Chart of the Week: Is food too cheap for our own good?

Pew Research Center ^ | 5/23/2014 | Drew DeSilver

[EBH]

As you scarf down burgers and potato salad this long Memorial Day weekend, consider this: Americans have the cheapest food in history, and that unprecedented abundance is largely responsible for why we’re so fat.

According to a new article in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Americans in the 1930s spent a quarter of their disposable income on food. That share has fallen steadily through the decades, to the point where today less than 10% of Americans’ disposable dollars go for food. (That varies across income groups, of course: The poorest 20% of Americans still spend about a third of their disposable income on food.)

And even as the real cost of food goes down, each dollar we spend buys us more calories than it used to. The average American’s total caloric intake (adjusted for spoilage and other waste) rose from 2,109 calories in 1970 to 2,568 calories in 2010, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data — the equivalent of an extra steak sandwich every day.

[G Larry]

More from the Population Control, Dirt First, crowd.

These elitist bastards don’t want you growing independent of gov’t control and they certainly don’t want unregulated energy independence in the third world or in America.

Cheap food and energy in America SHOULD be the gateway for cheap food and energy in the third world.

But then, those third world populations might want to control access to their own rich natural resources, which these elitist bastards would rather retain for their own exploitation.

[MD Expat in PA]

If they were so ‘concerned’ about our health and waistlines, Cheetos would cost ten bucks a bag and lettuce would be a nickel a head.

No. There is a reason for this difference in price.

Cheetos are very cheap to make, the ingredients in bulk don’t cost that much and they are made with a whole lot of automation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz7uZMxVq8A

Lettuce, on the other hand is not manufactured but grown, even on the big so called “factory farms”; 1) takes a lot of land, 2) takes time to grow, 3) is subject to failure due to bad weather, i.e. cold, 4) is still rather labor intensive to harvest, 5) it doesn’t grow just anywhere especially in the winter, and 6) has a very short shelf life, farm to market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTcKy_6TKk0

And tell the Department of AgriNazis to keep their filthy paws off my cheese steak, the damn dirty apes!

Yes, I’m with ya there.

[bill1952]

They are getting ready to starve working Americans on a mass scale.

Fixed it.

[goodwithagun]

The reason people are fat has nothing to do with the amount of fat they eat (except the hydrogenated kind), and everything to do with the processed “food” they’re eating. It’s very difficult to be overweight when your shopping cart is filled with fresh foods to be eaten as is or used as ingredients. That stated, this author is a loon.

[captmar-vell]

amazing, its nothing but spin, with some truth thrown in to make it go down more easily, and I’ve joked in the last year they should tell us all its good for us because Americans are too fat, . .well here we go,

along these lines, I’ve remarked that everyone knows that soda/pop soft-drinks are 12 oz, so it wont be easy to manipulate the sizing like for almost everything else, they cant just change the shape etc.,

went to the movies last weekend and one of the pre show ‘commercials’ was promoting the new ‘mini’ soda cans for whatever they were pushing, Pepsi i think,

its coming, and Americans will believe the lie,

[Salvation]

BTTT!

[Viking2002]

And I'm talking about a good cheese steak - Provolone, a little mayo, seasoned lettuce, and some sweet peppers, like we do in Western MD. Not those wafer steaks in a bun glopped over with Cheez Whiz like they make over in Philly.

[jsanders2001]

Probably another trust fund liberal that worships at the altar of Obama and has never experienced any adversity. They know what’s best for us you know.

[SamAdams76]

Wait a minute. I thought gazillions of ‘mericans go to bed hungry every night.

That was when Bush was in office. Do try to keep up!

[usconservative]

so making food unaffordable is good because we will all lose weight?

Yes! It's been proven to be effective in North Korea! Have you ever seen a fat North Korean??

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

EBH:" Huge food inflation is coming and this is an early harbinger warning prepping the uneducated fools to accept their forced weight loss
so 0bamacare becomes affordable. They are getting ready to starve Americans on a mass scale."

The FED just last Friday issued a warning that the price of food was going to increase dramaticly.
Meat products were immediately and most likely to increase in cost.
USFDA cracking down on milk producers , and backyard farm streetstands ,.. you figure it out by filling in the blanks !!

[Cold Heart]

“Huge food inflation is coming”
And I just figured out one of the mechanisms they will use.

EPA is increasing the mandate for ethanol in gasoline.

[fhayek]

Before Obama became president, food was cheaper, health care was cheaper, gasoline was cheaper. Now, Obama claims he is for the people. Well, the people all need food, gas and health care, don’t they?

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Socialists crave shortages that give them power through rationing. If something exists in abundance so great they cannot imagine it away, they try to either limit production or inhibit its use.

This is because *anything* desirable, in abundance, is an alternative currency that takes power away from those who want to ration.

In old East Germany, they tried so hard to create shortages in everything that even color and music were reserved to “honor the state”. The only paint people could buy was black, white and gray. And weirdly enough, a lot of American leftists still pine for “the good old days” of East Germany.

To Hell with them. Enjoy abundance and trade it with others.

[jsanders2001]

Here's the answer: "The Pew Charitable Trusts (PCT) are comprised of seven individual funds established between 1948 and 1979 by the four children of Joseph N. Pew, founder of the Sun Oil Company, and his wife Mary A. Pew. Mr. Pew and his immediate heirs were politically conservative, as were most of the causes that PCT supported in its early years. In recent decades, however, leftwing staffers have taken control of the organization, radically transforming its ideology and funding philosophy.Particularly responsible for this change was the late neurosurgeon Thomas W. Langfitt, who served as PCT's President and Chief Executive Officer from 1987 through 1994. "

[MD Expat in PA]

What you said is true…I would also add the organic, free range and grass fed type proteins are much LESS FATTENING than the cheaper stuff…..so the whole notion of too cheap = obesity is absurd. If food prices were lower, people could more easily afford the better proteins.

You might be interested to learn that there is no real discernible difference in the nutritional values of organic, free range, grass fed type proteins vs. the non-organic, non-free range, non-grass fed type proteins or in organic vegetables and fruits for that matter. Grass fed beef is slightly less in saturated fats and slightly higher in omega 3 fats but not to an extent that it makes any real difference to one’s diet and anyone who knows anything about good meat, knows that good marbling, i.e. the fat, is what differentiates prime meat from choice or lower grades of meat.

Organic foods are way overpriced and are IMO a lot of hype but people with too much disposable income and no or little knowledge of nutrition or science, especially in basic biology and chemistry fall for it. The last time I was at Wegman’s I was looking to by some fresh broccoli and cauliflower heads and the organic ones that were side by side with the “conventional” were nearly twice the price and half the size so guess what I ended up purchasing.

The very idea that we are fat because food is too cheap flies in the face of reason. The reason we are fat is we eat too much in general and we don’t move enough. One can get just as fat by eating too much all organic and so called healthy whole foods as they can living on junk foods. At the end of the day, eating too many calories no matter what the source and not exercising enough is what makes us fat.

Granted, those not eating an overall well balanced diet that includes a wide range of foods, including fresh vegetables and fruits and healthy grains and nothing but processed high fat or high sugar convenience foods with very little nutritional value, will for most people eventually cause health issues but at the end of the day, too many calories taken in and not enough burned off is what makes us fat.

Making food more expensive for everyone will not solve this problem and if concerns about good nutrition is their concern, that will only make it worse. People who make poor food choice will continue to do so especially if you and I are paying for it. Does anyone think that making food more expense will suddenly force people to eat more broccoli and brussel sprouts?

FWIW, I was over in the UK last October on a business trip. I was watching a news report on a story that was making big headlines over there at the time which was “how much food that is purchased is wasted” and what a severe problem some thought this was. And the biggest “offenders” was, get this, those pre-packaged fresh salad greens. The complaint seemed to be that they were too cheap and that too many stores were running BOGO deals, ergo too many people were buy too many healthy greens and then throwing some of them away in the trash bin as they went bad before they could all be eaten and what a waste of “resources” this was. They weren’t even trying to make the claim that this took food out of the mouths of poor people, but just the fact the some of the fresh foods being purchased were being thrown away was this was horrible and the only reasonable thing to do, the only solution to this horrible problem was to make it more expensive and force the grocers from not putting them on sale or doing the BOGO deals anymore and forcing them to stock less perishable items so that they run out before closing every night. (UGGG!)

One of the so called experts even recommended not buying any more food from the grocers than one could eat in any single day, i.e. shopping every day and not having any leftovers in the refrigerator.

I don’t recall her name but a conservative Tory former MP was interviewed and very correctly pointed out how ridiculous this was. She pointed out that with many working families, many with long commutes, shopping every day for groceries would not be practical for many, it would cut into their precious family time, and said something to the effect of “You are all so concerned about our so called carbon foot print (with a great big eye roll) but you have no concerns about burning more petrol in order to run to the store every day because a few leaves of lettuce get tossed into the bin? Are these tossed away leaves of lettuce taking anything out of hungry mouths? No. Are these grocers losing money because they sell these products on sale? No. If these grocers were actually losing money on overstocked items, do you think they would continue to do so? No. Do you think that forcing higher prices and artificially limiting supply and therefore the demand will make our famers suffer? Well? Try telling our produce famers that cutting their crops by a third will help prevent our poor overworked refuse haulers from suffering from the horrors of picking up bins with a few leaves of uneaten lettuce in them. Tell your kids that mum was two minutes late getting to the Tesco and all the produce was gone so we’ll have to eat some chips for dinner tonight instead. Such a “first” world problem this is. Really. Travel around the world, to many third world countries as I have done, look at the severely malnourished children and ask their mums if they would like to have such a problem as occasionally having to throw out some uneaten food.”

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***the depression era 1930’s****
Food was still cheap back then. My Mother-in-law said they got tired of steak for breakfast, steak for dinner, steak for supper as it was the cheapest thing around.

It was so bad the Government bought up whole herds of cattle and hogs, dug holes shot them and buried them. It was an attempt to get the price up.
The government did the same with milk, dumping lots of it in the sewers.

Ten years later the government was back begging the ranchers and farmers to increase cow production for the war effort.
How do you tell a sow or cow to produce more piglets or calves?

[jsanders2001]

The socialists I’ll not be happy until they control every aspect of YOUR life (but not their own). This info explains much about Pew’s leftist bias. They’re just another part of the Left propaganda machine:

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5213

[jsanders2001]

The socialists will not be happy until they control every aspect of YOUR life (but not their own). This info explains much about Pew’s leftist bias. They’re just another part of the Left propaganda machine:

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5213

[Lizavetta]

That was when Bush was in office. Do try to keep up!

Ha !