"Why don't poor people eat better?"

There's a long-running discussion going on these days about why poor people eat so badly. Poverty is strongly linked to both a diet high in processed and manufactured foods, and in indicators of bad diet like obesity and diabetes. People from privileged backgrounds seem unable to fathom why it is that poor people choose Snickers bars over apples, or McDonald's over baked lean chicken breast.

The latest in these clueless attempts to A) Shame low-income people and B) Make the middle classes feel even more smug about themselves is this BBC article. The reporter took up a challenge to live a week spending only one Pound ($1.50) per meal. He chirpily asserts that you can not only eat healthily on this amount, "there are plenty of surprising goodies that are very much on the menu."

Leaving aside specifics of the amounts Milligan spent and why, this article entirely misses the point. Frankly, when it comes to the food choices of the working class, money is the least of it. I'm sure most people could spend a week living on a greatly reduced amount of money with few issues. Especially grown adults without young children in the house, as seems to be the case here.

I would like to see Milligan get a food budget at the beginning of the month that has to last him all month with no exceptions, as happens with the SNAP program. I would like to see him spend a week having to skip meals so that his children can eat. I would like to see him take a crap job that has him on his feet all day, and have to take the bus, and walk to and from the bus station (because they are always blocks away), and spend 14 hours outside the home every day because of this, leaving home at 4 a.m. and returning at 8 p.m.

And when he staggers in the door at 8 p.m. after spending the whole day on his feet, THEN I would like to see him whip up one of the delightful recipes he featured in his article.

Image courtesy Flickr/I-5 Design & Manufacture