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Where even Walmart won't go: how Dollar General took over rural America
- freedomben 8y ago> Dollar General’s aggressive pricing drives locally owned grocery stores out of business, replacing shelves stocked with fresh fruit, vegetables and meat with the kinds of processed foods underpinning the country’s obesity and diabetes crisis. I'm sympathetic to this, truly. I believe that our food is killing us. The processing, use of GMOs, pesticides, and insane levels of sugars are making us sick. That said, I'm torn economically here. If these towns are really doing that bad, is making food cheaper really evil? Isn't processed food better than no food? I used to be that poor, and I would have much preferred food that is bad for me to food I couldn't afford.
- warent 8y agoI'm not convinced that the only economically viable options are "affordable processed foods or expensive good foods." Put on your tinfoil hat, because those being the only options is actually an artifact of a rigged system that is manufactured by massive food industries which exist on selling obsolete products/ingredients. For example, sugar as a sweetener in soft drinks and juices is now obsolete. It can easily and affordably be replaced with stevia. But massive sugar companies are already making loads of money selling their product, so they have no reason to pivot.