Salty snacks and fruit-flavored drinks make up another five percent, bringing the total energy contributed by nutrient-poor foods to at least 30 percent of the total calorie intake.

"What is really alarming is the major contribution of 'empty calories' in the American diet," said Block. "We know people are eating a lot of junk food, but to have almost one-third of Americans' calories coming from those categories is a shocker. It's no wonder there's an obesity epidemic in this country."

For her analysis, Block used data from 4,760 adults who took part from 1999 to 2000 in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Participants in the survey were asked to report all the foods they ate in the prior 24 hours. For comparison, Block also analyzed NHANES III data collected between 1988 and 1994.

Block categorized food codes from both of the NHANES surveys into 144 total food items. She then categorized those items into 23 food groups.

Among the food items, soft drinks and pastries led the list of top 10 foods contributing the most calories to the American diet. As the leader of the pack, sodas alone contributed 7.1 percent of the total calories in the U.S. population. Foods such as hamburgers, pizza and potato chips rounded out the top five food items.

When comparing the rankings from the NHANES III survey with the 1999-2000 data, Block did not find major changes. Under the food group category, bread, rolls and crackers contributed 10.7 percent of calories in the earlier survey but only 8.7 percent in the later one. Soft drink consumption was up slightly, from 6 percent of calories in 1988-1994 to 7.1 percent in 1999-2000.

Block's calculations took into account the number of respondents who reported eating a particular food item, the portion sizes of the food, and the nutrient and energy content of the food. For example, the calories provided by sodas were summed up from individual reports and then divided by the total number of calories consumed by the entire population to get the proportion of energy provided. The foods then were ranked by their contribution to the total energy intake.

"It's important to emphasize that sweets, desserts, snacks and alcohol are contributing calories without providing vitamins and minerals," said Block. "In contrast, such healthy foods as vegetables and fruit make up only 10 percent of the caloric intake in the U.S. diet. A large proportion of Americans are undernourished in terms of vitamins and minerals. You can actually be obese and still be undernourished with regard to important nutrients. We shouldn't be telling people to eat less, we should be telling people to eat differently."

Block also published a recent analysis of physical activity among the U.S. population that found that Americans are primarily sedentary. "The combination of our sedentary lifestyle with our poor eating habits goes a long way to explain the current rise of overweight and obese Americans," said Block.