Poor, busy parents can't feed their families enough veg, so let's not recommend it

In this article, the author argues that poorer families cannot afford 10 portions of fruit and veg a day and therefore the government should not make the recommendation.

Most of the comments call her out on her ridiculous assumptions, which include:

• You have to add the extra portions of fruit and veg to everything else you eat
• Fruit and veg are "expensive" compared to the other things she's eating
• It is desirable to purchase unseasonal and nutritionally poor foods like iceberg lettuce
• All fruit and veg has to be purchased from the shop
• Health recommendations should be based on what people will do, rather than what they ought to do

I didn't see it in the comments, but I'm pretty sure not having a famblee of four would also help with the costs. "Expense" seems to be her excuse for every moral corner she cuts, but her whinging sure seems like middle-class problems to me.

Just when you think things can't sound more stupid.

my real WTF moment has been finding out that almost NO parunts these days even cook! Even the upper middle classes have no idea how to cook fresh veggies, and it seems from what I hear and see that probably 80% eat out (mostly fast food) every meal except maybe breakfast. And breakfast is most likely toaster pastries and sugary cereal.IF the poverty-level folks are lucky enough not to live in a food desert, they need serious lessons in buying and cooking Real Food.I mean, a head of broccoli is cheap here, and Brocc, cabbage, carrots and onions with potatoes. has made many a meal for me.And tasty!

For decades, I have been low-income and multiply-disabled, but I do reasonably well at budget grocery shopping and budget gardening.

I have made several efforts to share that knowledge and experience with other low-income people in my neighborhoods (2 different neighborhoods in 20 years).
Despite helping to establish 3 different neighborhood community gardens projects, picking up free food to distribute for several months, food stocking and preserving and a willingness to share shopping strategies but these people were just not interested.

The common financial pattern was to blow their money like crazy at the first of the month (cabs, beer, junk food, delivery pizza) and then whine about no money for the last ten days of the month. Rinse and repeat.

No one wanted to make any gardening effort, do a food budget, nor think and act beyond the extreme short term, etc.

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reeniebessagain
IF the poverty-level folks are lucky enough not to live in a food desert, they need serious lessons in buying and cooking Real Food.

Cities in Europe generally aren't constructed in such a way that there are food deserts. I don't own a car, and I've lived in a lot of different cities and never had difficulty getting fresh vegetables. I know it can be an issue in the US, because of the more suburb style urban design which makes it difficult to travel by foot or public transport. This article's from the UK, so I think the main problem is not knowing how to cook.

I really don't think 10 a day is such a stretch goal. Say oatmeal with an apple and some raisins for breakfast (2), a salad of cucumber, carrot, rice and quinoa for lunch (4), a tangerine for a snack (5), a chickpea and vegetable curry containing onion, tomato, peas, bell pepper, and butternut squash (10). Or maybe an orange for breakfast (1), lunch of a stir-fry with Brussels sprouts, broccoli, peas and bean sprouts (5), and for dinner a soup with lentils, rice and cabbage, carrot, onion and tomato (9) with some dried fruit for dessert (10). With canned (tomato), dried (fruits), frozen (peas), homegrown (sprouts, carrots, lettuce), seasonal (apples, hard squashes, onions, carrots, brassica), and minimal imports (citrus, cucumber, bell pepper), it is not that difficult to keep costs down.

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cassia
For decades, I have been low-income and multiply-disabled, but I do reasonably well at budget grocery shopping and budget gardening.

I have made several efforts to share that knowledge and experience with other low-income people in my neighborhoods (2 different neighborhoods in 20 years).
Despite helping to establish 3 different neighborhood community gardens projects, picking up free food to distribute for several months, food stocking and preserving and a willingness to share shopping strategies but these people were just not interested.

The common financial pattern was to blow their money like crazy at the first of the month (cabs, beer, junk food, delivery pizza) and then whine about no money for the last ten days of the month. Rinse and repeat.

No one wanted to make any gardening effort, do a food budget, nor think and act beyond the extreme short term, etc.

I knew you would have something to say to this author, because you manage to do so much on a low income. One thing I noticed about the author is that she's middle class, ostensibly concerned about the plight of the poor, but actually eager to drag down the standards so that she won't have to meet them. Half of her essay was complaining about her own life, and all the shortcuts she takes.

I don't think we should inflict the tyranny of low expectations on the poor. Everyone should know damn well what is recommended, and if they want help in achieving that - cooking lessons, community gardens, access to slow cookers and pressure cookers, and the like - I think it should be given. But most people aren't interested in succeeding, they would rather have an excuse for their failures. They don't want to admit that they are surrounded by more opportunities for nutrition than people in any time in human history, yet they still make poor choices, like Mrs. Middleclass bitching about the cost of greenhouse-grown iceberg lettuce which costs something like 1/100th of her daily salary.

Huh. Interesting. Earlier this week, husband and I went to a local green grocer and got a HUGE box of fresh veggies for less than $15.

If you can't afford vegetables and fruits, you definitely can't afford a chyullld.

There was another article in the same paper with people describing how they get their 10-a-day. Nobody focused on kids, all talked about making their own meals. What a shocker, it turns out if you aren't bizzy being a breeder, you actually have time to cook healthy meals.

So let's get this straight, her vegetables are all frozen and prepackaged premium products, and she's lowing about the cost of vegetables. This is all I can hear from her - 'Mooo, I can't buy two D&G bags like they recommend, as it's too expensive - these recommendations are crap - Mooo!'. .

Not discounting the fact that most frozen vegetables are poor, rubbery, waterlogged excuses, they're usually more expensive than the actual unprocessed version. Granted there are some stuff which is just not available or outrageously expensive when out of season, but they are usually few and far between with the advent of modern agricultural farming, and imports. Yes, there are times when frozen produce has its benefits, but it shouldn't completely replace fresh versions if they're available and accessible. Farmer's markets, green grocers and community gardens are all less expensive than premium frozen packets. Heck, some even have online delivery services - so the whole 'bizzy momz, not time' is nullified.

As Cassia and others have mentioned, even on low incomes, eating healthy and nutritionally sound is not out of ones reach, provided there's some effort and some common sense strategies devised. Heck 10 a day is not that hard, and one meal can have all of them, along with a recommended amount of protein.

Nope, not buying the excuses, as that's all they are - excuses from a lowing, lazy middle class moo who can't be fluffed putting the effort.

So today I decided to actually pay attention to how much fruit and veg I was eating, because I normally don't. But if the guideline is 10, I guess I should: I wouldn't want to overdose, after all.

I had 80 grams of blueberries as part of my breakfast. That was about 10 berries. Help, I don't know how I can eat so much!

I had some carrot and cucumber sticks. Somehow, that didn't remotely fill me up (probably because it was 1 medium carrot and less than a cucumber to get my 80 grams of each), so I ate some vegetable soup (4 kinds of vegetable plus potato, I probably got about 3 servings of veg from it). So here it is, just past lunchtime, and I've had 6 portions of fruit/veg already.

I was thinking of having some carrot juice this afternoon, some vegetable curry (3 types of veg) for dinner, and grapes for dessert, but clearly I need to nip this sort of thing in the bud, because my eating habits might make lazy breeders feel inadequate.

Last night before bed, I had a snack of purchased fruit (about 10 large sliced strawberries and a medium banana), sliced, in a bowl.
It was about 2 minutes of effort of rinsing, peeling and slicing.
My total cost was about $1 CDN for about four servings of fruit.

If 25 cents per serving is an average, it would cost me $2.50 per day for 10 servings of fruits and vegetables.



My skills at gardening are only at an 'acceptable level' for many reasons.

During my gardening season (about 26 weeks or half the year), almost all of my vegetables consumed are organic (about two shopping bags a week at a value of about $75 ) and are obtained from my extensive gardens (at home and two public community gardens), at a cost of about 50 cents per week (seeds, soil amendments, raised beds, tools, etc).
Some gardening costs are single season, while others are spread over years of usage.

Some random samples of what I grew last season:
- about 5 varieties of cherry tomatoes
- about 5 varieties of medium tomatoes
- about 6-7 varieties of large tomatoes
- 2 varieties of cucumbers
- 4 varieties of kale
- about 5 varieties of lettuce/ greens
- 3 varieties of green onions
- 4 varieties of beans
- about 4 varieties of specialty beans
- about 4 varieties of peas
- 6 types of potatoes
- rhubarb
- chinese gooseberries
- squash
- zucchini
- tomatillos
- 6 types of herbs
- mint
- 4 varieties of carrots
- parnips
- turnips
- edible flowers


I am also able to preserve some vegetables (freezing, canning, dehydrating, cold-storage, pickling, jamming ) to extend the consumption of nearly free organic vegetables for months after the growing season ends in October.

I also share quite a lot of excessive produce with my low-income neigbours (ie last summer about 60-80 pints of 10 varieties of organic tomatoes, dried mint with printed recipes and other uses, etc)

I think the more important thing is to examine why these people are allegedly too poor to afford normal fruits and vegetables. Since most breeders are lazy fucks, they almost never do any actual cooking (as evidenced by the fact that schools have to feed kids breakfast and lunch) and blow all their money on pre-packaged, processed, preserved or prepared shit, ignoring the humor in the fact that those things all cost more than fresh produce because they're convenience foods. That, and I'm sure they'd all use the excuse that "Bawwwww, mah kyds don't like fruuuuit!" because the kids will cry and stomp and scream for junk food (or Moos will assume they will) when presented with healthier snack alternatives. Kids are fucking dumb, but most of them won't allow themselves to starve. I wonder how many kids under the age of 10 even eat fruit when it's offered for free at school. How many kids know what fruit tastes like? I bet the actual number is sickening because their palates are so used to sugar-satuated junk food.

Maybe the problem isn't so much changing the fucking food pyramid for useless parents, but teaching parents how to make better financial decisions. Not having kids would have done wonders for their budgets, but since they can't really undo their permanent poor life choices, the next bast thing is to show them them how to budget. They probably see fresh produce and assume it's a worthless purchase because neither they nor their kids will eat it and it'll just sit in the fridge until it rots away into a pile of moldy slop. But have any of them ever even tried to encourage their brats to eat a fucking carrot or an apple? My guess is NO. The kids are also probably so spoiled picky that they won't eat anything other than chicken nuggets and Kraft mac-n-cheese, so instead of fighting with them to try something healthy or listening to tantrums, it's just easier to feed them garbage Moo knows they'll eat.

I know certain types of produce are more expensive than others and maybe could only be an occasional treat, but there are plenty of fresh fruits and veggies that can be had cheap, keep well and can either be consumed raw or cooked. If breeders have accommodations for a garden at home, they could plant a family garden to show their kids how produce grows and to be able to eat the food they grew themselves, not to mention the money they'd save if they can't afford produce from the grocery store. Hell, even if they don't have yard space, there are various kinds of dwarf fruit and vegetable plants specifically made for apartment dwellers or people with limited space.

There's really no excuse for not getting in at least a few servings of fruits and veggies, but it's not the food pyramid's fault. Teach breeders how to budget and how to cook instead of changing nutritional guidelines for no fucking reason.

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cassia
During my gardening season (about 26 weeks or half the year), almost all of my vegetables consumed are organic (about two shopping bags a week at a value of about $75 ) and are obtained from my extensive gardens (at home and two public community gardens), at a cost of about 50 cents per week (seeds, soil amendments, raised beds, tools, etc).
Some gardening costs are single season, while others are spread over years of usage.

That's impressive, cassia. I have just a small area, so I only grow a few types of vegetables. Last year it was carrots, lettuce, scallions and peas, and I gave some of it away. I find fresh herbs are good use for the space because they are so expensive to buy. I have sage, thyme, parsley and rosemary. For the hardier herbs, a balcony or a windowsill is sufficient.

I understand some people don't like gardening. (I'm one of them, in fact, I put in almost no effort.) I understand some people don't like cooking. But it is still possible to shop wisely and cook carefully and get your nutrition. Nutritious, cheap, quick and tasty: optimize for any three.

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yurble

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cassia
During my gardening season (about 26 weeks or half the year), almost all of my vegetables consumed are organic (about two shopping bags a week at a value of about $75 ) and are obtained from my extensive gardens (at home and two public community gardens), at a cost of about 50 cents per week (seeds, soil amendments, raised beds, tools, etc).
Some gardening costs are single season, while others are spread over years of usage.

That's impressive, cassia. I have just a small area, so I only grow a few types of vegetables. Last year it was carrots, lettuce, scallions and peas, and I gave some of it away. I find fresh herbs are good use for the space because they are so expensive to buy. I have sage, thyme, parsley and rosemary. For the hardier herbs, a balcony or a windowsill is sufficient.

I understand some people don't like gardening. (I'm one of them, in fact, I put in almost no effort.) I understand some people don't like cooking. But it is still possible to shop wisely and cook carefully and get your nutrition. Nutritious, cheap, quick and tasty: optimize for any three.

In many ways, I am both a lazy gardener and a lazy cook, so I try to adapt methods to get maximum benefit with minimal effort.
Other times, I just knuckle under to do the annoying hard work (ie chopping lots of leaves for soil amendment, creating raised beds, food preservation for months of free food.), and I try to figure out ways to make that hard work palatable (ie playing fun music, short work periods with long nice rest periods, specific rewards for meeting work goals, etc) so that I get long-term benefits of close to free food for my efforts.

If you are careful to fulfill gardening needs with cheap or free items, the monetary expense is minimal, but you must be willing to put in some time and effort. It took me awhile to figure out how to learn methods that avoid excess waste of time and effort.

I eat fewer veg and fruits than I need. That is because day to day anything is getting harder. I have nerve damage in all four limbs, at times leaving them all but useless. I cook with a crock pot when things aren't so bad.

+++++++++++++

Passive Aggressive
Master Of Anti-brat
Excuses!

A little off topic but related: Many people spend recklessly because they don't notice the cost of the items they are buying. When I was in college I was in a drugstore with a friend. She was trying to decide which of 3 brands of shower gel to buy. She opened them all and sniffed them. She was going to buy the one that smelled best, then I pointed out it was much more expensive than the other two brands. Now she had to decide whether to splurge on the expensive brand or go with something less luxurious but cheaper. She never would never have even thought of this if I was not there. I don't remember what she decided. I was just amazed a typically poor college student did not even notice the price of the stuff she was buying.

Most moos behave the same way in the grocery store or any other store. They Just grab whatever looks good to them or their brats without regard to the cost, then whine they are broke before their next welfare of child support check arrives.

"Health recommendations should be based on what people will do, rather than what they ought to do"

In that case, it is no longer a recommendation, it's just a pat on the back for whatever you are doing.