Posted on 06/25/2006 4:57:20 PM PDT by bd476
Largest retailer boosts organic market as nation tackles bulging waistlines
For the organic grape tomatoes to land in Tara Smoot's shopping trolley required a tremendous act of will. First she renounced all junk food, banishing fried chicken and chocolate milk from her children's menu, and the pasta, crisps and sweets she and her husband had enjoyed. Then she prepared herself for a higher grocery bill.
"It's a lot cheaper to eat unhealthily than healthily," she says. And there is temptation every step of the way. To reach the fresh produce section in this Wal-Mart super centre Ms Smoot had to push her trolley past jumbo bags of peanuts and "sugar-free" chocolate cream pies - still 220 calories a slice. Ahead lie the ubiquitous chocolate bars at the checkout counter.
But Ms Smoot, 27, a stay-at-home mother who changed her diet last October after developing high blood sugar, says she is determined to eat better. Dinner tonight is low-carb salmon wraps, a mozzarella and tomato salad, and soy milk smoothies. "We are trying to eat a little more healthy - nothing canned or frozen," says her sister, Amber.
Families like the Smoots were part of Wal-Mart's calculation when the world's largest retailer announced last April that it would begin selling organic food at its famously low prices, charging a 10% premium over non-organic.
Organic food for the masses has arrived, and at a time when America as a nation has never been fatter or eaten so badly. Seventeen per cent of children and teenagers are overweight, and 66% of adults, of whom 32% are obese. Seventy-eight per cent of adults admit they do not eat enough fruit or vegetables.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
It looks like Wal-Mart just might save America.
There is no nutritional difference between "organic" and "non-organic" produce.
Alouette wrote: "There is no nutritional difference between "organic" and "non-organic" produce."
Shhhhh, I won't tell if you won't tell...
Lol!
She sounds as manic as a reformed smoker. Healthy is nice, but nothing frozen? And there's no fewer calories in organic tomatoes over non-organic ones.
I recently changed my diet to improve my immunity against colds, which I used to suffer every couple of months or so. More plant-based foods, less meat-based foods. For a while, I shopped at Whole Food Markets, but then I found out that Super Wal-Marts offered similar products that I needed for my new diet at a lower cost. So yes, Wal-Mart wins my hard-earned, health-conscious dollars.
Fatter yes. Eaten so badly? No.
Because so much of the food even the "junk food" is enriched with basic nutrients we have never eaten so well.
When was the last time you saw a kid with rickets? Or with scurvy? Or a goiter?
Common in children in my parents generation. Now the cases you find are mostly in the elderly who are not eating.
Nothing wrong with canned or frozen vegetables, Amber, as long as there's nothing added.
It would be good to hear sometime in the future if eating healthier foods works out for you and about any changes in your health.
Fat, American, and proud. Excellent points, all.
Just more gratuitous anti-Yanqui boosterism.
My two rules of thumb for eating:
Try hard to eat more veggies
Choose your grandparents carefully
I mentioned that I used to get a cold every couple of months, but with my new diet, I've reduced it to once every six months. And hopefully I can reduce it even further.
Furthermore, this was all the result of diet, I haven't increased my amount of exercise at all.
People have just enough information to waste money but not enough to accomplish anything by it.
This canard was invented when people started pointing out that America's "starving poor" were mostly big and fat.
I've shopped my whole life. It's no big trick to buy store brand frozen vegetables, bulk rice and whatever chicken parts happen to be on sale that week.
It's a lot cheaper than the equivalent amount of yodels and doritos.
True, but with something organically grown, you know chemicals were not added to them. The small farmer does exist, but not in a large amount, almost all farms run as agribusinesses these days, focusing on yield as opposed to quality, this is due primarily to the fact that crops prices tend to be too low, and foreign produce further complicates the market, and by and large, they have less overhead, so they can often grow a product without chemical intervention, and undersell the Americans who have to use high yield techniques.
Personally, I make all efforts I can to avoid anything that has been hormonally or genetically enhanced, because that's not what God intended, and when you start screwing with stuff like that, problems are bound to come out of it.
It's not just the poor that are fat. In general, people of all socioeconomic brackets are fatter in the Southeast, because of our style of cooking, which is not healthy at all.
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