I’m surprised by this conversation. I don’t understand how people who have a hard time purchasing food could have computers and internet service. Makes me wonder if they have cell phone plans and cable TV, or drive a car, too.
For me, food has always been the most important thing in life—both as sustenance and as pleasure. I buy things at farmer’s markets and coops and have used coupons to make my money go further. I’ve always thought that fresh food was the most important nutritionally and taste-wise.
Nowadays, I can afford what I want at the grocery store. We don’t go out to eat very much, though. We only have one car and we use public transportation and bicycles as much as possible. I have the cheapest phone plan I can get (60 minutes a month), and the other phones are pay as you go plans.
I certainly think having enough food to survive on is a right. That’s why we have food security programs in the US. I think people should have a right to buy the minimum necessary for good nutrition. I don’t think that includes junk food or high sugar drinks all the time, although as an occasional splurge that seems all right.
Part of the problem with food security, though, is that people aren’t educated about food and what is good for you. Another problem is that they don’t have access to stores that sell less expensive, healthy food. I work in a neighborhood that, until a month or so ago, didn’t have a supermarket, nor was there one within three miles.
It now has a supermarket and a farmer’s market and people engaged in efforts to educated people in the neighborhood about how to eat healthily, and how to incorporate fresh vegies and fruits into their diets. It’s a tough slog.
Ideally, I think people should have a right to eat healthily, but I recognize that if you provide food support, then they will use it on whatever they like to eat—which is not necessarily the stuff that is healthy. That’s why poorer people are also, on average, the heaviest people. They eat all the wrong stuff. Only wealthy people, it seems, can “afford” to eat well. Eating well, it seems, requires a good deal more education—the kind you can’t get from television ads.
The right to food is more than having enough money to buy the food that will keep you alive. It is about knowing enough to make good choices about how to spend your food money. It’s about living in a place where you have access to healthy food choices.
When I was in my twenties, my food budget was tight. I ate a lot more tofu and other soy products than I do now. I worked at the coop in order to have access to cheaper, healthier food. I used every coupon I could—even the ones that bought me less than healthy food.
Thirty years later, I’m in a different position. I can afford organic food of the highest quality. I can investigate the world of artisanal cheeses. I don’t have to think about coupons, although we still use them. If I want a fresh cannoli, I can have it. I can get a latte and a pastry at a coffee shop every day. It’s nice. It’s nice to be able to get our children a little more than we had (although not nearly everything they want).
These are wonderful things, but they are things I spend on because I don’t spend in other areas. It’s just that food is one of the most important things in life to me. I’ve learned to cook so that I don’t have to go to a fancy restaurant to have a fancy meal. I’m very lucky, I think, and I am very grateful to be in this position.
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