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>"The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea and potatoes -- an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they s
by daniel-cussen 15y ago
>"The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea and potatoes -- an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't.… When you are unemployed … you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit "tasty." There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you."
So, calories, or not enough of them. Cooked food has more net calories than uncooked food. It's probably the same reason that, nowadays, poor people like to watch TV: it shuts your brain (20-30% of your metabolism) down harder than falling asleep. It's a decision that doesn't make any sense until you think of it calorically.
- zem 15y agowhy do you need to invoke calories? cooked food is tastier than raw food (okay, that could be an evolutionary bribe to cook your food, but i doubt it given the time scales involved). likewise, tv is a cheap form of entertainment, and requires very little energy to watch (energy that might not be left, after a hard day, for more involved pursuits).
- josephcooney 15y agoCooked food is tastier than raw food eh? Sounds like the mother of all generalizations....
- westicle 15y agoYou've obviously never tried my grandmother's baked lettuce.
- delinka 15y agoIt's also not cheaper to buy brown bread and raw carrots. It's less expensive to buy the "tasty" higher-sodium canned foods. Eating healthy is not inexpensive. Add to that that raw foods in quantity go bad sooner than cheap canned items and the cost of raw and healthy give up because of the extra waste. As for entertainment, the more wealthy enjoying turning off their brains as well. But they spend money on going to live performances at playhouses or symphonies. TV is comparatively cheap. Also with TV, you have more immediate choices (especially with something like Netflix): to watch more cerebral material or dumbed-down garbage.
- derleth 15y ago> It's also not cheaper to buy brown bread and raw carrots. It's less expensive to buy the "tasty" higher-sodium canned foods. Eating healthy is not inexpensive. Also, you have to factor in how much it costs in terms of time to prepare a meal from fresh, more-or-less whole ingredients compared to throwing something prepared into the microwave or onto the stove. If you have the time to cook after your job, wouldn't you be tempted to get a second job instead of cooking, if only to make your constant, grinding debt go away faster? Then you get into 'cultural poverty', where someone flatly doesn't know how to cook because their parents never cooked and only ate at cheap restaurants (which isn't cheap) and used prepared food. You might say 'oh, just get a cookbook', but I know first-hand how much implied knowledge you have to have to get much out of a cookbook. Implied knowledge has to come from somewhere; if you didn't get it from your parents, you likely don't have it.