Thursday, November 22, 2007

I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Now it's time to start feeling guilty about the poor having trouble finding and affording a healthy diet. Since we need the obligatory story about the poor on a day like this.

THURSDAY, Nov. 22 (HealthDay News) -- In this land and season of plenty, low-income and rural Americans continue to have difficulty finding healthy foods that are affordable, a new study finds.

One study shows that low-income Americans now would have to spend up to 70 percent of their food budget on fruits and vegetables to meet new national dietary guidelines for healthy eating.

And a second study found that in rural areas, convenience stores far outnumber supermarkets and grocery stores -- even though the latter carry a much wider choice of affordable, healthy foods.


It's basic slant is that rural and urban poor can't afford the newest Gov't approved healthy diet, and that there are too many convenience stores around.
But when I saw that title, my first thought was "I can't afford to eat fast food all the time- no wonder they're broke."

It's a good size article and only in the middle do you read about Food Stamps- and that in the need to increase the allowance. Nowhere did I see a mention of the fact that almost anything you can shove in your mouth is Food Stamp eligible now, instead of just the stuff thats healthy.

Also, the fact that convenience stores far outnumber supermarkets in rural areas is supposed to make us think that the rural poor have to hook up the horse and wagon just to make that daylong trip to the 'big city' to get their overpriced veggies.

Sorry but everyone I know out here in the sticks has a vehicle and can make that 30 minute run into San Antonio any time they want...but Hondo has two major grocery stores there, too.

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