The importance of food education
2 Aug
Welcome guest blogger, Cat Delett, who visits us from Consume This First, a blog dedicated to sharing food intelligence with families who eat.
In the second of a two-part series about struggling to eat nutritiously with little money, NPR profiles a family living below the poverty line and how they eat.
The Williamsons are a family of five who struggle to make ends meet. They receive $600 in food stamps each month and use the local food pantry. They have a garden behind their house which produces veggies like zucchini, peppers, and Brussels sprouts.
During the course of the interview, the 8-year-old son, Alex, eats a blue ice pop for breakfast, has orange soda when he’s thirsty after a walk, and snacks on chocolate.
“When asked, Alex says he worries about food all the time, and that he’s always hungry. But later, he admits he has enough to eat. It’s just not always what he wants. He says he especially doesn’t like it when his mother makes Brussels sprouts for dinner.”
No kidding. My kids don’t like it when I make Brussels sprouts for dinner, either. As much as food makers try to convince us otherwise, junk food isn’t a right. It’s a luxury. For any family, healthy food must come first and then – if the budget permits – treats.
“A gallon of milk is $3-something. A bottle of orange soda is 89 cents,” says Elaine Livas, who runs Project SHARE, the local food pantry. “Do the math.”
Sure, but water from the tap doesn’t effect the food bill at all. Water is also the best way for kids to hydrate after active play.
This family wants to eat healthy and gets $600 in food stamps a month but purchases soda, candy, and frozen novelties. Milk is expensive, but water isn’t. Ice-pops are just cheap, empty calories that don’t satisfy hunger. Mother Connie Williamson points out lean cuts of meat are more expensive. But a whole chicken is relatively cheap – and, quite frankly, eating less lean, cheaper cuts of meat is healthier (and more filling) than consuming ice-pops, soda, and candy.
So what’s going on here?
It sounds like the biggest roadblock to eating healthy on a small budget is food education. No one wants to be told what to eat. On the other hand, all parents want their children to grow up healthy.
But if parents don’t know, for example, that water is a healthier option for thirsty kids, how can they make the right choice? And if parents don’t know how to tell kids (and enforce) that ice-pops aren’t breakfast food, how will kids learn about eating healthy?
All parents, regardless of income level, need knowledge and support when it comes to making and enforcing healthy eating choices. Such support should be a mandatory part of the food stamp program. Not because all people who need food stamps don’t know how to eat healthy, but because these are often people with less time to think about good choices, less access to those good choices, and fewer sources of food information. Oh, and also because they are spending tax-payer money on their food and tax-payer dollars on their future health care.
I would say that I don’t think food stamps should be allowed to be used for soda, ice-pops, cookies, and fast food, but a system like that would be hard to enforce and impossible to get past the fast food, soda, and sugar lobbyists.
So education (along with a better school lunches) has to be the answer.
“… the Williamsons’ kitchen in Carlisle, where contradictions swirl about like stew. The refrigerator and pantry are often filled with food — but the family sometimes has to go to the local soup kitchen to make ends meet.”
Knowing what to buy and how to put together healthy, satisfying meals is a learned skill. Mothers (and fathers) aren’t just graced with that knowledge at the words “I do” or when a baby is born.
Some schools teach menu planning and cooking in Home Ec, but the way this information has typically been learned is by mothers handing it down to children. These days, people are too busy to cook, or too time-constrained to teach their children how to put together a meal. It’s work, and few people have the time or energy to take on another task. But food education is so very important, and the lack of it is showing up in a variety of ways – obesity, the prevalence of fast food and convenience foods, and the contradictions in the Williamsons’ kitchen.
Thanks for drawing my attention to these stories, which fit well with the report I’m writing for a course I’m taking. I would like to point out to Ms Williamson that most of the peanut butter she’s feeding her son is likely full of sugar, so she’s not cutting back on sugar by feeding him “pb and c(heese)” sandwiches for lunch. And kool-aid? Bleah. As you said, water is cheaper.
In addition, it sounds a lot like the family is obsessed with food – understandably – but maybe Alex needs some other comforts than food. It seems as though he runs to the fridge for all comfort, when maybe he needs a cuddle or someone to read him a story.
That’s a really good point, Tabby. Kids are so good at picking up on anxieties of their parents. I don’t know how much these parents are working, but if they work a lot they may not have as much time to cuddle and read as they’d like, then feel guilty and want to buy treats. (At least, I suspect that’s how I’d feel in that situation.)
No doubt, this family has been under stress. I think the lady IS really trying! Consider the two homeless family members she is also feeding on occasion, and the time she spends looking for bargains. She also grows some vegetables behind her apartment. She may not be making the best choices in the eyes of others but she is putting in considerable time and energy. For someone on the brink of homelessness, the amount of sugar in the peanut butter is not her main worry. Maybe we could all try to donate some healthy food to the local food bank. Donate the low-sugar peanut butter you think she should be eating…
Love this: ““A gallon of milk is $3-something. A bottle of orange soda is 89 cents,” says Elaine Livas, who runs Project SHARE, the local food pantry. “Do the math.””
Okay, do the math. How many bottles of that soda make a gallon? Not that I agree that pastuerized milk is a health food by any means, but a gallon of it at $3 is WAY cheaper than a bottle of orange soda at 89 cents a pop! (And DAMN – I wish my RAW milk was $3 a gallon! It’s $7.35 a HALF gallon!)
Great post. I completely agree… Although I am baffled to know how we, as a species, came to NOT know that water is healthier than orange soda.
I’m guessing the orange soda was in a two or possibly three liter bottle. Store brands of orange soda in those sizes are generally very cheap…
Have you ever worked at a food pantry or soup kitchen? The folks being served are generally sweet and very appreciative. I just don’t understand the venom aimed at people who are struggling.
Marianna, you make some very insightful observations and I agree with you that people who are able to donate to food pantries should donate healthy food.
I don’t sense any venom, here, though, more like frustration. I know that’s what I feel when I read about this family. Mrs. Williamson has a lot of mouths to feed on $600 and she’s doing the best she can. If she had help with meal planning and food selection, she could do even better — like cutting out soda and ice pops and (as you said on Facebook) roasting a whole chicken to eat and then making soup.
There is something about this post that is very unsettling to me. I think it has to do with a failure to recognize the privilege inherent in being able to examine the practices of people that have less material wealth, as well as a failure to acknowledge the larger culture that does promote a way of living and eating which, if one does not have access to, insinutates a deficiency. I am talking about consumerism in general.
I am always sickened when I hear the assertion that people who receive public assistance should be policed, and do not derserve the same range of choice or the same autonomy as the rest of the population. Such as that someone who receives food stamps should not be allowed to buy junk food with them, because it really isn’t their money, and it wouldn’t be their money that paid for the health care bills to follow from eating poor food. I find this paternalistic and arrogant. Also, it fails to acknowledge the larger culture we live in, which necessitates these poor as a response/counter to the rich.
My father, who has plenty of money, feeds his children the same horribly processed, oversugared, and filled with preservatives food that is described here, but he does not deserve the same scrutiny, because he will be able to pay for his children’s healthcare? Bullshit.
The fact is that IS that it cheaper to feed a family a box of mac ‘n cheese than it is to feed them vegetable and chicken stirfry. Also, there is a deficiency of knowledge and motivation in our culture as whole-not just the poorer strata-that is causing a multitude of health problems related to how we eat. People of all socio-economic backgrounds do not understand, for instance, how bad processed sugar is for not just our teeth, but our whole bodies. Most people I know do not understand that.
And that is one thing in this post that is true: “All parents, regardless of income level, need knowledge and support when it comes to making and enforcing healthy eating choices.”
Andrea, thank you for the long and thoughtful reply. I’m glad that you saw and agree with my main point about the need for more information and support for everyone.
This family volunteered to have their practices examined, and without families being willing to do so, no change could come about. Only by bringing to light the problems in our food system can things begin to be rectified.
There is a privilege, though, inherent in the food system: when families with more income want to eat healthier, they have a myriad of resources at their fingertips — the Internet, book purchases, hiring a wellness consultant, etc — and time to spend utilizing those resources.
For families like the Williamsons who want to eat better but have very little money and time, options are limited. Offering nutritional counseling would help families eat better and make the most of their food stamps so maybe they won’t end up at the soup kitchen. Making the counseling mandatory may sound like policing, but actually would remove the stigma of getting nutritional counseling.
Right now all the government does to help people with nutrition is a food pyramid, which means very little to anyone trying to plan a week of meals, regardless of income.
Andrea: I also echo cat’s appreciation for your thoughtful reply, representing a group of people who likely will never make their way to this blog, mostly because no one is offering them guidance, assistance and support in the area of true preventative wellness. Preventative wellness is likely not even a phrase that many underprivileged adults have even heard of, let practice. But the point I walked away with fromt Cat’s piece is not necessarily that poor families are intentionally and carelessly eating crap. It’s that those IN CHARGE of helping and supporting these families are really FAILING at their jobs. And they’re likely failing not from lack of trying, but from poor planning.
Like Cat, I agree that education and counseling could be and should be mandatory. When soup kitchens first started appearing in Depression-era America, it wasn’t unusual to find church staff sitting at tables with the hungry talking about God and religion. What if at soup kitchens offered by non-profit orgs or charities, we found nutritionists or other holistic health educators?
How else will we reach our poor? How else will we get them the information they desperately need to make lifelong changes? So that they will live longer and healthier lives?
I should clarify that when I wrote “how else will we reach our poor,” I was not referring only to the one idea of offering counseling or educational opportunites at soup kitchens. I was referring to the idea that through government assistance programs, governmental organizations, and non-profit orgs we can be and should be offering free educational opportunities to the poor and underprivileged.
I’m curious about how much time any of you folks have spent serving at a food pantry or soup kitchen. Really, you should try it…the experience may be enriching for you and your children and you should have the experience before you criticize!
These folks have totally different priorities since their lives are so different. Many whom I have served at the soup kitchen are our precious veterans, ( One man is missing both arms ) some are street people, and a few with obvious mental illness! Others are just down on their luck or short on money for lunch at the end of the month.
There is a big jar of store brand peanut butter on the table and at the end of the provided meal, some will take the stale rolls and spread them with peanut butter to make a sandwich for later. What, exactly, would you say to cause them to make healthier choices? Skip the white bread and the peanut butter has too much sugar? They are grateful for everything they get and are just trying to get by.
Where is your heart in all of this? If you truly want to change things you will need to get down from your pedestal and be kind to those folks you see as so ignorant! What’s your plan for actually doing some good in this world?
I bet no family *wants* to eat at a soup kitchen. It would be better to make the food stamps go farther. From the post, it sounds like they have food, just not anything to use for a meal. Maybe they do need help figuring out what to buy. That sounds like a better plan than just going to a soup kitchen all the time.