(no subject)
Jan. 9th, 2005 09:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickThe airport project took nine hours out of my Sunday. I'm a bit miffed about this, especially considering that the fucking airport is two and a half hours away.
Tonight, for supper, I had food for thought.
Dinner was polenta (made by me, of course, out of plain cornmeal and water) with a raw relish of black-eyed peas, onion, and tomatoes. The black eyed peas were out of a can, whole and rinsed to be non-slimy. I like light red kidney beans better, but I didn't have any of them, so black-eyed peas it was. The onion was raw and chopped pretty fine. The tomatoes were canned -- in the dead of winter, "fresh" tomatoes taste like ass and I will not pay the freight to eat cardboard. Canned tomatoes are soggier but at least they taste halfway right. Also, there was salt involved. I didn't measure anything but the cornmeal and water for the polenta but I'd say it was one part onion, two parts each beans and tomatoes. Some cilantro would probably have been nice, but I didn't have any of that either.
I need to go grocery shopping.
As I was fixin' dinner, I got to thinking about the cost of food. See, along about last week, I was watching a rather surly and unpleasant argument about what food costs... It started out as something else (Why are poor people in the United States so fat?) but it ended up being about how much a healthy diet costs. In the liberal corner were the fine folks at (for example) Crooked Timber, who went off happily on choice statements culled from the conservative corner, capably represented (REPRUHZENT!) by the crowd around Jane Galt. Sometimes I get tired of partisan sniping. While I think representative democracy is a pretty good system of government, that isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. The other options are things like monarchy, communist bullshit, and jack-booted-thugs with guns. Hell, being ruled by The Ministry of Silly Walks would probably win out over those...
Other countries in this world wind up on television specials that show starving children too weak to brush flies off their nearly-naked bodies, children with the reddish hair and swollen bellies indicative of kwashiorkor. The United States is not exactly Eritrea or Mauritania or Angola or Ethiopia. In the United States, poor people do not starve to death because of insufficient caloric intake. In the United States, the poor people are fat.
Think on that a bit, please.
While you're thinking, let's take a look at what folks around the world spend on food. The USDA (I approve of government websites and using government data because that way I feel like I'm getting value for my tax dollars) has a really handy report not-exactly-about this stuff. The report (sorry, it's a fucking .pdf), which is entitled Income and Diet Differences Greatly Affect Food Spending Around the Globe, is worth your time to download because it's unencumbered by stupid graphics AND has a highly informative table on the third page.
Turns out (I'm reading off the table) that the United States spends about 8.7% of its private consumption expenditure on food. It's the lowest share listed in the chart, which includes other civilized nations like Japan, Switzerland, the UK, Belgium, and Singapore. (I will virtually always include Singapore if it's an option, mostly because of Captain Jack Sparrow.) Most of the "High Income" countries spend something less than about 22% of their private consumption expenditure on food. The "Middle Income" countries (including nations like Hungary, Mexico, Thailand, and the Republic of Korea) spend between 27 and 43% PCE on food, with the exception of the Phillippines, where the spending is 55.3%. "Low Income" countries like India, Nepal, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, spend more than 40% PCE on food, some of them more than 65%. Damn.
I'm not real sure where to go with this, but it looks like food is relatively cheap for citizens of the United States. That might explain all the fat poor people.
Tonight, for supper, I had food for thought.
Dinner was polenta (made by me, of course, out of plain cornmeal and water) with a raw relish of black-eyed peas, onion, and tomatoes. The black eyed peas were out of a can, whole and rinsed to be non-slimy. I like light red kidney beans better, but I didn't have any of them, so black-eyed peas it was. The onion was raw and chopped pretty fine. The tomatoes were canned -- in the dead of winter, "fresh" tomatoes taste like ass and I will not pay the freight to eat cardboard. Canned tomatoes are soggier but at least they taste halfway right. Also, there was salt involved. I didn't measure anything but the cornmeal and water for the polenta but I'd say it was one part onion, two parts each beans and tomatoes. Some cilantro would probably have been nice, but I didn't have any of that either.
I need to go grocery shopping.
As I was fixin' dinner, I got to thinking about the cost of food. See, along about last week, I was watching a rather surly and unpleasant argument about what food costs... It started out as something else (Why are poor people in the United States so fat?) but it ended up being about how much a healthy diet costs. In the liberal corner were the fine folks at (for example) Crooked Timber, who went off happily on choice statements culled from the conservative corner, capably represented (REPRUHZENT!) by the crowd around Jane Galt. Sometimes I get tired of partisan sniping. While I think representative democracy is a pretty good system of government, that isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. The other options are things like monarchy, communist bullshit, and jack-booted-thugs with guns. Hell, being ruled by The Ministry of Silly Walks would probably win out over those...
Other countries in this world wind up on television specials that show starving children too weak to brush flies off their nearly-naked bodies, children with the reddish hair and swollen bellies indicative of kwashiorkor. The United States is not exactly Eritrea or Mauritania or Angola or Ethiopia. In the United States, poor people do not starve to death because of insufficient caloric intake. In the United States, the poor people are fat.
Think on that a bit, please.
While you're thinking, let's take a look at what folks around the world spend on food. The USDA (I approve of government websites and using government data because that way I feel like I'm getting value for my tax dollars) has a really handy report not-exactly-about this stuff. The report (sorry, it's a fucking .pdf), which is entitled Income and Diet Differences Greatly Affect Food Spending Around the Globe, is worth your time to download because it's unencumbered by stupid graphics AND has a highly informative table on the third page.
Turns out (I'm reading off the table) that the United States spends about 8.7% of its private consumption expenditure on food. It's the lowest share listed in the chart, which includes other civilized nations like Japan, Switzerland, the UK, Belgium, and Singapore. (I will virtually always include Singapore if it's an option, mostly because of Captain Jack Sparrow.) Most of the "High Income" countries spend something less than about 22% of their private consumption expenditure on food. The "Middle Income" countries (including nations like Hungary, Mexico, Thailand, and the Republic of Korea) spend between 27 and 43% PCE on food, with the exception of the Phillippines, where the spending is 55.3%. "Low Income" countries like India, Nepal, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, spend more than 40% PCE on food, some of them more than 65%. Damn.
I'm not real sure where to go with this, but it looks like food is relatively cheap for citizens of the United States. That might explain all the fat poor people.
