A fascinating interview on Vox with three US sociologists who look at (and have a book about) the mythology and misunderstanding around home cooking - not least that for the first half of the 20th century most American upper middle class families employed a cook. At the heart of their observation, based on a close study of nine families is that Michael Pollan's contention - “We’re going to have to fix our diet before we fix the whole economy.” - doesn't reflect the actual lives of less well off Americans:
But in a lot of cases, there are other, non-food problems that are making it really hard for them to feed their families the way they’d want to. In one of the more extreme examples, there’s Patricia, who is living with her daughter and two grandchildren in a hotel room. She doesn’t have a kitchen. So yeah, she’s heating up frozen pizza — she doesn’t have a stove. And it seems like, no, “fixing our diet” is not going to fix this.This is an extreme case but one of the researchers explained:
A lot of people in the study had their own houses. But a lot of people in the study didn’t have basic kitchen tools. Their stoves wouldn’t work. They’d have pest infestations. The electricity would get cut off, or the water, for a period of time. A lot of people didn’t have tables or enough chairs for everyone to sit down. So really basic things of this kind of image of what dinner can look like and how you should do it didn’t map up with a lot of the experiences of the poor families in our study.So when we talk about bad diet, reliance on instant food, not sitting down together as a family - not, so to speak, meeting that middle class ideal - we forget that this lifestyle requires more than just the ability to cook, it needs also the resources to do that cooking and enjoy that dinner. Shouting at poor people about "junk food" is bad enough but when the government plans to deliberately make that food more expense we are actively making the lives of the poorest less tolerable.
Right now the UK government is consulting on a set of restrictions for HFSS food promotions (usually and lazily tagged "junk food" by the media) that includes bans on 'buy-one-get-one-free' offers and limits to advertising. The effect of this approach is likely (along with things like the sugar tax) to just make it harder for the less well off to feed their family. This research reminds us that we need to fix the economic circumstances not fix their diet.
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It's true that the Government should not be trying to fix our diet, but they shouldn't be trying to 'fix' our economic circumstances either. At least not in a way that any Government would try to.
ReplyDeleteMany of these people are simply people who have had more children than they can afford to pay for. People who need to be thinking about improving their standing, getting skills and experience to get them off minimum wage and into more secure financial circumstances before having children
The only likely Government intervention here, would be taking more tax from 'the rich' to give to 'the poor'
The only Government intervention that would make a real difference to peoples lives is the one they will never consider - Take less tax off everyone and allow us to keep more of what we earn
On the few times that I visited the US, I was astonished at how cheap food was in fast food outlets, and how expensive it was in supermarkets.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I went, back in 1976, the £ was worth $1.69, and there in Buffalo, I visited a steak house of the 'Berni Inn' variety in the UK, where the steak and fries was$1.69. I think it was more than twice as much in outer London at the time. Of course, that was when being in the EU was beginning to push food prices up and there was going to be rampant inflation so everyone lost their sense of values.
A few years ago, in the mid-West, there was an 'all you can eat' restaurant charging $6 that I went to. Even the Yanks had had inflation! But, to find some sort of an equivalent, my local Chinese restaurant has an all you can eat buffet for £18, and I'm sure that it wasn't much less a few years ago. Part of the differential lies in the staff pay rates, as in the US, 'servers' expect to live on their tips rather than tips being a bonus, but all the same, there is a justification for Yanks majoring in fast food.
So the poor in the UK don't have a stove? Blimey. I bet they all have the latest iPhones. It's a question of priorities.
France has just passed legislation limiting supermarket discounts on food to 34%. Just what's needed to appease the gilet jaunts who are complaining about difficulty making ends meet.
ReplyDeleteIn 'Patricia's' case there appears to be two adults who could be working and two fathers who are absent.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should fix their own relationship issues rather than expect government to fix their resultant 'poverty'.
If the Government removed some of the most draconian anti-trade union law in the "free" world, then working people could fix their own economic circumstances. That and restoring fair access to employment tribunals, legal aid and the rest.
ReplyDeleteThen there's the stupid cost of accommodation, which is not caused primarily by immigration, but by lax credit and irrational planning policy.
One thing which enters the picture is health - when you love certain foods but they no longer love you. Eggs are getting like that for me.
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