Pretty sure I’ve reblogged this before, but it’s so true and important. People claim to not have enough money or time to eat healthy, but that’s just a load of crap. I’ve SAVED so much money through cooking my own healthy meals, you just have to be smart. Cut coupons, take advantage of deals, and don’t be afraid to try new healthy things when they’re on sale. Produce can be really inexpensive if you go to the right places, and sometimes organic produce is even cheaper than the regular. When you go out to eat, you spend $5 on one cheeseburger meal. You could spend $10 on ground turkey and potatoes and have enough for 5 turkey burger meals. You do the math…
Let’s continue to ignore food deserts, economic/financial privilege, how FUCKING EXPENSIVE IT IS to be poor, and, y’know, even if all of that doesn’t apply to a person, people can still fucking eat what they want?
Also, $10 for 5 turkey burgers? Where the fuck do you live?
Wait so you’re saying it’s a better idea to go ahead and eat McDonald’s?
Never said that.
I’m saying it might be the only option for people, if even McDonald’s is an option. There are quite a few places where people can only get produce from a gas station convenience store (which, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen, but a single brown banana from a c-store probably averages ~$0.60 USD, or the price of a pound of organic bananas at a grocery store that doesn’t exist anywhere near them).
I’ve worked at natural/organic grocers in Plano and Dallas, and shopped at grocery stores all over NTX, in addition to Massachusetts, NY, Connecticut, etc.
In 1993, while we were living in Australia, it cost literally $2 USD PER BANANA because of the cost to ship them to the Alice. While I can’t imagine right now a banana would cost that much in the contiguous US, the price isn’t that far off, and sixty cents for a single banana when one might only have $10 USD this month for food… for the whole month… is just not a practical purchase.
Many people don’t have the money for this kind of healthy diet, and the numbers on the graphic are ridiculously out of touch with reality… or the reality of the general population in the US.
Many people also don’t have time to shop for and prepare this kind of healthy diet, usually because they’re too busy working multiple low-paying jobs so they can afford to have as much as a roof over their head.
People can eat whatever the hell they want and what they can afford, but eating healthy IS A PRIVILEGE.
I wouldn’t say eating healthy is a privilege.. I mean, eating at all is a basic necessity to survive (McDonald’s came after lettuce…). I don’t know why you’re getting so angry over this. I was just asking. Also, I’m sure there are plenty of fat Americans, driving cars - with gasoline in them, which costs money - to the nearest McDonald’s, past the Tom Thumb, to get their “cheaper” dinner. It’s still true that people who have the money to get McDonald’s also have the money to get leaner food for less. It may cost more at the time because it comes in larger amounts but it’s more food anyway so it makes sense to do that. Again, I’m not trying to have a back and forth rant, which it clearly seems like you are looking for, so I’ll end with this: I agree with what you first reblogged, but this post obviously isn’t directed at anyone in particular, meaning it probably isn’t thinking about the people in rural areas or developing countries or whatever. In my opinion, and from what I feel the message is supposed to be telling us, fat Americans can afford to eat healthier. End of story.
Two Mcdoubles and a drink is around $3.60 before tax in CT. With that you can get a bag of rice that will give you some where around 14-18 meals for one person. You do the math. All this is showing is that people don’t realize the cost of one meal at a fast food joint can cost the same as items that will give you a larger amount of meals.
RICE IS NOT A FUCKING MEAL. Especially if it’s a >$4 bag of rice being split into 14-18 “meals”. How the fuck is eating 14-18 “meals” of rice healthy?
“All this is showing is that people don’t realize the cost of one meal at a fast food joint can cost the same as items that will give you a larger amount of meals. “
A fuckload of people are incredibly aware of this ‘possibility’ because it’s always shoved down their throats (the idea of healthy eating, not healthy food) and yet their awareness does not make this healthy food any more accessible to them.
Also, McDonald’s for four, really? Let me tell you something: When you’re poor you buy the $1 burger. That’s your meal.
This chart was clearly written by a jackass who has no idea what the fuck being in poverty is actually like, the situations you actually face or the decisions RE: food you actually have to make as a poor person, let alone a poor person who doesn’t have access, the time or the ability to make healthy food.
reblogging for commentary. this is a joke.
Ok, seriously, I have to do this again?
Healthy eating is a privilege. In the last healthy eating debate I reblogged, people were making the argument that “a steak cost $10, and a cube of tofu costs $1!!! Everyone should be vegan!!!” Now we’re saying that it’s cheaper to eat healthy than to eat at McDonald’s. And you’re making the argument that “this post obviously isn’t directed at anyone in particular” but that “there are plenty of obese Americans who have the money to drive to McDonalds and pig out, blah blah blah.”
Let me make one thing clear: this post is directed at someone in particular, and it’s not obese people. Because the thing is, the obese people who have money to drive to McDonalds and pay $30 for one meal for their family aren’t doing it because it’s cheaper, and therefore an argument about money is not going to change their mind. “Oh, healthy food’s cheaper? Well let me just reverse my lifestyle and go lose 100 pounds, money was the only thing holding me back!” What a joke. So who is this directed at?
It’s directed at poor people. And like someone else said, no family in poverty goes to McDonalds and spends 30 bucks. They buy from the dollar menu. And if they do have access to a grocery store, do you think they’re buying fresh fruits and veggies? No. Because while you and I may think those things are plenty cheap, they’re not as cheap as $0.50 sloppy joe meat or hot dogs or Kool-Aid or a can of soup, or spaghetti. And even if fresh food is equally cheap (which is isn’t), you’re still assuming that people have time and money to go replace it all every week. When you’re living paycheck to paycheck and only buy food every two weeks or every month, you don’t buy things that are going to sit around and go bad. When you say “everyone should eat healthy, it’s cheaper,” and then ignore every aspect of most poor people’s lives, I’m not going to respect your argument. People whose unhealthy lifestyles are driven by poverty aren’t eating $30 McDonalds meals just like they aren’t eating $10 steaks. So when you can put together a stupid comparison of an unhealthy meal of hot dogs and Kool-Aid and show me that beans and mangoes and tofu and chicken parmesan are cheaper and more available and more convenient, then we’ll talk. Until then, sit down and shut up because you clearly don’t understand poverty. Please and thank you.
reblogging for commentary. this discussion is almost laughable. eating healthy is a privilege. look at places of poverty that are located in ‘urban’ places and see what kind of grocery store options are available—not many. there might only be one option, with the next grocery store fifteen miles away. trader joe’s and whole foods—organic, health food stores—are only available in more affluent areas. even when there is a grocery store nearby, it might not have the freshest produce or the produce is too expensive so you buy canned, sodium-rich, unhealthy foods. when you’re working two - three jobs, living below the poverty line, and making a combined household income of less than 30k a year and have five people to feed, you just don’t have time to sit around clipping coupons.
(Source: healthyisclassy)
This story is pretty fucked up.
Marine gets no jail time in killing of 24 Iraqi civilians
Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich will not serve a jail sentence following his guilty plea in the killing of 24 Iraqis in 2005, a military judge said Tuesday.
The announcement by Lt. Col. David Jones came after Wuterich took responsibility during his sentencing hearing at Camp Pendleton for the killings in the Euphrates River town of Haditha and expressed remorse to the victims’ families.
Jones said he had planned to recommend 90 days in the brig — the maximum as requested by the prosecution — but that the plea bargain approved by Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser had called for no jail time.
Wuterich, 31, was the last of eight Marines charged in the Haditha killings to have his case resolved. Six had the charges against them dropped, and one Marine was acquitted.
As the squad leader, Wuterich ordered his Marines “to shoot first, ask questions later” as they stormed two houses on Nov. 19, 2005, after a roadside bomb had killed one Marine and injured two others.
Aw shit, you were right, capturethecastle. He didn’t even get the three stinking months.
(Source: ssiken, via iwantmybearsuit)
like broken social scene? a buncha members are in this. brilliant.
Robert Doisneau
The Caging of America; Why do we lock up so many people?
The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo “exercise.” (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.) Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized. Though we avoid looking directly at prisons, they seep obliquely into our fashions and manners. Wealthy white teen-agers in baggy jeans and laceless shoes and multiple tattoos show, unconsciously, the reality of incarceration that acts as a hidden foundation for the country.
- In this week’s issue, Adam Gopnik writes about mass incarceration and criminal justice in America: http://nyr.kr/A75iOm
Photograph by Steve Liss.
(via pettinelli)
Income Inequality is Bad for Society. REALLY BAD. 
The mysterious SocProf, who writes The Global Sociology Blog, offered a nice review of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett‘s book, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. Wilkinson and Pickett offer transnational research showing how, exactly, income inequality is related to bad outcomes on average. In other words, as SocProf puts it, ”…egalitarianism is not a bleeding heart’s wet dream but rather the only rational course of action in terms of public policy.” The 11 graphs, available at the Equality Trust website, speak for themselves.
Societies with more income inequality have:
- Higher infant death rates
- Higher rates of mental illness
- Higher incidence of drug use
- Higher school drop out rates
- Imprison a larger proportion of their population
- Higher rate of obesity
- Individuals are less likely to be in a different social class than their parents
- Trust others less
- Higher rates of homicide
- Give less in foreign aid
- Worse child well-being
If you’re in the USA guess where your numbers skew…
This this this this this this this this THIS.
THIS.
Want to know the biggest indicator of academic success? It’s not a test score. It’s THIS.
55 More Facts About Human Trafficking 
Before you get involved with bringing awareness to issues such as human trafficking, take the time to do your homework, learn the facts, and understand the root problems. This adds credibility to your efforts and helps you answer any questions people may have about the issue.
Stop Killing Our World: The Lorax and the Students Who Get The Point 
The students in Mr. Wells’ fourth grade class in Brookline, Massachusetts love The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. They love the story, and they especially love the book’s message that if we don’t start prioritizing the environment, the consequences will be disastrous.
So they were super excited to learn…
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