Re:The city that ended hunger
by stellar678 on Friday June 04, 2010 @03:03PM
(#1405259)
Alright, fair enough. I think the article also conflated the two in service of its hyper-focus on individual responsibility to the exclusion of factors like food accessibility. But it does suggest policies to help people make better-informed choices about their food consumption instead of simply throwing more aid money at them. That sounds reasonable.
Would you agree with the premise that the government has had huge impacts on the quality and variety of food available (I'm talking subsidies of commodity crops here), and therefore shares some of the blame for the fact that the American version of "hungry" is "overweight and under-nourished"?
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/labels.htm
As for "meeting your daily calorie requirements", we are discussing people who are already exceeding them. Such people can either a) consume less and save money or b) consume the same dollar quantity of food, but substitute low calorie items for high calorie items. I.e., a person getting 2500 cals/day who needs 2000 can either go from 5 to 4 big macs + more money, or go from 5 big macs to 4 big macs + 1 salad.