[The] disparity in the availability of wholesome food is often cited to explain why the wealthy eat more healthily than the poor. Santa Monica drowns in crisp vegetables, South Los Angeles in crisp bags. It is only logical that residents of the former would eat more fibre and less sugar than residents of the latter. Similar dynamics play out far beyond southern California. Low-income bits of the country are more likely to be “food deserts”, defined by the United States Department of Agriculture as places where one-third of the population lives at least one mile away from the closest supermarket in urban areas and at least ten miles away in rural areas.
But a study by Hunt Allcott of NYU, Rebecca Diamond of Stanford, and Jean-Pierre Dubé of Chicago Booth suggests the disparity in how the rich and poor buy groceries is caused more by demand than supply. Supply gaps are real and glaring, the study concedes. More than half (55%) of ZIP codes with a median income under $25,000 have no supermarkets, compared with 24% of ZIP codes across America as a whole. But, the researchers showed, introducing low-income populations to the same grocery shopping conditions enjoyed by high-income ones reduces nutritional inequality by only 9%. The remaining 91% of the nutritional gap, the academics contend, can be accounted for by differences in demand.
To reach this conclusion, the authors looked at two things. Using data about grocery purchases from 60,000 households and sales at 35,000 stores between 2004 and 2015, they first analysed what happens when new supermarkets open in poor areas. Then they looked at how poor households’ grocery shopping habits change when they move into neighbourhoods with healthier options. In both cases, they found little impact on the nutritional value of grocery purchases.
This raises an obvious question: what about plain old cost? The study finds that there is little price difference for categories other than fresh produce. Excluding fresh fruits and vegetables, the economists calculate that healthy foods such as plain yogurt and high-grain bread are actually 8% less expensive than unhealthy foods. The researchers conclude that preference, which is partly informed by education and nutritional knowledge, is a much more significant factor in how people decide what to buy at the grocery store.
Or they could drop by Superstore on ‘Welly Day’ and survey the shopping carts.
Anecdotally, I believe you will find a healthy percentage of lower income families now buy a good portion of their ‘groceries’ at loonie/dollar stores, at least that’s the case here in Canada. Talk about scary, anti-nutritional looking shopping carts.
I do not see how a ‘supply study’ such as this one can seemingly ignore the huge impact this type of store has on eating habits in many neighborhoods.
Also, I have noticed than when many of these people binge-shop at the nearby major supermarket flush with the temporary riches they got from their welfare checks, their food choices are based on yumminess, not nutritional value. You can lead a horse to water, but…
Who pays for these stupid studies?
Oh right, us taxpayers.
The Economist is owned by the Rothschilds. May they burn in hell.
Do you want to know how poor people eat well and get by on a single Mom’s salary with 3 starving-guts children? You rent a dump near a small grocery store, and appeal to the owner for credit. Yes, you run a tab. Pay a little off occasionally. The catch is to know how to cook well and be creative and never lazy. We ate sirloin steak!
No restaurants, no car, no booze, ever, and certainly never never any cigarettes.
Poor saintly Mum, she did it all her way, and paid off all her debts too. She lived at the same place for over 50 years, now that’s endurance.
Top of the Morning to Ya! PADDY’S Day 2018!
Another study that won’t go anywhere except the dustbin – just like the ones that say apocalyptic AGW is bullshit.
Corn tortilla versus flour in major supermarket?
Sugar first ingredient listed?
Packaged versus home prep meal ingredients?
News flash!! Poor people do more stupid things than better off people.
Oh wait, not news at all, everybody has known that for eleventy billion years.
It might also have something to do with the fact that they do not know how to cook. I know everyone has take home ec in school, where they learn to make a pie by buying the pie crust and opening a can. It is the same with everything else they were “taught” to cook. No one seems to have time to even teach them how to make the basics (like boil a potato or throw in a roast).
We like the food we grow up with. Kids are packing their own lunch in Grade 1 before they get themselves to school because Mom is already gone to work and Dad is nowhere around.
Functionally illiterate people know nothing about nutrition. And this surprises exactly whom?
Meanwhile, there are great examples of societies achieving uniform nutrition in North Korea and Venezuela.
People don’t make unhealthy (food) choices because they are poor. They are poor because they make unhealthy choices. The rich can also make dumb choices, but they get a second chance until the money’s gone and they join the poor.
“No one seems to have time to even teach them how to make the basics (like boil a potato or throw in a roast). We like the food we grow up with. Kids are packing their own lunch in Grade 1 before they get themselves to school because Mom is already gone to work and Dad is nowhere around.”
Exactly. The typical “family” of today is not the same as it was when I was in grade school sixty-five years ago. Then, there were generally two parents and mom was at home and taught the daughters how to cook. Now, in the poorer classes, often, a number of kids eating poorly each have a different father. In the old days, there was also home-economics in elementary and high schools and girls, and some boys as well if so inclined, learned how to cook from scratch. Now they learn how to put on condoms and kiss their own gender.
The bad dietary habits of today by many people is a symptom of the overall degradation of the traditional family, not the cause. This is just more or another byproduct of the war against the family by cultural Marxists.
Regent Park in Toronto used to be the worst housing project in Canada. There were no supermarkets anywhere around. The ones that had been there went out of business because of the shoplifting and robberies. That’s what caused a food desert.
Now that Regent Park has been redeveloped and wealthy condos mixed with the welfare people I would be curious to compare their shrinkage figures with the same at their other stores.
I’ll wait for Unthing’s opinion here!!!!
Sorry. I forgot to say there’s now a Sobeys there. There’s also a Royal Bank branch, something lacking before in favor of payday loan shops.
Now now now, that’s not politically correct. They are just “down on their luck”, and they end up that at “due to randomness”. After all, if we listened to our socialist masters, “it could happen to you”.
This is the messaging from our precious ENDP whether it regards the homeless or drugs. Sure, we’re all the same………..
What’s really remarkable is not the result of the study but the fact that the study got funded in the first place. We have a never ending supply of money to study subjects that simple common sense could provide the answer for. Here’s a study topic – the correlation between stupidity and poverty. They could have a whole chapter on how stupid people make stupid choices, one of which is food.
This is a surprise? Po’ folks got po’ ways and rich folk likewise.
DW volunteered briefly at a food bank in Regina. They had healthy food they didn’t put out because “nobody will take it.” She found elsewhere to volunteer.
Friend of a friend had convenience stores. He started one in a well off area of Saskatoon and shut it down in short order. Not enough business from people who had the means and inclination to plan ahead.
Daughter’s civil engineering course taught to plan for higher volume of garbage in poor areas. More packaging, pizza boxes etc. than wealthy areas of a city.
I likely ate better when I was poor than I do now. I used to bake bread and make meat pies to take for lunch. Now I’m too lazy. My 14 year old son cooks dinner one night a week and my 12 year old will too when he turns 13. They won’t leave home not knowing how to cook.
Yes. I call BS on this study. Go to the grocery store and look at what’s in the cart. I was checking out a few years ago – fresh veggies, meat, cheese and fruit. The lady behind me (rather large in all directions) had several bags of chips, several large bottles of pop and a great big bag of toilet paper. I thought “well that’s all you need”. If I had said it out loud, I would be dead.
It has happened to me, when I’ve made choices I know aren’t the smartest and/or when I’ve been lazy (that’s one of those choices.) And it’s been solved by not being lazy and not doing things that even if I didn’t know are stupid, I could have been told if I cared to ask.
I know lots of people who live their lives very well with less intelligence than I have, and who don’t work as hard as I sometimes do, but consistently work hard enough.
Yep. Just yesterday I was in line behind a 5’7″ 300-pounder. Her only purchase was 12 bags of those “low-cal” rice puff chips. Under my breath I said they’re not low-cal when you eat 12 bags of them. Like you, I would have been dead if I said it out loud. Oh, they weren’t on sale either.
This Food Dessert stuff was always high-grade bullshit. I was poor(er) in the past and lived much more than 10 miles from a SuperStore. The roomie and I would take turns going there and back by public transit, with a mule-pack of affordable food. It sucked, but it worked. Then you get a car and life gets a lot better. If you don’t have transit check if you have Uber/Lyft.
Where I shop here in Tucson is n a very poor area at fry’s foods ….hate to say it but when the chips go on sale or pop the shelves are empty along with cookies ect ect …when grapes or bananas oranges are free (they put em in baskets) they rot …I grab the fruit I make a nice blueberry yogurt and granola honey banana mix it’s sooo good ….
But yeah poor people love the bad food no matter what …it’s the same way liquor stores are on every corner and fast food is in poor areas along with abortion clinics …..they go where the business can flourish and grow …..basic economics .
Supply and demand
Let me add another simple economic variable overlooked by all these economic geniuses … food spoilage. I am willing to bet that “rich people” toss out a fair amount of the fresh fruits and vegetables they purchase. They can afford to … poor people cannot. Poor folk cannot afford to waste their few food dollars. The frozen peas last (virtually) forever … fresh broccoli does not. Add to that … less time to cook for the working poor … and soon … “Cooking fresh food for a husband’s just a drag, So she buys an instant cake and she burns her frozen steak” … and goes runnin for the shelter of her mothers little fentynal.
Which is not to say that I don’t see poor peoples carts filled with rubbish … I do. But preserved food does ensure that one’s food dollar is never wasted. Kind of a BASIC economic behaviour overlooked by the so called economic experts.
yup, and they never forgit to buy “diet” coke, with all the garbage
Unthing, your basic understanding of human nature is hangin out again. Do you never get tired of proving yourself an idiot????
PS … so what’s the problem here? America has the FATTEST poor people in the history of the planet. So now that we’ve taken such good care of our poor … the leftists have to find something ELSE to criticize Capitalism for? And if these morbidly obese poor people DIE sooner … then the burden on Gaia is lighter … it’s a win-win for the Gaia-worshipers.
PPS … when I was a dirt-poor college student I survived on Top Ramen which cost about $0.25/package at the time. Yet I always managed to toss in some fresh carrots, green onions, and chiffoned chard leaves … bringing the sum total of my meal to about $0.47. There is NO excuse for not eating at least semi-healthy. Oh … and all washed down with a couple Lucky Lagers (they were short bottles … bought in the economical 24 bottle pack). 🙂
Nice Rolling Stones reference, I like that song. Quite catchy.
To add to the conversation, anyone can learn how to grow some food of their own. Any amount you can grow on your own will bring down the amount of money you’ll have to spend on food at the store. Every little bit helps.
It’s all too easy to get a holier-than-thou-attitude about a food budget, especially in modern times when fewer people (of any economic class) actually cook their meals at home and from scratch. But healthy food, is generally more expensive especially $$/calories. And the quality of food is terrible in poor and rural neighborhood. Poor produce options, which the authors discount as no big deal, are the chief reason. I used to live in a poor WDC neighborhood (with no car) and I couldn’t buy edible iceberg lettuce (let alone more nutritional greens) or meat that wasn’t on the verge of good-only-for-dogs. And the authors assertion that there is no price difference between categories of food, healthy vs. unhealthy?(“healthy foods such as plain yogurt and high-grain bread are actually 8% less expensive than unhealthy foods”). Ridiculously untrue. I buy visibly whole grain bread which is quite pricey compared to the off brand supposedly whole grain bread which looks and tastes just like WonderBread except for the slight color variation.
The local poutine queens fork over 10 to 15 bucks daily at the chip wagon. And when that closes down, they keep the pizza delivery guy busy. There’s a grocery store within a few hundred yards, but they only go there to buy scratch-and-wins.
Maybe the takeaway from this is they remain poor and continue to have bad nutrition because they’re stupid.
When you take a tour of the various neighbourhoods you find that the low income housing will have a couch or mattress in the front yard with a trashed vehicle along side. Garbage strewn all over. Weeds knee high or worse. Young adults lounging around smoking and drinking.
Go to the upper middle class area and yards are manicured, house has all of the paint still on it, flowers and shrubs neatly arrayed and mom out weeding them.
I’ve often wondered why a yard has to be a dump just cause you aren’t rich.
It may have a connection as to why they don’t eat as well. Perhaps it has to do with something my dad used to say to me when I was a teen. “Don’t be so damn lazy.”
As alluded to by others supra, my personal observation has been that people who tend to make poor decisions in one area of their life tend to make poor decisions in other areas of their life. Poor impulse control, constantly looking for short cuts and inability to delay gratification mitigate toward poverty and toward poor eating habits. No big surprise.
Shhhh!
You can’t say that anymore. Now that is called … “blaming the victim”.
Not Allowed! If you say such a thing it will be turned around on YOU! For being … in-sennnn-si-tive … mean spirited … elitist … blah-blah-blah. But it WORKS ! All manner of slovenly lack of personal responsibility is now excused … because the poor are all … “victims” … of a heartless Capitalistic, competitive, dog-eat-dog (no, not the Asian staple foodstuff) economic system of oppression.
Victoria I will respectfully very strongly disagree with you. The cheapest foods in the store literally are the healthiest. Cabbage, onions, dried beans and sacks of brown rice and whole wheat flour are all ridiculously cheap. In fact, these items are the cheapest in the store of any food and are also the healthiest! Go figure! Now you may think these are “bland” foods well then go buy some fresh garlic and chili peppers and ginger. All ridiculously cheap. Want spices to go with these foods? Go to the “ethnic” section of the store and buy great big bags of cumin, turmeric, paprika etc for less than a bag of chips. Guess what, all these foods do not require refrigeration if used within a reasonable amount of time. The hitch is that ya gotta cook it. Baking your own bread takes no time if you are organized – 5min to mix it up and 10 min to knead it, then let it sit around a couple hours and bake 40 minutes. Easy and cheap – also Fun and SATISFYING. Home made pasta same thing. Lettuce has very little nutrition it. Don’t waste your money on that sh!t. Buy frozen veg not fresh. It is actually more nutritious because it is preserved literally on the field when picked. Also a lot cheaper than fresh. Buy frozen fish and turkeys. Much cheaper than fresh and just as healthy and tasty.
Thank you SO MUCH for saying that. It is a MYTH perpetrated by leftists that healthy food is too expensive for poor people … so they need more $$$$ from the taxpayers
I have heard and read many times that food stores within poor areas don’t stock fresh veggies because the “poor” won’t eat them. A lot of these massive creatures seem to love the Dollarama stores with cheap bags of chips and other sweet and salty items. As so many have said, its all about choices. IMHO there are no real poor people in Canada with our massive welfare and poverty pimps.
There are two Costco’s within equal driving distances to me. One … square in the middle of “Little Mexico” in Concord, CA … the other in the upscale neighborhoods of Danville, CA. In the Mexican Costco I can buy tripe, pigs knuckles, and queso… In the American Costco I can buy T-bone steaks, prime rib, and It’s-It’s ice cream cookies. You won’t find any of these items in the OTHER store (except prime rib at holiday time). Yes, in the FREE MARKETPLACE … the consumer sets the rules. Even more so today with DETAILED computer inventory tracking. In fact, Costco uses their consumer data to find the most popular brand name items … and promptly clones them under the Kirkland Brand … and sells them without the middle man to MAXIMIZE PROFITS. Duh.
I am a bit mystified by the moniker ‘healthy food’. Food is food and so long as you are getting the nutrition you need there is no difference long term for those who eat ‘healthy food’ and those that don’t. Some poor people with poor food live longer than some rich people who eat healthy food.
I think it is a demand thing. People in these poor neighborhoods do not want healthy foods. They also make poor choices.
If you go to Europe and visit similar stores in the cities they all have fresh food for sale. People are more concerned about eating healthy.
A lot of great comments here. I’ll add a few which are related but somewhat random.
In regards to cooking. As kids all my brothers and sister learned the basics from watching or helping mother. At the very least we knew how to make cookies or puffed wheat squares. I was surprised to come across an article a week or so ago that mentioned stores now carry pre-cooked hard boiled eggs. Good grief! That is like admitting that you don’t know how to boil water and you probably should be locked out of the kitchen.
Of course all Canadians know how to make Kraft Dinner. Throw in a few things like some fried ground beef and onions, kernel corn or mushrooms and you have a low-cost half decent meal that will stick to your ribs. Although I notice Kraft Dinner is starting to get more expensive. It used to go on sale at about 4 for a dollar 20 years ago but nowadays the regular price is over a dollar and seeing an opportunity there are now more pricey premium specialty versions of KD. I don’t know about the rest of the country but here in Rachel the Red’s province food inflation is getting ridiculous. Many foods have increased in price by 25 to 30 per cent because of the carbon tax.
I read an article a couple of years ago that made the point that Costco is just Wal-mart for rich people. The reason being is that only the well-off have enough space to store the things they can buy in quantity. And the “poor” usually don’t have enough money to buy quantities of anything.
Good piece of advice. If you see a good sale price on items that you use regularly, buy as much or as many as you have room to store and use before the best before date.
Healthy Food, My point was that MOST Americans, of any class, no longer bake or even cook — and don’t know how. It is all too easy for those with more money to look down on the poor (and calling them lazy, etc.) for not whipping up a batch of fresh bread every day to go along with their homemade vegetable soup. The self-righteous attitude just oozes from the comments — and I’ve read other comments on conservative blogs that are even worse. Also most commentors underestimate the cost of non pre-packaged food (once you move from dried beans, pasta, and rice). Even cooking basics meals from scratch is QUITE expensive. I make my own pizza (more expensive), my own bread (about the same), and buy virtually nothing pre-packaged and I don’t really save that much unless I compare the cost to eating out. But our food is healthier, definitely. The spiteful and judgmental comments are out of place here. MOST Americans eat crap. 10% of us already have diabetes and another 30% are pre-diabetic.
Well said the whole comment. We are having fresh home baked buns for a light supper today and on Sunday morning we have cinnamon buns also baked today. Next Saturday is bread baking day. Once a month we bake unless some of the kids drop and clean up the stock or we give them some to take home. Our children also all bake, but grandma’s seem to taste better, besides they are free. 😉
Veggies are usually purchased frozen or grown in season in our small town size garden. Meat usually comes from a local butcher shop, some frozen fish. Until retirement, on the farm we used to have a big garden with potatoes, beans, peas, and carrots for the next year. Asparagus was fresh grown.
Lack of general education as to in which areas that families can eat properly even on a low income.
If you assume that the only reason a person is poor is because they were screwed by the man, or whatever, then this result would be mystifying, I guess. Sometimes people catch lousy breaks, sure, but the vast majority are poor for a reason. This doesn’t mean I want them to starve, but only facing the truth will allow you to deal with problems like this.
In regards to Victoria’s comments, I can only reference my own experience. Grew up in a family of eight with a devoted father who was sometimes out of work. While worries about paying next months rent were often the case, we never went hungry and ate well enough that Mom lived to 92 and Dad’s still ticking at 96.
It was a case of ‘doing what you’ve gotta do’ and that ethic has stood all six of us well over our lifetimes. No excuses, no shortcuts, no complaints. Live within your means and don’t make too many bad choices.
I don’t think today’s “poor” are any worse off than yesterday’s and in fact, with the supports available today they’re likely better able to cope. If they choose to.
My life experience is pretty similar.
After the war my dad and his 4 brothers went to Vancouver to work in the saw mills. The union contract was up and so they wanted a 6 cent an hour raise. The company offered them 4 cents. They went on strike for 6 months and then settled for 2 cent raise.
My dad saw that as a futile future so he went into business. Problem was he was too nice a guy. When someone couldn’t pay he accepted stuff. Came home with a Remington shotgun one time. Another time with a Rhodesian Ridgeback dog. Couldn’t feed the family on that unless we ate the dog, which we didn’t. So he closed his business.
We moved to Saskatchewan where he tried business again in North Battleford. Same result.
Moved to a town outside Prince Albert where he worked for a contractor doing the same thing. Made his boss a fortune. Went through many trials but worked through them and kept the family together. As kids we didn’t know we were poor. Always had clothes and food. My brothers and I played hockey and all the school sports. We all got an education and careers, by working hard to pay for it. We were white but we certainly weren’t privileged.
Today we live in such an entitled society that if one does not have then it is expected that those who do give it to them. The old axiom of pulling yourself up by your boot straps is a lost concept. The government will do that for us.
“No one seems to have even the time to teach them how to pack their lunch” – back in the day, offsprings complained at the lunches I packed. So I stopped packing same; told them to do their own. Only problem was, the choices in our kitchen hadn’t varied from when I packed the lunches. I’d just omitted my labour.
At one time, youngest offspring “forgot” her snack and was begging off a friend in kindergarten. When asked about this by the teacher, pointed out that friend had much for appealing snacks than I would provide; given I was volunteering in the school library at the time, I would always have an adequate – if not desired – snack to provide. Teacher got message big time; offspring decided our offspring was somewhat okay.
You see, in earlier and simpler times the scientists would do their stuff with support of the rich aristocrats and those wealthy that had interest in a particular thing.
There was this guy by the name of Schliemann, he got rich trading Russian furs. He was interested in what Homer had written in his Iliad. Schliemann decided that there was a Troy and he was going to find it. The scientists have long decided that Ilium was a made up place by Homer and mythology. Well, it turned out that the old fur trader was right and “scientists” who insisted that the guy was out of his mind were wrong. The point is that he paid for his dream himself and did not ask a politician for money.
It seem to have worked well, they came with all kinds of findings and things to improve life.
Now the “scientists” have the endless support of the useless politicians to “study” all kinds of nonsense.
A politician has no defense since if he did not give other people’s money to the “scientist” wanting to study the never ending life of a fly, he would be called anti science, anti-intellectual and anti-anything that make the politician succumb to the “scientists” will.
It’s the way it works and it will likely get progressively worst until the politician runs out of other people’s money.
a pork population is due to social and psychological actors, far more so than most think. If you go from being active to a sedentary life style, don’t eat as much. Food is the tool, not the problem. If certain food were the problem, than cutting them out would solve that problem, and it does not. It may help a little, but porking out at meal time is the problem, and that is a psychological issue.
“healthy foods such as plain yogurt and high-grain bread are actually 8% less expensive than unhealthy foods”
These are not healthy foods. Healthy eating is meat, meat fat, and natural oils. The study is predicated upon false assumptions and the conclusions are therefore also false.
Victoria, you can label our comments as “holier than thou” or “self righteous” or anything you like. I really don’t care. I sure as HELL ain’t holy. But speaking for myself I consider myself to be not so much a cheapass but as someone who hates being taken for a sucker by corporations that think they are smarter than me. I am independent and self reliant and I am skeptical of virtually every claim made by everyone and every thing. I eat healthy. I pump iron and I run, swim and bike because I hate looking and feeling like a sack of sh!t. This is the ethic that many of us carry with us and use to govern our lives. If you are offended by this, well, so much the better.
Now aside from calling us names how about some analysis on your pizza claim. Home made pizza dough with flour, yeast etc is literally pennies. Most of the toppings can be made from fridge leftovers that would otherwise get thrown out or for us holier than thou types have been used in a soup or stew. Sliced potatoes are delish on a pizza. Try it! Soft eggplants, mushy tomatoes, slightly mouldy cheese. All goes on the pizza. Nothing wrong with it when its cooked. Maybe a few $ on some special toppings from the store I will admit but I will wager you should be able to make a 12″ pizza for a couple bucks. Easily half price compared to the worthless frozen sh!t that you would buy in a store or even worse the doughy cheesy puked up sh!t from a pizza delivery outfit ripping you off for $20. How DUMB is that? You think this mom is going to give her $ to some corporate pizza clowns? Screw them. My own pizza is cheaper, better, fun to make with the fam and HEALTHIER!