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Assuming you don't live in a food desert. Cheapest food from a place served by dollar stores, bodegas, gas stations and other small chains is often not rice, be

Assuming you don't live in a food desert. Cheapest food from a place served by dollar stores, bodegas, gas stations and other small chains is often not rice, beans and frozen veg. I invite you to try shopping at a Family Dollar and see what comes out the cheapest per calorie. Most likely it'll be high carb high fat processed food.

javagram 7y ago
Food deserts are overhyped https://www.bluezones.com/2017/11/news-food-swamps-contribute-obesity-food-deserts/ https://www.bluezones.com/2017/11/news-food-swamps-contribut... Anyone who owns a car can get out of their “food desert” anyway and the obesity crisis is hardly limited to those who don’t drive.
- qntty 7y ago
  When you're talking about poor people, you can't assume that people have a car. Some of the worst food deserts are in cities where you can get by without a car. Plus when you work 3 jobs and have kids, driving an extra 10 minutes both ways to get to a better grocery store can be too much.
  - javagram 7y ago
    I know I can’t assume that which is why I said there are people without cars. The parent post listed foods like rice, beans, and frozen veg all of which have long shelf life. If you swap canned veg for the frozen, you don’t even need refrigeration. That means you don’t need more than a weekly trip to the grocery store. If you do have a car, the extra 10 minutes of travel time isn’t that much. Once you bring time and overworked parents into the picture things look different. It’s certainly a lot easier from a time perspective to grab food from McDonald’s or other unhealthy ultraprocessed foods that don’t need any cooking or prep work at all. But that has little to do with the “food desert” concept since it affects you no matter how close the grocery store is.
    - technofiend 7y ago
      "Extra 10 minutes of travel time"? Sir I believe you are misinformed on typical public transportation travel times. The median wait time for a bus usually exceeds 10 minutes. Factor in the fact that a proper grocery store may not be on the bus line that gets you out of the neighborhood and you're easily looking at hours on a bus there and back to shop at a proper grocery store.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- burkaman 7y ago
  The study says that both food deserts and food swamps contribute to obesity. Also: > The present study has limitations. First, as noted by Dunn, highways are an imperfect instrument. There were 1672 counties with no highway exits, so this IV approach did not provide information about counties where the food environment is not associated with the number of highway exits. 1672 counties is more than half the country. I recommend reading the rest of the Limitations section as well.
- asveikau 7y ago
  My first read was similar to another reply, that a phrasing "anyone who owns a car" is pretty much a "let them eat cake" moment. But ignoring that for a moment.... It's funny that cars are implicit in your comment. I have always felt that car culture itself contributes to obesity in a big way. I've never been low-income, but I myself was obese for much of the current decade, until I drastically reduced my car usage a few years ago. So I think for some people you have a bunch of factors re-enforcing each other: low income / multiple jobs, stress, car culture, but importantly, if you have that last one as a hard requirement, you get additional stress and increased income requirements from needing that car. i.e. Imagine a situation where you need extra hours at work or another job to pay for the car to drive to get your food, and you need extra time and stress for all of this.
- technofiend 7y ago
  >Food deserts are overhyped According to Blue Zones, who have a clear agenda around removing unhealthy choices versus adding healthy ones as well as a meal plan to sell.

javagram 7y ago

Food deserts are overhyped https://www.bluezones.com/2017/11/news-food-swamps-contribute-obesity-food-deserts/ https://www.bluezones.com/2017/11/news-food-swamps-contribut... Anyone who owns a car can get out of their “food desert” anyway and the obesity crisis is hardly limited to those who don’t drive.

qntty 7y ago
When you're talking about poor people, you can't assume that people have a car. Some of the worst food deserts are in cities where you can get by without a car. Plus when you work 3 jobs and have kids, driving an extra 10 minutes both ways to get to a better grocery store can be too much.
- javagram 7y ago
  I know I can’t assume that which is why I said there are people without cars. The parent post listed foods like rice, beans, and frozen veg all of which have long shelf life. If you swap canned veg for the frozen, you don’t even need refrigeration. That means you don’t need more than a weekly trip to the grocery store. If you do have a car, the extra 10 minutes of travel time isn’t that much. Once you bring time and overworked parents into the picture things look different. It’s certainly a lot easier from a time perspective to grab food from McDonald’s or other unhealthy ultraprocessed foods that don’t need any cooking or prep work at all. But that has little to do with the “food desert” concept since it affects you no matter how close the grocery store is.
  - technofiend 7y ago
    "Extra 10 minutes of travel time"? Sir I believe you are misinformed on typical public transportation travel times. The median wait time for a bus usually exceeds 10 minutes. Factor in the fact that a proper grocery store may not be on the bus line that gets you out of the neighborhood and you're easily looking at hours on a bus there and back to shop at a proper grocery store.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
burkaman 7y ago
The study says that both food deserts and food swamps contribute to obesity. Also: > The present study has limitations. First, as noted by Dunn, highways are an imperfect instrument. There were 1672 counties with no highway exits, so this IV approach did not provide information about counties where the food environment is not associated with the number of highway exits. 1672 counties is more than half the country. I recommend reading the rest of the Limitations section as well.
asveikau 7y ago
My first read was similar to another reply, that a phrasing "anyone who owns a car" is pretty much a "let them eat cake" moment. But ignoring that for a moment.... It's funny that cars are implicit in your comment. I have always felt that car culture itself contributes to obesity in a big way. I've never been low-income, but I myself was obese for much of the current decade, until I drastically reduced my car usage a few years ago. So I think for some people you have a bunch of factors re-enforcing each other: low income / multiple jobs, stress, car culture, but importantly, if you have that last one as a hard requirement, you get additional stress and increased income requirements from needing that car. i.e. Imagine a situation where you need extra hours at work or another job to pay for the car to drive to get your food, and you need extra time and stress for all of this.
technofiend 7y ago
>Food deserts are overhyped According to Blue Zones, who have a clear agenda around removing unhealthy choices versus adding healthy ones as well as a meal plan to sell.