Prohibiting new fast food restaurants in poor neighborhoods
 

I'm actually for the zoning law. I think food abuse can very much be put in the same category as alcohol or drug abuse, speaking as a person who battles her weight daily.

The first thing I did when looking at this article is to query for who the author is: William Saletan. Looks like he's a "liberal" Republican who doesn't discount that race could be a defining factor in someone's IQ. Yet, his article preaches about how our government is being too paternalistic in their treatment of poor people of south central LA (most of whom are not white). Hmmm...does he really believe that people of color have the brain capacity to think for themselves? That's debatable.

So then my next question is what are his motives in publishing this article.

I think what he's not saying and where his motives lie are in the belief that the free market will tell us what's best for us.

That is what I disagree with. As we have already established there is an epidemic of obesity in our country.
We can't just say, "if you don't like it go somewhere else."
Why, you ask?
Because we do not have freedom of choice, but an illusion of this freedom.

Look, there's a McDonald's on every street corner. I have so much choice.
I can choose to buy a salad at McDonald's. That means I have choice. Have you looked at the nutritional content of said salad? Is it actually good for you? What is it made of?

The free market does not have morals and it does not care if you are obese. The free market wants your money.

I applaud LA for admitting that there are corporations that are targeting the poor and that they as a city would like to protect them.

About damn time. Sure, many would be against being told what to do and what to eat, but it's a start in promoting a healthier lifestyle.

However, they should open up a Subway instead of a McDonald's in that area.

It is not LA's business to enforce dietary restrictions on their populace.

From the article:

This is such crap. A sit-down restaurant is not a healthy alternative to fast food. Escpecially when we are talking about the chain restaurants that would be looking at this area as a potential market. If you compare the calorie, sodium, fat contents, etc. in a typical meal from a sit-down restaurant to a meal from a fast food joint, the fast food joint wins easily.

Because subway is healthier????

"SUBWAY is a registered trademark of Doctor's Associates Inc" It is owned by doctors and associates! It must be healthy!

Take a better look at their nutritional specs and you'll find they are not healtier by any stretch of the means for a majority of their food.

As far as them zoning, cities are free to do so. It doesn't matter, people do what they do because that's what they want. So they'll drive further out for McDonald's. I drove FAR to go to Carl's Jr. when I lived in LA because that's what I wanted when I could have easily gotten a McD, BK, or Jack in the Box.

This also doesn't address the small strip mall eateries that may also have "bad" food. So they penalize the large corporation.

Yep, when the cities and states don't get the taxes from the businesses, they'll scrambe to raise taxes on the individuals directly.
-----Added 5/8/2008 at 02 : 20 : 38-----
yep. The Olive Garden, Chili's, TGIFriday's all them corporate restaurants are not better than McDs especially when the upsell the appetizers and deserts.

I see nothing wrong with the ordinance as long as it includes ALL chains like TGIFs, Applebee's, etc.
I wish someone in this county had the balls to place a moratorium on strip malls, at least 3 of which are going up right now in a 5 mile radius :mad:

Sure, if you eat a shit sammich like Jarred did with no condiments and one piece of meat.

But you might as well eat a salad. They should open salad bars.

Maybe being friendlier to supermarkets than fast food joints would be a good idea because supermarkets are more likely to generate revenue and attract people to the shopping areas. Ignoring the fact that fast food really isn't cheaper than healthy food, the economic opportunity cost of having a McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell instead of a Safeway should be obvious.

What makes Subway so much better than McDonald's? Subway's ad campaign that all their stuff is so great for you is BS. Look at their nutritional information. See the fine print:

So the sub that is so low in calories and fat is half the size for a normal meal AND it has no cheese or condiments. The nutritional information for the salads assumes you eat it without any dressing.

Essentially they are misrepresenting what a typical person is going to eat. To me that borders on false advertising. Get a footlong tuna sub and you are looking at 1100 calories, 60 grams of fat and 2000 mg of sodim. Add in the chips and you are up to about 1500 calories. Add the 32 oz soda and you are at about 2000 calories. It is the same as McDonald's.
-----Added 5/8/2008 at 02 : 52 : 11-----
Supermarket food is really only better if you are going to cook your own meal. If the intent is to make people healthy then they need to ban supermarkets from selling processed frozen food crap.

People buy fast food because they don't want to cook. Period. If you remove that unhealthy choice they will just make another unhealthy choice.

I am for the government removing ALL unhealthy foods from restaurant food chains, grocery stores, whatever. I know what it's like to be addicted to unhealthy food and it was the worst time of my life. Combine low income or depression with it and game over, you're gonna stuff your face with HFCS and as much sugar and plastic food you can eat. I took my own initiative of declaring personal war against fast food places and I go out of the way to not eat at McDonald's, Burger King, etc. These places are out to make money, not provide good food. That means they're going to make addictive, fattening foods that are the worst substance you could put in your body all for the $$$$$.

Make it so number 1.

I would love to see everyone healthy. The world WOULD be a better place without unhealthy, morbidly obese people, and when I say a better place, I mean a better place FOR THESE PEOPLE. I know what it's like to be super fat and I know the absolute feeling of "I'm a lost cause" that people get. Once you get really fat it is unbelievably hard to get out of the routine. Way too hard for most people...so yes, I would support the government banning unhealthy food.

It's about offering a healthy choice. Some people will eat junk food no matter what, but if you're only close to a fast food restaurant, then you're forced to go hungry or eat rubbish. If you don't want to cook, but you're hungry, there are plenty of healthy options at your average supermarket. Grab a piece of fruit and a ready-made salad. Grab some cold cuts. The possibilities are endless, even for an individual who doesn't want to prepare food. And many supermarkets have a deli, which can serve up any number of choices that are healthier than a Jack in the Box or Pizza Hut.

WTF ever happened to individual accountability?

If you don't want to eat fatty food, STOP EATING AT PLACES THAT SERVE IT!

Everything within 5 minutes walking distance of my work is fast food: McDoands, Jacks, Pizza my Heart, Ben and Jerry's, Iguana's, etc. The closest supermarket is a 15 minute walk or a drive in downtown traffic. I like to bring my lunch from home, but there are times when unforeseeable circumstances mean that I have to fend for myself when 12:00 rolls around. I'll occasionally get a McDonalds salad sans meat and dressing, but I still get the feeling I'm eating crap.

Well, shit, don't get the Coke and chips. There's an idea. Subway also has juices and water for sale.

They're not misrepresenting anything. You can plainly find all info on their site if you want to.

So you have to plan ahead, or walk farther, god forbid.

Why you want the government telling you what you can and can't eat is beyond me.

This is fairly "Mommy Government", even for me.

I'm still very very liberal, I promise!

You make it sound as though it's an either/or choice. I think that a lot of people eat too much fast food. Hell...myself included, for that matter. But, I don't think that there are very many people that subsist entirely on fast food. There may be a McDonald's, Burger King, KFC and a Long John Silver's on the way to the grocery store...but the grocery store is still there. Just because Wendy's is the closest thing to your house doesn't mean that if you don't eat there you go hungry.

My thoughts, exactly.

It's proper city planning, not the government telling you what to eat. Instead of only having fast food within a 1 mile radius of my office, why not have at least one market? It doesn't need to be a super-gigantic Safeway, just something that doesn't have a clown promoting it's deep fried menu. And I don't always have time to devote 40 minutes to getting lunch.

Then open one yourself. The market demand obviously isn't that high, and most people are content to pack their own lunch, or eat fast food.

If it were economical viable, there would be.

I really don't know to many people that go to a grocery store for lunch. Lunch is usually a cafe, diner, cafeteria, roach coach, street vendor, fast food, chain restaraunt, or even brown bagging it. But, unless the grocery store has a restaraunt in it, I don't see people going there for lunch. Most people use the grocery store to stock up on food, not eat an individual meal.

That's why you see quick restaraunts around the business districts, and grocery stores closer to the residential areas. Of course there will be some overlap, but you get the gist.

There are also healthy restaurants that could be moving in, though. Maybe people are just too stupid to self regulate.

On the one hand, I like the idea. On the other hand, this makes me cringe. A little too much government in my personal life, y'know?

And really, they're just treating a symptom, not the disease. If they're really concerned about the health of citizens, why not step up nutritional education, and add more physical education classes? Start younger, don't try to change habits of people that have been unhealthy for years.

I have to admit it would be nice to see more health food stores than fast food places. But I'd also like to be able to eat French fries on the rare occasions I indulge.

Yeeeeaaah...that's where natural selection should kick in. Not the government.

I always thought that was the reason for the railroad tracks near El Camino Real, small way to let CalTrain thin out the herd a little.

I am all for legislating whatever the heck the community wants on a city level.
Go for it.

I just hope that people from the poor neighborhoods that will be affected were adequately represented in this decision.

I guess the unemployed people in those neighborhoods will just have to go somewhere else and find a job....

I agree that a "sit-down" restaurant is not necessarily a better choice. The spokesperson for the city council also mentioned that they hoped to attract grocers through this ordinance as well.

But even sit-down restaurants engender a different eating atmosphere than their fast food counterparts. You're not guzzling down a burger in one hand with your other hand on the wheel, mindlessly stuffing your face before you run to your next obligation.

I think the main point I was trying to convey, and that the LA city council was trying to convey, is that they would like to see more options besides fast food.

This is a great point. I think that the ordinance is probably one tactic of fighting this beast.
In the larger picture, this alone will not solve the obesity problem, but its a start.

Go ahead and ban fast food in low income areas.

How many Nature's Ways and organic food markets are going to pop up and accept WIC?

Fast food places thrive in low income areas, because its what people can afford.

Healthy food is cheaper than fast food, bc.

Maybe out your way it is. $14 in fast food could feed me for a week, eating twice a day. As it is, I can barely squeak by at $60 for reasonably healthy groceries. If you can get me seven days worth of healthy food for $14, by all means.

Mango: If things worked that way, the world would be such a lovely place. Unfortunately, driving the poor out of the ghettos typically results in turning decent neighborhoods into slums, rather than encouraging them to be a positive influence in the work force.

Well this is just plain wrong. Even getting the most efficient food at McDonalds so far as mass to cost, double cheeseburgers, you're looking at only eating 2 double cheeseburgers a day. Unless you're not human, you can't survive on that.

Here's something funny, though:
1 head of lettuce: $1
4 apples: $2
8 Chicken thighs: $5
Broccoli: $2
1/2 gallon of milk: $1.50
1 dozen eggs: $2.00
1 pound of lentils: ~$0.50

$14 total. This could possibly feed someone for 5 days (assuming you also have unlimited water). 14 cheeseburgers? I doubt you'd make it past 3 and you're going to be very sick.

If you want your food, you're going to WAIT FOR IT!

thse are cali prices....

1 head of lettuce: $2.99 (very small pathetic little head of lettuce)
4 apples: $2 (these are really small pathetic little apples)
Broccoli 1/2 head $2.50
1/2 gallon milk $2.50
1 dz eggs $3.49
1 lb lentils: $1.00

chinese food roast pork over steamed rice: $3.50 enough for 2-3 meals
4 meat dumplings $1
1 bowl hot sour soup $1.50
carne guisado, rice, beans $6.00 enough for 2-3 meals.
slice of pizza $2
hot dog $1.25

here it's cheaper and easier to eat out....

Things are definitely cheaper in your neck of the woods, Will. The only thing on that list that is comparable to prices around here was the lettuce. Hell, 5 skinless chicken breasts strips cost me $14.97 this evening before tax, and that was the cheaper store brand. 1/2 gallon of the cheap skim milk, $2.49 this evening before tax. Mind you, this was also with the grocery store discount card.

As for the fast food, I must not be human then. Between Wendy's and Taco Bell, that's about what I spent weekly for a few semesters of college. And I'm no small guy, either.

I've been researching the food industry for the past 2 years as I believe that is the direction my career will be moving in, if not directly at least where I will be starting a business.

This is another area you have no idea what you are talking about. There are many studies that show that healthy food is in fact more expensive than "junk" food. This isn't endemic to the US it is also similar in other countries.

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.

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.

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.

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

Man this thread is getting good http://bestsmileys.com/eating1/16.gif

(I can still use a smiley like that, right?)

Uh huh.
Corn costs more to produce than high fructose corn syrup? Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Oh, and I'll bet oats are REALLY expensive when compared to aspartame.

Your article fails in a major way: it's not put together by people who are budgeting.
HA! I've been on a low calorie diet for years and I only spend that much a day when I eat out or have a formal (read: splurge) meal. I'll bet I could spend half that on low calorie food and have a wonderful day of food that is slightly over 2000 calories.

Smart consumers, or consumers who are aware that an 80 calorie apple that costs $0.59 will leave you just as full and energized as a 440 calorie Double Cheeseburger from McDonalds that costs $1.00, would be able to sit down for a few minutes and figure out how to eat healthy on a tight budget and manage to be much more efficient than someone who eats fast food.

Yes, HFCS is a by product that has become monetized. HFCS is easier to sustain constant costs than SUGAR which is what it was meant to replace. HFCS is not cheaper to produce than corn, cheaper to predict and hedge profits. Sugar is quite expensive as a commodity which is why you see HFCS as a replacement in cheap foodstuffs wherein sugar is not required such as cakes, cookies, candies.

ERS/USDA Briefing Room - Sugar and Sweeteners: Data Tables

An alternative organic you'll start seeing this year is agave nectar as an organic sweetener. It's not cheap and isn't really all that healthy for you either.

ummm yes it is put together by people who are budgeting. It is put together by people who are monitoring how people SPEND their money. It may not be the way that YOU budget, but it is how other people budget.

I wasn't comparing hfcs to sugar.
It didn't actually say that, though. The only reference close to where it gave the $36 was "average American". That means someone who is simply buying food and maybe trying to maintain a reasonable budget. What about someone attempting to create a healthy diet that could compete directly with an unhealthy diet so far as budget?

I was going to go to Trader Joe's tomorrow, but instead I'll head over to Safeway and I'll put together a 1 day diet and post the brand, price, and basic information. I'll provide a day of delicious foods, and the diet will not result in a person being hungry at all or sick.

If you'd like, post an unhealthy, fast food-ish 1 day diet. Same stipulations: no hunger and no sick.

I call shenanigans. A calorie is a calorie. It's a measure of the chemical energy in a substance. This is no difference between a calorie in a hamburger and a calorie in an apple. The real difference is how your body metabolizes the food you eat, and then it's really just a matter of whether it's in solid or liquid form. Also, organic foods and healthy foods cost more to produce, that cost is then passed on to the consumer.

This whole ordeal reminds me why I'm happy I'm not living in LA anymore. It smacks of irresponsible government and ignorant lawmakers who are simply trying to find a non-solution to a real problem simply so they look good. We are fat because we eat too much and don't exercise enough; keeping fast food out of South Central isn't going to fix that problem, it just means that the residents are going to have to go farther out of their way to eat their Big Macs.

@ Cynth: I'm disappointed. While Carl's Jr. may be awesome -- Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger being their greatest creation -- everyone knows that In-N-Out is where it's at.:thumbsup:

You can't compare it to corn, people don't eat raw HFCS.

What does that prove Will? That a person can do it? Yes, a person can do it. People think it's expensive to live and eat in NYC. It is if you don't know where or how to eat cheap.

The issue at stake here: Are people willing to do it? The sad answer to this question is, no they are not, or at least, a major demographic of people are not willing to do so.

Just like I can tell people that it's possible to save money, the reality is if they don't save money, they don't save money. It's not much different than that. I can want it all I want, it won't change the reality of it being that people don't save money and don't spend money on healthy food.

Even Whole Foods has tried to remarket themselves as a healthy and fair price alternative to Safeway, Krogers, Ralphs, etc.

Atreides88, the caloric value of gasoline is astounding. It's much more efficient than anything you can even get at McDonald's. But does that mean drinking 2000 calories of gasoline a day will give you the same energy as 2000 calories of a balanced diet? No? Is that because the form it comes in is unfriendly to the human body? We have trouble digesting the form the calories come in? It's the same thing, only to a less extreme degree, with unhealthy foods that have a high caloric count. So yes, it's how you digest it and it can make all the difference in the world.

Yes, In-N-Out is where it's at, but it's not open at 1AM

I'm not arguing willingness, I'm arguing whether it's possible. I'm arguing that eating healthy doesn't have to be as expensive as you and Atreides88 make it out to be. If someone is unwilling to do the simple maths to have an efficient food budget, then too bad. I'm saying that it's possible, and I'll demonstrate that tomorrow afternoon. Unless you're already conceding that it's possible?

No, you're again wrong. You cannot compare calories from chemicals to foodstuffs. It's not a fair comparison at all. In fact, it is the fallacy of equivocation since you are making them appear equal in some fashion when in any reality they are not.

But you can compare edible goods to edible goods. Calories are calories, what is important is nutrient density to the caloric density, which is obviously the point you are trying to make.

But again, it's MORE expensive to make low calorie high nutrient density foodstuffs than it is to make high calorie low nutrient.

Why? Because nutrients cost money. Think of supplements and how much those cost for the raw ingredients of nutrients. Densely packed nutrients are expensive. It is expensive to extract and refine first and foremost. There's no ability to dispute that.

So you have something with empty calories, you want to add some sort of nutritional benefit to it, it will increase the costs of the product. This is simple economy of cost of raw materials. You can see it in fortified cereals. Surgary cereals are less expensive than "healthy" alternatives. But when you look at the nutritional information you find that it has just as many calories and almost as much sugars.

You're comparing apples to combustible liquids. We don't drink gasoline 1) because it's toxic, 2) it lacks vitamins and minerals, 3) did I mention it will kill you?

I may have misunderstood what you meant by calorie quality. If your quality is based on whether the calorie intake from fresh foods is healthier because they have a higher number of vitamins and minerals than the crap you find at Mickie D's, then you'd have an argument. Basing it upon the fact that one's in burger form and the other's in fruit and veggie form is preposterous.

Also, the calorie used to measure chemical potential in gasoline is not the same as the calorie used to measure chemical potential in food. The calorie is also an archaic unit.

Cynth, you have a point. If only they were open 24 hours. Honestly, I'd settle for them opening a chain on the East Coast.

Just like the minimum wage thread, it's within the realm of possibilty, but not necessarily the realm of probability. Meaning that just because 11M filipinos are sending money home does not mean that 11M Americans will also save money. The same reality is here. I know that it's possible in some places to make a healthy meal for less than it costs to go out to dinner.

That's not ever been what I've been driving at. I'm still stating that across the nation it's not possible for some markets. In other places it isn't possible because the individual will not do so.

I don't know Cyn, but I don't think it's that conclusive. I believe healthy food can definitely be cheaper than junk foods. That's one of the benefits of why I buy healthy (besides the health aspect). Saving money and enjoying a healthy diet need not be mutually exclusive.

Example: Trader Joes has decent groceries for a good price. Even eating at Mcdonalds gets pricey (I do this sometimes). I eat #2 breakfast, #3 lunch, #3 dinner: $16. 3 healthy meals made from Trader Joe's groceries comes out to less than $10. (2 eggs, toast, soy milk, oatmeal; turkey sandwich; turkey penne and salad).

A clarification that I did not think needed to be addressed, yet still does the debate of the issue continue in a manner that suggests that which is not proven: all foods provide adequate sustenance(calories) that when consumed in appropriximate quantities(say the basis of 2,000 daily) will sufficiently afford & attain a general sensation of complete nourishment or well-being(feeling full).

The above statement is false. It is a fallacy to equate the amount of calories in any food to that of another in order to comparably define its nourishing factor. Of course different foods provide different nutrients in varying degrees, but it is not suffice to state that once one reaches the plateau of 2,000 calories, or some fraction of that during any one meal, can one adequately resolve that you, me, or anyone else will feel fully-satisfied after consumption.
E.g. Waking up, subject Amanda, subject Billy, and subject Colleen decide to prepare their respective breakfasts before tackling the day ahead of them.
Amanda prepares toast, grits, orange juice, milk, and a serving of ham with honey. Caloric Content of food: 750
Billy on the other hand, goes to the backyard with a basket to hand-pick his meal; eight apples sliced, served baked along with a cup of sugar water. Caloric content of food: 750
Colleen opts to just drink coffee with cream & sugar to go. She pours herself a pint of hot brew into a thermos. Caloric content: 750


Intepret the above as you see fit. I'll just offer up that whether I decide to down cans of coke every waking hour today, I'll amass calories, but I will not feel full regardless of what the nutritional facts state in terms of the extemely high caloric content, among other things replete and devoid, within this concoction. Calories are not a universally equal or even accurate measurement of satisfying or fulfilling one's hunger. It is just a signpost; what you see is not necessarily what you will encounter. Certain foods are more apt to sate hunger by providing a full-feeling to our neural receptors & abdominal constrictions.


Research: Feeling full

"Eating behaviour is influenced by hunger and the rewarding properties of food (which drive us to eat) and by satiety signals (which tell us we're full), but little is known about how the brain integrates information from these pathways.

Suspecting that the fat-derived hormone leptin might be involved, Sadaf Farooqi and Paul Fletcher, both Wellcome Trust Senior Fellows in Clinical Science from the University of Cambridge, studied two teenagers with congenital leptin deficiency. People with this condition eat excessively - even bland foods - but can be treated with leptin replacement therapy.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure the subjects' brain activity as they were shown images of food, both before and after a week of leptin treatment.

Leptin altered brain activity in the ventral striatum, a brain area associated with pleasure and reward. The hormone also seemed to help the subjects to discriminate better between bland and tasty food. Before treatment, they strongly liked nearly all foods shown (from cauliflower to chocolate cake); after leptin replacement, the average scores fell.

Leptin was also important in linking the liking of food with hunger. Brain activation in a specific striatal region was triggered by images of well-liked food, whether the leptin-deficient subjects were fasting or full. In healthy controls - and in the treated subjects - the response was seen only when people were hungry.

The results suggest that leptin acts on the brain to decrease the perception of food reward and boost the response to satiety signals after eating."

I'm trying to change my diet because I've come to realize a snack, or 20 snacks and an unsatisfactory meal does not curb my appetite whereas I can eat a single large home cooked or high quality meal from one of our local home style places and not need to eat again for the rest of the day.

I totally agree with the zoning laws. Low income people are more likely to eat unhealthy, they're more likely to smoke, drink and be overweight. I know for damn sure I'd eat healthier if there wasn't a McD on every corner.

Yes, but the point is that the average consumer could buy something comparably healthy and cheap.

And, I doubt the fellows in South Central determine the caloric density of their potential lunches before they buy them, but I guess I did go to the bathroom while I was watching Boyz in da Hood so I might've missed that scene. I wonder if they list caloric content on the side of 40oz bottles of malt liquor.

If people were primarily concerned with calories when they picked their lunches you'd have a lot more people who eat nothing but pastries for lunch.

Not once, of the many times you've said this, have you actually demonstrated that I am wrong.
Sorry, Will, you can't do it.

Why? Is there a rule? Are there different kinds of calories?

Nope, not at all. You just can't do it because it's unfair.

Who was it that said "calories are calories"?
Yes. It's convenient to ignore the nutritional value, but that means ignoring half the equation and the nutrient density does play an important role. As a matter of fact, for what this thread is asking, calories are completely irrelevant. Cost vs. being sustained should be the debate and calories should be sidelined. That's kinda what I've been heading towards for a while, but I was on Benadryl and quite frankly I wasn't concentrating.
It's cheaper to stay full and healthy on healthy food. That's the bottom line. You may very well be able to get 2000 calories cheaper in unhealthy form, but the reality is that if it's really unhealthy you're probably going to go hungry and also be short on necessary nutrients. So it's really not cheaper, because you have to eat more unhealthy calories to compensate for the lack of mass and nutrient value... and suddenly it's more expensive to eat unhealthy.

Edit: looks like Jetee beat me to it. Damn you Benadryl.

I'd like to know where all these people in opposition to zoning live.

I've never lived anyplace that wasn't zoned. That is why I don't have a Wal Mart in my driveway. I've covered city council meetings for years and hear discussions all the time about how a business will affect an area. LA is just being more public about it, but this kind of thing happens all the time. Many cities have banned new big box construction. Is that mommy government?

LA hasn't banned junk food, they've banned new construction of fast food restaurants. They've decided there are more usefull businesses for that particular area, like grocery stores, or prisons.

Cynthetiq:

I'm sorry but that study that concluded that a diet of low-calorie food costs $36.32 per day is bullshit. What are they basing it on, buying fresh fish at Whole Foods for $25 per pound? Is it all organic crap? I could easily spend $36/day on high calorie crap from chain restaurants if I wanted to.

Our grocery budget is about $100-$150 per week for a family of four (two under the age of 4 so they can count as one). All of our food is prepared from scratch. I have chicken, beef, or pork and my wife has wild salmon or shrimp with just about every dinner/lunch. We usually make enough for dinner for all of us to have the same thing the next day for lunch. This averages out to $4.76 - $7.14 per person per day. We are barely spending $36 per WEEK per person.

I should also add that $100-$150 per week covers everything. Food and household items like soaps, paper towels, health and beauty stuff, etc. It doesn't cover beer and about two fast food lunches per week that we have.

We do it by shopping at multiple stores and finding deals. In Phoenix you can always find bonless skinless chicken breasts for no more than $2.50/pound. Frozen shrimp (26-30 ct) is about $7/pound. You have to know what stuff is cheap at each place. We go to Trader Joe's, Sprouts (an AZ/CA 'farmer's market' store, kind of like Henry's), and a couple of chain grocery stores.

will, I'm not ignoring the nutrional value. I've been stating that nutrional dense food is more expensive to produce than empty non-nutritional foodstuffs.

It's a food manufacturing fact.

Why are apple "fries" more expensive than taking apples and cutting them yourselves? Why is bagged lettuce more expensive than a head of lettuce? Junk food and most processed food has at least a 6 month shelf life.

Because the work put into it has a cost. The shelf life of the food has a short span. It must be sold with X days or contain some sort of shelf stabilizer in order to preserve the food which also has a cost.

This is why it really doesn't matter to a restaurant if they give you 1/4 lb burger or 1/3 lb burger. The raw materials aren't as expensive as the amount of work that gets put into it.

I'm also going to state that the thing everyone has ignored here, is that the individual going to the market to buy these healthier foodstuffs has to have a knowledge and skill to make/create/prepare their own meals. There are many who do not have the skill to even boil water.

Well, obviously. However, there is no reason, EVER, for someone on a budget to buy cut apples or bagged lettuce. It makes no sense. Then again, people are stupid.

Yes it takes skill to cook but it isn't that hard. It took me a couple of years to get to where I am but it has paid off.

Not even that is necessarily true, but it's still irrelevant. Calories and the density of nutrients aren't the issue, it's a question of being full and sustained vs. cost. When you look at that equation, the equation which is relevant to the discussion at hand, then healthy foods aren't necessarily more expensive.

Show me a fast food that's more efficient in "full and sustained vs. cost" than lentils or rice.
Show me someone who doesn't know an apple is healthier than a cheeseburger and I'll eat my hat. And an apple prepare time is approx. 0 minutes. Same thing with most raw fruits and veggies, and actually, the same with lunch meats, cheeses, and most grains (crackers, serials, etc.). One could easily live on cheap foods that require no preparation and be totally healthy. What's faster, waiting for a #5 at McDonalds or grabbing a pear, crackers and lunchmeat on the way out the door or at the market?

I don't know, but let's look at the article a bit better and see 370 types of food healthy and unhealthy, 2004 - 2006 over time.

I'll also factor in that produce prices tend to fluctuate more than Oreos. Bad tomato crop? Tomato prices rise. Buying out of season? Imported produce is more costly. Frost in Florida? Oranges and orange juice prices will increase. Strawberries in winter are 3x the price they are in summer. People no longer buy according to season because it's not something taught nor is it something you can visually tell.

Why would junk food prices drop? Because managers need to move the product due to best before dates and shelf life. Wholesalers offer steep discounts to move inventory all the time just so that the market can rotate the shelf and regain shelf life.

But you know what... they do. I live next to NYCHA Vladeck houses and I get to watch people pay with foodstamps and WIC all the time. They buy the crap that is allowed on the list. That list is crap.

I agree, I learned to cook for myself when I was 12-13. I have never worried about cooking something. I'm just lazy alot of the time when it can cost me just as much if not a little more to buy raw food ingredients than to have already cooked meals as take out or delivered to my home.

You can visually tell that the product is expensive and therefore you shouldn't buy it.

That sucks. They shouldn't be able to buy crap like that with WIC.
-----Added 6/8/2008 at 12 : 56 : 25-----
It is painfully obvious that the researchers screwed the results. Come on, $36 per day? They should have their degrees taken away from them for coming to that conclusion.

I don't know Will, if you don't live near a grocery store and the nearest food place is a convenience store. You'll find that it's more expensive. It's really simple. I've provided evidence, you've provided opinion.

You didn't post evidence, you went on on a tangent about calories and I followed (Benadryl). Full and sustained vs. cost: healthy wins. Calories don't even enter the picture.

what would help is a map with supermarket locations, fast food joints and income levels correlated.
then it'd make sense to debate the ordinance--which in general i support.
typically, the problem is accessibility of alternatives, availability of public transportation, etc.

in principle, this is not an issue that can be coherently reduced to yet another libertarian morality play.
it's more about the geography of class.
you know, socio-economic class, it's spatial expression and food supply.
there are a ton of studies about cities around the united states in which poorer neighborhoods do not have supermarkets, do not have bodegas, are not served by public transit but do have a shit-ton of fast food joints.

if la is like, say, parts of philadelphia have been (and may still be---my information is about 3 years old on it) the city is perfectly within its rights and obligations to act and collapsing the question back onto "choice" is superficial.

the problem is that i do not have the geographical data at hand--does someone else have actual information about this, something that goes beyond nutritional releases for chain restos?

i'll look around tonight if no-one is working with this kind of information--which is a little surprising, given how long the thread is and how pissy some of it has been.

sure, you keep talking past it.

Again, processed food is cheaper to distribute and consume. Healthy food costs more per calorie.

You can even go by food deserts where there is no grocery store available but just convenience stores.

Now here's where you excel, since you've said that poor people work hard, and well, sometimes harder than you or I. How will they have time to cook and prepare food?

You're still on about calories? They're irrelevant. I've demonstrated it and Jetée presented an air tight case that you've yet to even comment on.

I'll pet it in simple terms:
What will make you more full, a $1.00 double cheeseburger from McDonald's or $1.00 worth of oatmeal (which is about 1 lb. dry, and thus easily 4-5 lbs. when cooked)? And that's my expensive organic oats. You can occasionally find oats for $0.50/lb.

jettee: I'm going buy SHOPPING and BUYING habits of people in grocery stores and food markets. The idea of feeling full as Jetee is postulating has nothing to do with poor people since they don't know or can't tell the difference. This isn't endemic to US, it's the same in any country. People fish, instead of consuming the fish, they sell it and buy rice which fills up their belly more than they fish. This isn't a FEELING this is about seeing MORE mass and volume which equates psychologicially to a fuller belly.

you've demonstrated it's possible, I don't and can't refute that. But what I have been and still am talking about is that studies show that poor people are not good at making healthy and nutrional choices. What can I get and not prepare and eat since I'm in a hurry? a $1.00 double cheese burger or $1 oatmeal? There is plenty of articles and evidence the people are poor choosers in getting nutritional meal and foodstuffs. If it were why would the processed food groups start with a Healthy food program? Because they know that a little education can hurt their overall sales.

rb:
that's the area we're talking about:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...q/41316272.gif

I can't locate a mashup of grocery stores just yet, but here's all the major fast food franchises in LA.
fastfoodmaps.com | google maps + fast food

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...82-19-58PM.png

They take the exact same amount of time, Cynth. I can cook a meal's worth of oatmeal (1.5-2 cups) in a microwave in about 2 minutes. I can get a double cheeseburger in about 2 minutes (actually it's a bit longer where I am, but let's just say it takes 2).

Good for you! that's great! I'm glad you are so efficient and speedy. Ask that homeless guy where he can heat up that oatmeal.... or will he just take that $1 and go get a burger and move on?

Again, we're talking about people's choices.. and see we can tell based on studies that people make bad choices about healthy food choices.

thanks cyn--it'll take a bit of cross-mapping to make sense of this.

seriously, though, this is a class geography question and not one of motivation or its correlates in petit-bourgeois morality.
if you can't get to outlets which sell decent food, if you're stuck in a work-grind that gives you very little time to tool about and if the public transportation system is not good and there are fast-food places around that sell shitty food for cheap, then the problem is obvious and has everything to do with problems of distribution.

this is not unique to l.a.

if you think about it at a remove, that many poor urban neighborhoods around the country find themselves without grocery stores but with fast food restos, it amounts to a decision on the part of lovely lovely capitalism to abandon the well-being of these folk except insofar as they can be relieved of their cash by owners of fast-food franchises. it is an ugly reality.
an ugly market market reality.

in other contexts, a conservative might say "think of the children" but curiously that line hasn't come up here i wonder why that is.

So you're saying that zoning should take into consideration homeless people?

BTW, it's not education it's laziness. As I said before, "Show me someone who doesn't know an apple is healthier than a cheeseburger and I'll eat my hat." Short of mental disabilities, everyone is aware of at least basic facts about nutrition. So why doesn't everyone have a healthy diet? They're lazy. They don't want to do the legwork I did for this thread (which probably amounts to about 15 minutes web surfing or maybe 20 minutes at a supermarket). They grab what they want to eat and then go.

Or they do a bit of homework and eat healthy.

I make more than enough money to spend $36 a day on healthy food, but I don't. I looked at my budget and found that I average only about $300 a month for myself on groceries. Why, that's $10 a day and I'm not even trying to shop cheap (as a matter of fact, I shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's most of the time, which means my food is a bit more expensive). It's not $3 a day, of course, but I'll probably live well into my 80s and have a higher quality of life. If I really budgeted, I'm sure I could bring my spending down below $150 a month—Ch'i (my little brother) spends even less than that, maybe $130. That's $4.33 a day, and he eats even healthier than I do.

BTW, Cynth, do you know of anyone who spends $1080 on him or herself for food? Not for a family (I could feed a family of 6 on that), but just him or herself? That study is obviously wrong.

again, you continue to focus like a laser on one small aspect and forget that the author states people buy a BLEND of types.

actually yes, there are families that do spend about that in if not more in groceries. The Revis family in North Carolina Food expenditure for one week: $341.98

What the World Eats, Part I - Photo Essays - TIME

-----Added 6/8/2008 at 04 : 30 : 34-----
It is a combination of that rb. Grocery stores may not be open or not have fresh fruits or vegetables. My local market in Rego Park Queens in the 90s was like that. I had to go to a butcher and a produce stand to get fresh ingredients. Unfortunately I worked until 7PM and the butcher and produce was long closed. Alternative was a small bodega that had really expensive produce which was also not very good selection.

Once again, you people obsess too much over fat people.

But Cynth your argument is that healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food. I disagree with that, and I believe that if that misunderstanding can be debunked that more people might want to eat healthy because they'll realize that it's economically viable even if you're on a very tight budget.

My original statement, that started this tangent was "healthy food is cheaper than fast food". Maybe I should correct that to this:
"Budgeting properly, healthy food can be substantially cheaper than any fast food as far as keeping you alive, full, and healthy." I believe this to be true, and I'm still willing to demonstrate it if you're willing to do the same. Post a day's worth of fast food and I'll post a day's worth of healthy, balanced food and we'll see who comes out with a lower price tag.

Just out of curiousity, what is it about the politicians and elites in california that deems them worthy of forcing others to live how they want them to?

That's a better statement, but there's still some challenges to that because of distribution costs, the snack food guy has much larger route than the produce guy

I won't have time to collect information in the next day or so, but I'll try to.

Democracy. We vote on things, you see.

What qualifies someone as "elite" in this context?

Will, Cynth has already posted the study that was done by the University of Washington in regards to the actual cost of healthy calories versus unhealthy calories in the grocery store. Evidence shows that unhealthy calories are cheaper, period. Yes, I could manage to buy 2 apples for $1.59/lb, but the double cheeseburger at McDonalds is only 99 cents. Calorie for calorie, the double cheeseburger is the better deal. Is it the better choice? Of course not. But that's all a red herring argument, as
you must remember that the issue here is about access, not whether or not they know better. These people do not have access to healthy calories. Other articles I read regarding the ordinance clearly illustrate that people in South Central have easier access to these fast food restaurants than a grocery store, especially considering most of the people in that area apparently don't drive and are reliant on public transportation or their own feet to get them to and from places. I can tell you from experience that it's no picnic to carry home a week's worth of groceries via public transportation; it's downright discouraging, time-consuming, and an all-around pain in the ass. So what do these people choose? Going to the grocery store that's 3 transfers away on the bus or going to the Burger King down the street where they can get a Whopper, Jr.for 99 cents? We know which is the better choice, but what's the easier choice?

This ordinance is meant to encourage development of access to those healthy calories by prohibiting continued development of access to unhealthy calories.

And yes, Cynth, I think it's pretty safe to say South Central Los Angeles is a food desert.

For the record, I eat a very healthy diet, and find it's more expensive to do so than the diet my roommate eats, which is mostly boxed, processed food. I have access to a farmer's market, though, which brings the cost down. Clearly, these people do not enjoy the access the rest of us do, and we would do well to remember that.

so democracy is now redefined as the majority telling the minority that not only are these types of conduct prohibited, but we are also not responsible enough to provide for our own choices, so you'll do it for us?

In this context, the belief that you know whats best for me and will make me do it one way or another, removing the burden of having to choose from me.

dk--so a decision made by a supermarket chain to pull it's stores out of poorer areas of a city is an example of freedom, but an action on the part of a city to PARTIALLY address the consequences of that decision is oppression?

First of all, that is a family of four. Their daily average is $22.93 per person. Second, look at all the crap they are buying. Pizza, Taco Bell, McD's, KFC, soda, juice, beer, crap, etc.

Snowy, this is about allowing the choice of easy access to healthy calories. If that choice is allowed through this ordinance, then the issue will then fall to cost. If I only have $3 for lunch, then it would be better if I understood that those $3 could go just as far if not farther with a healthy choice than it would with an unhealthy choice.

No, we're determining what we want in our area. No one is saying that you can't eat fast foods. Anyone is totally free to eat whatever they want. It may not be quite as close as it could be, but you can still eat it. The freedom is intact.
You don't live in LA. Neither do I, for that matter.

WHAT???? other than zoning, where would any branch of government have the authority to decide what type of restaraunts could or should be built?

If a supermarket chain closes its stores because it is unable to profit, that is freedom. If a million (insert any store chain here, i.e. white castle or starbucks) stores wish to open in a neighborhood, that is freedom. If a city government says that only whole foods markets can open in compton, well that is certainly not freedom.
-----Added 6/8/2008 at 05 : 55 : 09-----
ok, so we're going to keep it very local then, correct? I don't have to look forward to the entire state of california prohibiting any new taco bells from opening up in the next couple of years?

so yes, a supermarket chain deciding to shut down its outlets in poor urban neighborhoods is freedom, but a city acting to limit the impact of it (read the thread) is oppression.

you libertarians make me laugh, dk.

I could see it passing up here in San Jose. Still, we're not prohibiting Taco Bell from opening new restaurants, we're simply reducing the insane amount of fast food and allow people who wouldn't other wise have a choice of healthier food to have that choice. I figure you'd be okay with this because it doesn't remove fast food, but just allows for the market to speak via a vote. If the market doesn't want healthier choices, then it will not pass and that will be that.

Voting isn't always anti-libertarian.

Hey, I don't make this shit up.

I report it as I find it and interpret what I see. I know it is crap. Do they know it is crap? Or do they like most people think, "Mmmm.. I'm craving some KFC." Or "I've got a Big Mac Attack!" or even, "Ding dong! Domino's!"

People are poor deciders.

I'm even happy to admit that I don't eat as healthy as I have been taught to in Nutrition classes I took in college. There are many times it is cheaper for me to eat out than it is to cook at home. I can eat in NYC for $8.25/day easily, less if I don't mind eating burgers and pizza. Bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll, ($2) I'll tell you now that the only vegetables that I would have eaten would be the handful of shredded lettuc and 1/2 slice of tomato with my halal lamb and rice. ($4) Dinner, 4 pan fried pork dumplings and hot and sour soup ($2.25).

Access to crap food allows people to make crap decisions, no different than access to drugs allows people to make crap decisions. It doesn't mean that everyone makes the decision, it means that some do.

I walk home sometimes and carry my groceries. I'll tell you that I don't get alot of crap because it's heavy. I can easily go to Whole Foods or Trader Joe's it's in Union Square and it is just a 30 minute single bus ride to my apartment. I have done it maybe a handful of times since I moved to this area.

Fair enough.
http://chrisvreeland.com/The-Great-Decider.jpg

Still, the opportunity is there for those who are willing/able to make good decisions.

I have always maintained that nutrition is bullshit, but this thread is about politics, not nutrition.

Have you ever tested this theory? I've personally seen real health improvements from eating healthier foods in correct proportions.

Have you SEEN my diet? If I started eating healthy, I'd shrivel up! However, bring on the local politics discussion!

btw--hungry planet is a strange book--it appears to tell you more than it in fact tells you. i taught it last year in globalization and food courses you see.

anyway, the way they did the photos was to buy the families a week's worth of groceries and get them to do the spreads for the photos. it's hard to say how representative of anything each photo is with reference to the family in it---there were no controls to speak of, no attempt to work out what a "typical" week was---and in alot of cases, the idea of buying a week's worth of groceries all at once was understood as quite a bizarre thing to do.

where the book's probably most interesting as a document is across the images, which taken together function as a kind of index of the spread of the super/hypermarket model, so as a function of the rural/town-urban split(s).

that said, as photos i kinda like them in a series. there's something curious about the sameness of the poses, the spreads of food more or less the same in their organization.

one thing is *real* obvious, though--particularly if you read the essays in the book (not to mention if you've looked into this at all)---processed food may be cheaper, but that's a function of economies of scale and not in any way an indicator that they're at all good for anyone as food. and the processed foods are indicators of the extent of the supermarket system. and the supermarket system is about profit, not feeding people well.

you could make the argument that people don't choose well--personally, i think that most folk want what they're told they want, what's presented to them as the range of things they want. people are adaptive like that. the irony is that in nutritional terms, many of the families outside the reach of capitalist food relations probably eat better than those who are sucked into them. in an american city, obviously, you are entirely inside that system unless you do considerable work to get out of it. and if you are in a poor neighborhood without supermarkets at all, without bodegas, without public transit, without much time, you are still inside that system. which feeds you shit. which you eat, being adaptive like that.

because it is possible to opt out of the capitalist food system--by which i mean processed foods and the conventional supermarkets that present them to you instead of actual food---you can argue that there are bad choices. and you're right--but it's not right to stop there.

Second. I am proof of this. I love my Mcdonalds but when I overdose on it, my health suffers.

Will, look at my first post for examples of a side by side comparison of healthy eating versus junk food (it is my own personal example).

Secondly, passage of this ordinance is NOT mommy government because it is done at the local level and presumably with the approval of the local residents. I don't see it as a clash with Libertarian values. If it's what the people want then that's their decision. Same with the decisions to not allow Wal Mart to open up in a locality. It's up the communities what they want.

I'll tell you that my local government does lots of stuff to us without any input from the locals. Happens all the time :) right now they are putting in medians to calm traffic, thus create more and more noise. Thank you NYC DOT!

And the local community board :) thank you! they had a meeting about it AFTER they broke ground!

Here are my questions, since there seems to be an assumption that this is what the "locals" want.

1) What was the actual vote from the L.A. city council?

2) Which council members voted which way, and which areas do they represent?

If the representatives of the people in the affected areas specifically did not vote for this, or if the "yea" voters were mostly from upper- or middle-class areas and the "nay" voters were from poorer areas, can we really say that this was fair by invoking democracy?

The Revis family spends $341.98, not $641.98. But yes, they buy a lot of crap. They also buy alot of fruit and they're in decent shape for such voracious sharks.

The fact of the matter is that city council actions are supposed to allow public access and public input unless they are discussing personnel matters. A city council can't just close it's doors and make zoning changes.

The council members were elected. They made a zoning change. It's perfectly legal and it is done all across America. Don't like zoning? Go live in the county.

It's not mommy government, it just appears unusual. But it's up to your city council or county supervisor to decide if a Wal Mart can go here, or an insurance agency goes there. There are also rules on what kind of sign your business can have, the size of it, how many lights, whether it keeps with the town's ascetic....

Why is this case so special? This is what your local government does.

Was there a correction that I did not see? The information for the week food has been replicated over and over again, but my original source is Time Magazine.

Our local governement makes zoning variances and changes all the time behind closed doors.

My source was also Time.... I wonder what the deal is.

If your city government is making zoning changes behind closed doors, it's against the law. Although I know it happened in massive amounts when the subway was being constructed. How closed are those doors? I know places I've covered there will be work sessions, but those are still announced and the doors are still kept open.

thanks, I went over it again, and I guess maybe I cut and paste it wrong? I'm not sure but doublechecked and adjusted it. Maybe I have fat fingers :)
-----Added 7/8/2008 at 06 : 14 : 46-----
I follow this site from time to time, and he agrees that the cost of eating healthy is MORE than eating junk. While he doesn't say how much extra money he spends, he eludes to $20/week extra, but nothing really solid as to what his total cost is.

He does state, "fresh and sustainable food options often tend to be more expensive, particularly in the off-season months. Buying Picket Fence milk is more expensive than the regular milk by about two dollars a gallon. You can get most local produce cheap when it’s in season, but come January in Iowa, there’s not much produce to be had. Our only option for sustainable produce is either what we’ve frozen or canned ourselves or what we buy organic at the grocery store, paying a premium price for it."

I've actually been doing a little experimenting with this. I've been alternating shopping between a cheap supermarket and a farmer's co-op. I bought two beef filets from th4e co-op for under $3. Tasted. Wonderful. Men's Health has said one of the most beneficial foods you can eat is 7 ounces of lean beef.

I bought some beef from the supermarket with the goal to keep it under $3. It was fatty and tasted like shit. But I probably wouldn't have known that if I hadn't bought the co-op beef. It's the same with veggies, the co-op consistently costs less than the chains.

I think if a co-op is available, or even a decent farmer's market, you can buy there for less, and get better quality, healthier food.

there is currently a debate on a local board for my neighborhood about the use of CSAs. I don't doubt that they have better vegetables, but I don't have time to go to them nor do I "know" what I'm interested in preparing or making with the perishable goods. The upfront cost of the CSA is a bit steep, $500 for a full share and $350 for half. I also can say Skogafoss and I don't particularlly care for what vegetables I have seen come from the CSA.

Since Skogafoss and I are very active in the city, we call our vegatable storage a rotter since I may purchase some nice vegetables only to discover a couple weeks later that I have completely forgotten them.

Finally, good meat is good meat, period. If you can buy any beef for $3, I'm amazed. I'd also add that many people don't understand how to butcher, cut, prepare meat to make it useful even when it is a crappy fatty cut.