NUTRITION

Junk Food County

Why many rural Americans can't get nutritious foods. The unhealthy truth about country living.

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  • Posted By: memo2 @ 12/31/2008 8:25:46 AM

    When will be the time people stop consume meat.
    Our problem is simple to fix just we don't want to change our nutrition.
    We don't eat fresh fruit and vegetables this items are too expense right now
    Junk food is less expensive and more easy to get it any time!.

  • Posted By: carolyna @ 12/22/2008 5:13:32 PM

    my school lunch during high school got crapier each year with budget cuts. I hardly ate in school. but my mom made healthy food at home, and thats why im not obese i had a house mom.

  • Posted By: poodlehorde @ 11/05/2008 1:50:44 PM

    And if you take a look at what the school lunch programs serve, they are not helping rural children either. The old scandel of ketchup as a vegetable is alive and well in rural schools

  • Posted By: nulinegvgv @ 12/12/2007 9:09:40 AM

    I was absolutely incensed when I read this article. It explains how people living in rural America eat unhealthy diets BECAUSE THERE AREN???T ENOUGH GROCERY STORES!

    ???This is the real world of eating and nutrition in the rural United States. Forget plucking an apple from a tree, or an egg from under a chicken. "The stereotype is everyone in rural America lives on a farm, which is far from the truth," says Jim Weill, president of the nonprofit Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). New research from the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health shows just how unhealthy the country life can be. The study, which examined food-shopping options in Orangeburg County (1,106 square miles, population 91,500), found a dearth of supermarkets and grocery stores.???
    Of course it???s true that in every part of the country- rural and urban areas- we have lost our connection to what we eat. And many people no longer grow any of what makes it onto their dining room tables. So logically one would expect the article to recommend a reconnection to the local farm fields that could feed us and offer the idea of stronger self sufficiency through some home grown produce. Nope. The answer apparently is more grocery stores and more food stamps.
    ???Nutritionists and anti-hunger activists know what rural Americans should eat. In an ideal world, says Weill, more people would take advantage of nutrition and financial education programs, like those offered by the USDA, that teach consumers how to make a food budget and use recipes. The 2007 Farm Bill would in??crease food stamp access and benefits and allocate an additional $2.75 billion over 10 years to buy fruits and vegetables for the USDA's nutrition assistance programs??????
    I have no problem with offering help to people who need it. In fact I think human beings have a moral obligation to do so. But help should involve more than passing out food stamps. It should involve teaching people how to grow more of their own food themselves and cook with whole ingredients. It should include a farm bill that actually supports small scale sustainable agriculture that could offer healthy food to rural and urban communities across our nation. Pick you simile- treating the problem of unhealthy eating in rural America by building more grocery stores and handing out more food stamps is like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping chest wound. It???s also completely backward thinking.

    • Posted By: LocalFoodsLover @ 10/01/2008 3:57:49 PM

      While I am a huge advocate for people growing their own food, this is not always practical given that many poor individuals and families end up working more hours because they have multiple jobs. Gardens take a lot of work, especially if you have a decent sized plot. I grew a garden in my window this summer and there were times when I wasn't able to tend to it and that was in my living room, with no weeds or major pests!
      I agree that handing out more food stamps is not the best idea, but if you could revamp the system more so they had to be used to purchase fresh, whole foods, maybe it could be.

  • Posted By: the_gwo @ 12/14/2007 10:52:51 AM

    Before everyone starts thinking that Fannie's situation is the rule, not the exception, let me chime in. I spent most of my life in rural Mississippi, and in my experience it's just not that way for the majority of people. True, not everyone lives on a farm, but families (mine included) usually will buy fresh veggies and meat from our farming neighbors relatively cheaply without bothering with a car trip to the supermarket, and small vegetable gardens and fruit trees are very common. And, with perhaps the exception of the extremely poverty-stricken, almost every family has a car, or at least access to one through family or neighbors.

    Obesity is definitely an epidemic, in rural America and everywhere else, but I think that this has more to do with cultural eating habits of rural people (lots of meat and starches and few veggies and fruit) more than lack of access to nutritious foods.

    • Posted By: Bornita @ 12/14/2007 6:18:27 PM

      As an economist I don't understand how there can be lots of nutritious food available if no one wants it, but I guess that can happen in the real world. Thank you for explaining your experiance of reality in rural US to me! And I hope good eating habits spreads to your country too, with access to better information.

      • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/18/2007 4:26:00 PM

        Economist? HAH! Good grief, your a poorly veiled Marxist with delusions of grandeur, and by your own admissions you are a drain on productive society.

        • Posted By: Yuseff @ 08/08/2008 1:10:51 PM

          Is everyone who disagrees with you a marxist or communist? If I'm a Bears fan but you're a Packers fan does that make me a communist?

      • Posted By: Wulfhart @ 12/15/2007 5:17:26 AM

        Same reason when I prepare pizza dough for tomorrow I prepare way more than what will be used. The restaurant makes profit it sales a third of what it prepares, but if we have to send a customer away because we ran out of pizza. We just lost profit and a customer, which is bad. Basic economy, be prepared. What company do you work for? The grocery store must have vegetables whether people buy them or not. If I walk into a grocery store and they don't stock enough of what I need. I am going somewhere else.

  • Posted By: walt235 @ 12/20/2007 6:10:38 AM

    This article is a crock of ***. It makes the completely unwarranted assumption that people in rural areas are too stupid to find sources of healthy food and that the government must help them in that effort. Idiotic drivel.

    • Posted By: Yuseff @ 08/08/2008 12:48:26 PM

      This woman is a six mile walk away from the nearest grocery store. I guess that must make her really stupid in your book.

  • Posted By: health_guru1 @ 01/18/2008 1:15:19 PM

    People living in rural area lack access to many things: jobs, good schools, stores, hospital, airport, etc. This is a free country. If you don't like a place, you are free to move. Of course this is easier said than done. For example, I have a good job and no debts. But I can't afford to move because in today's market, it takes two years to sell a house and every year my house is empty I stand to love $8 plus the cost for upkeeping (my state has a high property tax rate)

    I understand the pain of not having a car. When I was a poor graduate student, I did not have a car. However, I finished my education, got a job, and bought a car.

    Life is full of hardship. The government cannot make sure that we all have nice homes, running cars, good grocery stores, good health insurance. It is up to us to find ways to overcome the hardship. Life would be terribly boring if we have no problems to solve and we just watch TV, eating chips and drinking coke all day long.

    Finally, let me point out one thing. I live 25 miles from a military town. It is by no means an affluent community. However, it has excellent fresh produce in a very small grocery store at very low price. Why? Because this town has a large Asian population and Asians eat lots of fresh produce. By comparison, I visit an affluent town in Colorado every year on my hiking trip. Their grocery stores have tons of nutritional supplements, but very limited fresh produce, and it is shockingly expensive.

    Good fresh produce cannot exsit without high demand. You can live in an affluent city, but if few people buy fresh produce, your grocer will limit the variety and raise the price.

  • Posted By: mrsavizdrav @ 12/13/2007 2:36:34 PM

    Here is another article that tries to blame "something else" for causing obesity, rather than just admit some people in the USA eat too much and work too little. I already said in a comment to a different article, that there are very few obese people in Africa (nobody can argue about the poverty there).
    I partially agree with the author of the article about healthy food being more expensive. It sure is more expensive to eat healthy if you buy everything or most of the food prepared. But if one buys the healthy ingredients and cooks the food at home, it can be surprisingly affordable. Plain oatmeal cooked at home (for breakfast) is cheaper than sugary dry cereal, and a lot cheaper than egg-McMuffin. And you also burn some calories while you cook your oatmeal and wash the dishes.
    I don???t think eating fresh fruits and vegetables is crucial for not being fat. For 30 years I lived in a part of the World where fresh fruits and vegetables were not available except when in season. But our chest freezer was our treasure chest. I learned at a very young age how to preserve and/or freeze all of the fruits and vegetables available, and also how to cook with that kind of ingredients.
    I???m 37 years old, I have a postgraduate degree and I work, but I still cook most of the meals for my family from scratch. I breastfed my child for 13 months, and now I???m trying teach him to love all the good food. Unfortunately, I???m battling an unfair battle against the junk they feed the kids in day-care, because nobody thinks it???s worth spending some more resources to give the kids a good start and teach them from the beginning how to eat and be healthy. Later, a lot more will be spent to treat all the illnesses, but who cares about that?

    • Posted By: Bornita @ 12/13/2007 10:35:32 PM

      Well I would rather live on well-fare than work with you so I can understand them. I would actually rather grow a garden. You are not a very understanding. Africa is a very different continent from your country, they don't eat fast food. You simply cannot compare the poorest continent on the planet to the richest, where there is social injustice. Why are the poorest people in America and also the obese overwhelmingly black? It's not as simple as saying 'work more and eat less'. Everybody knows that they are stuck in centuries old discrimination. Perhaps eating fast food is the only affordable luxury the people at Orange County have.
      I actually gained a lot of weight when I worked in the summer, because of stress food (McDonald's, microwave..) It is not that people eat too much, they eat bad, proccessed nutritionless, industrial food. Eating fresh fruit and vegetables doesn't necessarily lower a persons weight I think, because a lot of those are fat too, like avocados and nuts. But it does lower risk of diseases like cancer also it lowers your carbon footprint. Most of the flavor in meat comes from the spices/marinade, so I don't see the point in risking ones health for that. I you add the same spices to chick peas it tastes more or less the same.

      • Posted By: health_guru1 @ 01/18/2008 5:11:08 AM

        Of course eating fresh veggies and fruits lowers a person's weight. When I think of them, I don't really think of nuts. Instead, I think of broccoli, cauliflower, greens, cabbage, tomatoes, citris fruits, peaches, pears, etc. etc. If you eat those moderately, they fill you up, and you have less stomach for fattening food.

      • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/14/2007 8:08:48 AM

        Then Europe is the place for you. If you emigrate I wouldd have you deported. America wants workers, not freeloaders

        • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/14/2007 4:03:24 PM

          Up to now I thoght you where a hot Swedish chick, and now you say your fat? What a blow head!

        • Posted By: Bornita @ 12/14/2007 6:02:01 PM

          I feel securer than ever that I can get wellfare from US, maybe while living in Mexico. I will request that I get your tax money exclusively. Bling bling...

    • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/13/2007 3:03:39 PM

      I hate to sound cruel, but healthy people are expensive because they get to retire. Uneducated laborers that die young are a boon to this economy. You see, people living a long time requires resources this government doesn't have. So rest assured, even if we were all to do everything perfectly, the government would still have to kill off several hundred million of us before our retirement age or go bankrupt. So if they don't kill you with corn syrup, they will simply drop your kids into Tehran and leave them to die. What you seek is a shift in a cultural paradigm that will only change through active resistance to a government that is no longer of the people, or by the people, much less for the people. In addition, Mexico seems to have offered this administration their poor at a per diem rate that is cheaper than the maintenance cost of our domestic poor, so imports are on the rise. Soon our domestic poor shall become as obsolete as the phonograph, and will be discarded just as quickly thanks to NAFTA.

      • Posted By: Bornita @ 12/14/2007 12:14:07 AM

        I think it's a grave misconception that healthy people are a burden due to retirement. Retirement money is money that has been invested all through their lives, so it has benefitted the business world. It is simply an unscientific comment I believe. If people were unhealthy and could not work the whole world loses tremendously more from the loss of work, consumption and investment. An unhealthy society has inferior quality of workers. I don't know if a healthy diet is linked to IQ, so I won't speculate, but I am sure the richest nation in the world per capita has a healthy population.
        I sure hope nobody drops any soldiers in Teheran. In Darfur perhaps. Violence causes more problems than it solves. Intelligent people do not resort to violence. Self-defense and making an attacker harmless without physical or mental injury I would consider to be the policy or strategy worthy of this millenium.

        • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/14/2007 7:50:38 AM

          You must be European. In case no one has told you, the US government stole Americas retirement monies to pay for the weapons we had to build to save you from the Soviets. Less than half of us can retire as promised with the money that can be raised now. Luckily our government will kill a lot of us off before we have a chance to even try. And why does it seem that whenever I choose to speak the truth, everyone assumes I support it? I speak of reality, which exists whether or not you choose to believe it. I do not like what I see, but I see it none the less. As for Iran, perhaps not, but we have industries that need to be supported. These industries make weapons. Unless we use the weapons, the industries will not receive orders for more. So whether it be Iran, or China, or even Canada, we WILL make more war, simply because it is needed to drive the economic engine we have built.

          • Posted By: Bornita @ 12/14/2007 6:52:47 PM

            Thank you for that entirely misguided but sweet endeavor. Perhaps it would have been better spent to protect you since you have been attacked numerous times whereas we have enjoyed peace for several centuries. I hope you can exercise democracy and get what you are entitled to. I'm sorry that you got the impression that I think you support the reality, I didn't get that impression, however I think it is dangerous to rhetorize lies as I think it may cement them further.
            I know that increased public spending stimulates national economy, but there are structural changes all the time and there are many ways to increase the spending with greater results, like on health and education. Peace, human rights and the businesses involved with defense can harmonize by weapons manufacturers thinking smarter and choose to support peace proactively. Someone who goes to violent war thinks with his balls/ her vagina. The defense industry is subject to the same laws of economics as anybody else, and has to continuously evolve and adjust to demand, laws and human values. If Apple can make an ipod then SAAB and their American counterparts can make defense technology that debilitates people with violent intentions, without physical or psychological harm to anyone. The public can support this by investing their money in ethical funds. In a democracy, the educated people have the power.

      • Posted By: mrsavizdrav @ 12/13/2007 3:34:54 PM

        Well, I don't agree that fat people are useful to any society. After all, fat=unhealthy people cost the society a lot by not being able to work some of the jobs (or any jobs), and by spending huge money on medication and health services. This society simply doesn't think or care about the future at all.

  • Posted By: John Luma @ 12/21/2007 2:16:44 PM

    I understand the problem of living far from a grocery store, or not having transportation to get there if you are poor or cannot drive due to age or medical condition. But there are solutions for these grocery store hurdles and healthy eating every day. Five cans of tuna are about $5 -- the cost of a fast-food burger, and they store for months. Vegetables of all sorts come in cans, protein powder in canisters, potatoes last for weeks if properly stored. A freezer can keep almost anything but leafy vegetables fresh for a couple months. The same for fruit juices, healthy bread, rice, etc. etc. Come on. With food stamps, friends, neighbors and community service groups, these obstacles don't have to get in anyone's way. My heart goes out to those who feel, or have been, "trapped." Yet I think there are solutions like these to get this burden out of your life.

    • Posted By: health_guru1 @ 01/18/2008 4:59:46 AM

      Good point. And don't forget greens, which cost under $1 a bunch in Texas. In the winter, we get ruby red of 39 cents each. In the summer, we get mangoes at 50 cents each. When they are on sale, I buy 30 of them and store in my frig for weeks. (When I bought my frig I specifically chose one with a smaller freezer but a larger area for refrigeration because I prefer fresh food.)

      Most Amreicans are tratitional eaters who don't dare to try different food. They only use greens for garnish. What a shame. I stir-fry greens and I found turnip green and mustard green very tasty. Kale and collard green are a bit inferior in taste. But I eat them anyway because they are good to my health. .

  • Posted By: health_guru1 @ 01/18/2008 4:50:08 AM

    Sorry. I don't know if my comment was accepted. Let me type it again. And I will be short this time.

    I go to Walmart every week. I seldom see people buying broccoli. Even when it is on sale for $1 a bunch, people simply pass it, and pick up cut-up garden salad at $2.50 a package instead. Most people buy grocery by habit. They pick strawberries at $4.00 a pound in the winter, totally unaware that the same money can buy them 12 huge ruby red grapefruits.

    Fresh produce has limited shelf life. If few people buy them, grocers will charge them high prices to cover the spoilage, or even stop carrying them. Brussell sprouts were $1 a lb ten years ago. Now they are $3 a lb. This is not surprising. Most people think Brussell's sprouts are disgusting.

    Next time you go to grocery store, look at other's shopping cart. How many of them are not a mountain of cans, bottles, boxes, junk food, fatty meats? How much fresh produce can you see in them? The US is a nation that hates fresh produce because it does not taste as good as meats, pizza, junk food. And most Amreicans have tons of excuses not to eat fresh produce.

  • Posted By: vince.stewart @ 12/16/2007 2:47:00 AM

    This forum is cracking me up, especiallly any comment from William Demouth, comedy gold!

    • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/18/2007 4:10:23 PM

      I'm here all week, and don't forget to tip the socialists, it seems they are starving.

      • Posted By: Bornita @ 01/02/2008 10:11:32 AM

        Well they say that you would live longer. Of course I wouldn't turn down any grants from you rich fat people.

        • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 01/03/2008 3:55:26 PM

          You have conceded you are fat. Shame really, a fat Swede. Bet you look like the muppet chef!

  • Posted By: SEmoto @ 01/03/2008 2:26:18 PM

    I can't believe how hardhearted and mean spirited the posts right above me are.

    Did you people even read the story? It said that there aren't as many full-size supermarkets in rural areas as in cities and that people living below the poverty line sometimes don't have automobiles to get them to the store. I bet there are other reasons, too -- choosing between medicine and food, high heating bills, property taxes that continue to escalate and so on.

    I live in a small , rural town and the average wage for many jobs considered good here is $7 to $40 dolars an hour. This town has a cheese factory run by the largest cheese producer in the world and jobs there start at $9 an hour. In a year a normal employee works a little over 2,000 hours, so that's a salary of about $19,000 BEFORE TAXES. After taxes, it's more like $15,000. That's $288 dollars a week to live on. And that's considered a good job here.

    Really, people, get a heart.

    • Posted By: SEmoto @ 01/03/2008 2:35:23 PM

      Sorry about the typo. I meant to type $7 to $10 an hour.

  • Posted By: laurenlrs @ 01/02/2008 2:53:15 PM

    Excuses, excuses, excuses......veggies too expensive, please. It is far cheaper to purchase vegetables and meat and prepare your own meal, which should provide leftovers for the next day, then to buy prepackages, precooked foods. Stop the craziness, get off your lazy fat butt and cook something that is good for you. No more excuses!

  • Posted By: Bornita @ 12/17/2007 12:41:20 AM

    You should vote for a government that removes subsidies for unhealthy food, like red meat. Also they should redistribute those subsidies in the healthy crop production.

    • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/18/2007 10:30:36 AM

      Vote for Communists? Only a Eropean could be so childish. I bet you sit on your butt all day and taake freebies. How about cutting the commie crap and getting a job?

      • Posted By: Bornita @ 01/02/2008 10:06:09 AM

        Actually just keep eating that poo meat and die soon. :)

  • Posted By: Kbrn93 @ 12/29/2007 1:25:28 AM

    Get real...if you want to eat healthy, you will. If you want to go to the grocery store, you will find a way. all i see is a bunch of lame excuses for eating bad foods. Portion is a bigger issue - if all you have is the bad stuff, eat less of it. No one is forcing you to consume so much.

  • Posted By: coedmi @ 12/23/2007 2:24:38 PM

    What is wrong with growing your own vegetables?

  • Posted By: gongorac @ 12/15/2007 5:51:23 PM

    WAKE UP PEOPLE FROM US!!! 350 BILLIONS SPENT ON THE WAR AGAINST IRAK!!! UNTIL DEC/2006. 2.75 BILLIONS IN 10 YEARS TO FEED THE HUNGRY??? ARE YOU NUTS? ARE YOU CRAZY? WAKE UP!! IT'S HAPPENING IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY. NOT IN AFRICA OR ANYWHERE ELSE. THE GOVERNMENT HAS SPENT 350 BILLIONS IN WAR, THAT'S AROUND 8 BILLIONS PER MONTH!! AND THE ARTICLE SAYS THAT IT WILL GET JUST 2.75 BILLIONS FOR FOOD IN TEN YEARS???? WAKE UP!!!

    • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/19/2007 1:57:00 PM

      Dude thats brilliant! Lets save money by dropping the poor on the Iraquis! Couple of 400 pounders should take out the biggest mosque they got!

  • Posted By: zvizzle @ 12/15/2007 7:31:58 PM

    THis article is crazy. i live in a town of 500 people, in a county with a population of 22,000. not 95,000. I live in a rural area and i have high spead internet. everyone has a car. nobody eats snickers for supper. if people in south carolina took care of there neighbors like we do here there wouldnt be any problems. and the agriculture system is the most productive industry in america. dont fix something thats not broken. i dare anyone to find a corn field that yeilds over 220 bushels an acre outside of amereica, good luck!

    • Posted By: urbanforager @ 12/15/2007 11:59:28 PM

      The agriculture system is what is destroying America. Commercialized farming of single crops depletes the nutrients in the soil and contributes to the dumping of chemicals onto the earth which seeps into groundwater and runs off into other water sources. Further, it disconnects people from the land and from their food sources. The globalization of food has had detrimental effects to the environment and health. I'd rather see people growing fruits and vegetables for themselves and their neighbors, rather than 220 bushels of corn an acre.

      • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/18/2007 4:21:12 PM

        Dude, there are some brussel sprouts in the dumpster behind Gristede's, maybe if you hurry you can eat healthy, and stop living off ME for a while!

  • Posted By: eruditenihilist @ 12/15/2007 8:45:31 PM

    ps. Never in the twenty years that I lived in South Carolina did I see obese, middle-aged women walking up and down the highway with grocery carts.

    • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/18/2007 4:19:38 PM

      And believe me I have tried!

  • Posted By: urbanforager @ 12/15/2007 5:58:09 PM

    Many people in rural areas may not have cars or access to a vehicle, so they cannot drive 2 hours to the nearest large grocery store to stock up on healthier foods. What can they do? Walk to the nearest convenience store, where yes, they should make healthier choices than a snickers bar, but still, canned beans and white bread are not going to satisfy a person's nutritional needs. This article is important in exposing the common misconception that convenience store food is the plight of the urban dweller. Having just spent the summer traveling through some of poorest rural areas in the United States, I learned a lot about the way people live, and so much of it has to do with what's available to them, both in terms of actual food resources and education. One of the saddest things that is happening in this country is that so much of the land is being used for cash crops, so of course, there's no plucking the apple from the tree, or getting the eggs from the hens. Instead, it's harvest the wheat, corn, tobacco, cotton, soy, etc., ship it off, and go get processed, preserved food at the nearest convenience store. The system needs to be reexamined before people get blamed for their own food choices causing their obesity. Obese people in these situations are starving...they are starving for nutrients, to which they are not given access.

    • Posted By: William.Demuth @ 12/18/2007 4:08:26 PM

      I'm sorry, but somehow I must have missed the pictures of all the obese in Auschwitz? Starvation is quite real, and these people are no more starving than I am.

      Obesity is caused by too many calories not from a shortage of them. If these people where emaciated people might care, but they are obese, a SELF inflicted condition. Granted better food cost more money, but these people are not malnourished do to society, but due to their own ignorant choices.

      Frankly, if you could get them to step away from all you can eat Twinkie buffet for a few minutes of exercise a year, they would lose weight and increase their health without eating ANYTHING more than they do already, and without spending a nickel of my tax money. Or they can rot in their own bloated corpses, but again, only as long as it doesn't cost me anything.

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