3/30/10

Musings...

Tricia's thoughts about not cutting calories vs. just not eating the damn cake reminded me of things I've been mulling over since I started eating paleo.

1) If you've sucked out all the calories, I'll pass, thanks. I think this about Diet Coke, specifically, and other products such as fat free _insert item that is normally filled with fat_. If I really want that item, I'll take it regular, and pay the price--the reduced calorie version is going to taste like crap anyway and probably have all sorts of junk in it that doesn't exist in its natural state outside of a lab.
2) If the shelf life isn't over for 2 more years, I'll pass. What could I possibly be eating that will look/taste just the same in 2 years as it does now? If the food item is not aging faster than I am, as a general rule, I don't want any part of it. (This also fits in with my vanity, but that's a post for another day.)
3) If it costs $.99, I'm guessing it's not real meat. You see these commercials all the time for $.99 breakfasts at Wendy's or Burger King or other fast food places.* If your profit margin is such that you can charge me only 99 cents for meat patty and not worry about it, I am pretty sure what you're serving me is not meat. At least not any kind of meat that I want to put near my precious internal organs.

*I understand that sometime fast food restaurants will take a loss on one item because they'll recoup the money when people inevitably buy something else with a high mark-up, but my point remains the same because they're not going to be willing to lose that
much money on any item.

This last one in particular bugs me, and illustrates why eating paleo is as much political for me as it is about getting strong and lean.

I don't think that eating healthily should be an option open only to wealthy people. Yet those of us who follow a paleo diet know that it can be expensive. So you compare the added costs of grass fed beef to the uber cheap fast food meat, and there is very little chance that indigent people will see paleo eating as an option.

Yesterday I spent the day driving through very rural, very poor (often Black) parts of Alabama. Fast food ads were everywhere. It so rural that there would be nothing around for 30 miles except a McDonalds. How often do you think the supply truck makes it up there to restock the goods? The deals were so cheap (like the $.99 breakfast) that there is little chance that you could feed your family that cheaply by going to a grocery store, assuming there was one to go to.

Which brings me to my most central thought, which is: if predatory lending is outlawed, why don't we do something about predatory fast food? (I need to get a better description of what it is. But basically I mean the centering of fast food in poor neighborhoods, and the food prices that make not eating at fast food restaurants prohibitive.) And what could we do about it?

1 comment:

  1. Have you read Farm City? What if open land or even landscaped land was planted with -- wait for it -- food?? Food that the community tended and could eat? It may not be an ultimate answer, but it's very interesting. (Just found the blog. Loving it :)

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