Thief13x on 28/8/2007 at 03:40
Quote Posted by fett
*This is of course a very short-sighted and ignorant suggestion since I'm not an economist and don't understand why it costs more to produce and distribute fresh food and aoidfnao0dfinnere080pi.
Nice, you just spared yourself my supply and demand lecture at the last minute there...
I've been cooking 80% rice and vegetables the past few weeks and, once again, this week, my food bill was under $25. Trial and error has eventually yielded a great salmon, rice, vegetable, bean, and clam-chowder dish and some tuna in the same mix (without the salmon). I know you can't eat this stuff all the time every time, but $25 for almost 7 days sure as hell beats mcdonalds.
aguywhoplaysthief on 28/8/2007 at 03:57
No clue what the Hampshire boards are. All that came up on Google was some school.
I agree with Thief13x - I eat healthy, and my food bills are between $35 and $50 a week. Of course, a lot of that has to do with Trader Joe's. If I didn't have that, my food would be at least 50% more on average.
Spaztick on 28/8/2007 at 04:16
Man, people will do ANYTHING to get the responsibility off them.
Dia on 28/8/2007 at 04:46
My sister-in-law has five kids; only one of them has developed a weight problem in the past couple years and she's only 8 yrs. old. I swear she tried everything in the book to get her whole family on a healthier diet once she realized that one daughter was too thin and another too fat; to no avail. Her youngest daughter just kept getting more and more rotund (genes inherited from her dad's (previous marriage) maternal side, unfortunately) with each passing month.
Granted, my sis-in-law did keep a lot of sweets and snacks in the house until about 4 mos. ago when she started noticing that the treats seemed to be disappearing at an alarming rate. She was bewildered because of course, none of the kids owned up to filching extra treats or snacks when they weren't supposed to. About a month later she caught her rotund daughter sneaking into the kitchen and gorging herself after everyone else had gone to bed. The daughter had also gotten lazy (or overconfident) and her secret stashing places were beginning to overflow with wrappers and empty chip bags. That did it. The mom stopped buying junk food, period. The daughter with the weight problem has dropped over five pounds since then and thanks to the healthier diet mom has them on, the skinny daughter is starting to look healthier as well. As for my sister-in-law; she's still addicted to diet colas and is about 30 lbs. overweight. But at least she's making sure her family eats right. Btw; she recently told me she's actually saving money because she's not spending money on junk food anymore.
37637598 on 28/8/2007 at 05:36
WTF is it with fat people and diet cola??? I always see the 911 dispatchers garbage, Reese's pieces, Mc Donalds, Snickers, Taco Bell, Chocolate this, Twinkey that, and then DIET PEPSI!???!??? What is going through their minds when they shop? Hmmm, I'll buy 100lbs of candy and junk, but since i'm on a diet, i'll go with the diet soda. If anything, they should buy junk drinks, and healthy food! You don't gain nearly as much from drink as food (or so I am told...)
PigLick on 28/8/2007 at 05:59
junk soft drinks are bad, very bad. The highest ingredient after carbonated water is sugar, and you can bet its derived from corn syrup. Sugar + no exercise =fat
Paulie007 on 28/8/2007 at 10:45
I would agree with government intervention in the form of providing more sporting facilities, e.g. football fields, basket ball courts, swimming pools or whatever. Going for jogs through the mean streets of your “hard as nails” neighbourhood or doing Jane Fonda workouts in your orange box sized apartment are all well and good but getting some exercise does not always have to be such a chore. I’ve enjoyed playing soccer regularly since I was a kid, I also swim a bit and I’ve never had any problems with my weight regardless of what or how much I eat.
fett on 28/8/2007 at 12:33
Quote Posted by Thief13x
Nice, you just spared yourself my supply and demand lecture at the last minute there...
I've been cooking 80% rice and vegetables the past few weeks and, once again, this week, my food bill was under $25. Trial and error has eventually yielded a great salmon, rice, vegetable, bean, and clam-chowder dish and some tuna in the same mix (without the salmon). I know you can't eat this stuff all the time every time, but $25 for almost 7 days sure as hell beats mcdonalds.
Yah - I should have mentioned that he's also allergic to gluten, which is an inherent property of all grains. So no bread, rice, etc. for us. We instead have to use/make nut flour. Can't buy the pre-shelled/bagged pecans, walnuts, etc. because they add (guess what?) starch to keep them from sticking in the bag (also allergic to starch). So we have to buy pecans and almonds in bulk (translated = get anally raped at the health food store) and grind them. Then we add natural honey or peanut butter (translated = get anally raped at the health food store). All that plus fresh frozen veggies and fruit, making our own yogurt (because of the shit they put in store-bought yogurt), and the meat and cheese for a family of four runs about $140 a week. Mind you we never eat out and that includes absolutely nothing out of a box or bag. We buy our meat from a company that distributes to restaurants to avoid that pink shit they spray all over it at Wal-mart and Kroger (starch/alkaline/preservatives).
Flash back two years ago when we were buying for three and didn't worry about it - chips, cookies, cokes, micromeals - We could get away with spending a little over $50 a week with food left over. Now, with just the bare essentials, we get down to almost no food left in the house by the end of the week - spending around $120-$140.
scumble on 28/8/2007 at 13:06
Quote Posted by Muzman
The government could kill the corn subsidy and, you know, make it more difficult to stick corn syrup in just about everything (and get yas slightly closer to that free market thing American companies and economists are constantly leaning on us squirts about)
Killing the subsidy would do the trick, but then the problem goes back one step to corporate lobbyists and the entire crooked political system. Also, I think it's a two-pronged problem, where sugar price controls on the one hand make it expensive to use this preferable sweetener, which is why the big companies turn to corn syrup, the demand exacerbated by the subsidy. Hray for the corporate state. Big capitalists happy, average joe fat, politicians with a new cause.
LesserFollies on 28/8/2007 at 14:26
If the government wants to end obesity, it needs to ban, outright, advertising for fast food and soft drinks the same way it banned liquor ads on TV. That's who made this country fat: McDonald's and Pepsi. They can talk all they want about nutrition and exercise but until people stop seeing ads for huge gooey hamburgers and sugary drinks every time they turn around, we're just going to get bigger and bigger. One local chain really makes me mad: Rally's, whose commercials for their ENORMOUS fat-and-salt-laden burgers cheerfully remind us that "You Gotta Eat! You Gotta Eat!" Thank you for reminding Americans to eat; we're all so in danger of forgetting and wasting away.
