Forums >Health and Nutrition>finally a defeat for urban fast "food" industry
Sorry, but I've seen a lot of poor neighborhoods and none of them was 45 minutes from a grocery store. Also, I've never seen a situation where healthy food at the grocery store cost more than fast food. Maybe "health food" costs more at a specialty store, but veggies, dry pasta, and canned goods are always cheaper than eating out. Getting fat eating junk food is a choice. Even if your statement is accurate these folks could order a salad. Doesn't anyone believe in personal responsibility anymore?
Have you looked at the price of salad? You are right to some extent but there is a lot of really cheap junk. It takes a fair bit of time and effort to eat healthily and a LOT more to do so cheaply. Dont forget perceived value. McDonalds locally - For $4.69 you could get a grilled chicken salad or you could get a double cheeseburger, fries, large coke, and 2 apple pies. (and change) In the grocery for $1.69 1 head lettuce or 3 boxes Kraft Mac n Cheese (6 on special) or 10 packages top ramen.
My legs are killing me
So why do you think certain segments of society endemically make bad choices?
3Days4Cure
Thank you! In addition look at the calorie values. When you are poor, you could eat that salad for 4.69 and maybe what 400 calories and need to buy more food in two hours or eat a couple thousand calorie junk food meal and make it till dinner. I am not saying personal choice has nothing to do with it but as a single mom with two kids struggling to buy healthy food for my family I can see how if I has a couple hundred less a month I would be reduced to much fewer options, and I'm not even in a poor urban neighborhood with transportation and access issues.
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Why is it sideways?
Doesn't anyone believe in personal responsibility anymore?
But why don't you belienve that a community organizing against what they see as a blight on their community is an example of just the sort of choice-making that we ought to affirm? It takes discipline and organization to do what's best for your community. And these folks thought it best not to have another fast food joint close by. Not only did they think that, they got off their butts and made it happen. That's the American way, no? You might say that the effect of this is to limit choice, and that's why it's a bad decision. But I imagine that an argument can be made that by disallowing the McD's, they are trying to open up their small neighborhhod to different sorts of choices.
For the record, I strongly support the use of small business incentives to help folks in poor neighborhoods maintain their local economies. Even here in Albuquerque, we have areas where a sense of community ownership would solve a lot of crime and poverty problems. The trick is finding the folks who can make it happen.
Sully, as you know: society moves according to the will of those who are willing to speak up and act, not according to the will of the majority. This is a good thing, no?
No it is not.
Explain, please. I don't know how you know what the "will of the majority" is if it is not expressed by a majority of folks speaking and acting and doing. MTA: to make myself clear. The will of the majority is a fictitous construct unless is is actually, empirically expressed as what the majority of folks are doing, wanting, saying. In this case, the sum total of action in the community ended up being in opposition to McD's. I interpret this as "the will of the majority." But there are certainly cases when the will of the majority acts against democratic ends. Fascist Germany, for example.
There are a host of issues that the majority of the population is in favor of, immigration reform, a simpler tax code, energy indepenence to name a few, which will never be effectively addressed because of lobbyist and a minority of well funded, both conservative and liberal, groups that block passage of any true and meaningful reform.
That's right. And that's because the constitution is carefully constructed to allow the expression of minority interests because the founders feared the tyranny of the majority.