Serf posted:

Also: fast food comes prepared already and is cheap, both of which are huge factors in why it is eaten by the working poor who have little money and no free time.

Obesity is a natural consequence of capitalism's relentless drive to achieve maximum efficiency and profit while not caring about the health of the exploited class. The fact that it is still framed as a moral failing is icing on the cake and serves to keep a significant portion of the population feeling demoralized and devalued.

AngryBooch posted:

Get this though:

Eating less of that same fast food is actually quicker and cheaper.

AngryBooch posted:

Get this though:

Eating less of that same fast food is actually quicker and cheaper.

AngryBooch posted:

Get this though:

Eating less of that same fast food is actually quicker and cheaper.

Al! posted:

why cant poor people just eat soylent every meal???

frakeaing HAMSTER DANCE posted:

lol Oprah, get out of here.

I miss the days when every election wasn't apocalyptic, where you wanted a certain candidate to win, but if they didn't, you shrugged, got a little annoyed at the president once in a while, and then went back in two years.

euphronius posted:

I should never have said "fat" pages ago

Al! posted:

why cant poor people just eat soylent every meal???

AngryBooch posted:

Al! posted:

also something to consider is how people who grew up food insecure experience hunger differently from someone who was fed every day of their life. one thing that can happen is that hunger itself doesn't come alone, it brings all sorts of friends: panic, anxiety, ptsd etc

CheesyDog posted:

My grandparents were all rural Southerners born during the Depression and all of them considered McDonald's and the like expensive crap compared to just making your drat lunch at home

Al! posted:

going to bed hungry when you still have 3 more 4-10s that week is not

Serf posted:

But also less filling? And the portions are designed in such a way that you are either being charged too much for very little or too much for way more than you need. This is not a bug it is a feature of capitalism. The system is rigged in such a way that you cannot win, not without sacrificing your health in some way or another. Poor health means you pay into insurance schemes or spend money at a doctor, and this is ensured by every aspect of the environment the working poor live in. The goal is to separate people from their money and it works frighteningly well.

loquacius posted:

not filling though

Fast food is really calorie-dense, meaning that eating little enough of it for the calorie count to be healthy will not fill you up and will leave you hungry. Your body's hunger response isn't actually based on calorie count; our stomachs aren't that smart.

AngryBooch posted:

Obesity messes with most people's perception of hunger. That's the hardest part of eating less, unless you're able to cut the typical American's source of excess calories that doesn't lead to feelings of satiation which is soda and alcohol.

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

Anyone know the essay that talks about how a rich person can happily enjoy some wheat biscuits and orange juice for breakfast, but if you've got a 10 hour workday ahead, eggs and bacon are the only pleasantness you'll have for the rest of the day.

quote:

The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea, and potatoes — an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn’t. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ‘tasty’. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let’s have three pennorth of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we’ll all have a nice cup of tea! That is how your mind works when you are at the P.A.C. level. White bread-and-marg and sugared tea don’t nourish you to any extent, but they are nicer (at least most people think so) than brown bread-and-dripping and cold water. Unemployment is an endless misery that has got to be constantly palliated, and especially with tea, the English-man’s opium. A cup of tea or even an aspirin is much better as a temporary stimulant than a crust of brown bread.

Agean90 posted:

what are we even arguing about

euphronius posted:

I should not have called trump voters fat

Agean90 posted:

what are we even arguing about

Cyron posted:

maybe you shouldn't see poor people as subhumans like Hillary.

Captain_Maclaine posted:

That's from George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier.

Al! posted:

Nothing Ever Changes huh

ChickenOfTomorrow posted:

Why don't those poor people who don't have bread just eat cake, am I right?

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

Anyone know the essay that talks about how a rich person can happily enjoy some wheat biscuits and orange juice for breakfast, but if you've got a 10 hour workday ahead, eggs and bacon are the only pleasantness you'll have for the rest of the day.

Serf posted:

I am a rural Southerner currently and I speak to what I have seen. Times they are a changin.

euphronius posted:

I was talking about people attending trump rallies

CheesyDog posted:

I grew up very working class in the South and it's like in the past two decades everyone has just forgotten how to cook or take their lunch.

At the same time meat and threes are drying up in favor of crap fast food.

It's not even that people are picking unhealthy food, it's that even the comfort foods they're picking are more expensive and taste worst and also ignore Actual Southern Heritage.

CheesyDog posted:

I grew up very working class in the South and it's like in the past two decades everyone has just forgotten how to cook or take their lunch.

At the same time meat and threes are drying up in favor of crap fast food.

It's not even that people are picking unhealthy food, it's that even the comfort foods they're picking are more expensive and taste worst and also ignore Actual Southern Heritage.

Captain_Maclaine posted:

That's from George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier.

docbeard posted:

Eat The Rich But Only In Sensible Portions

crazy cloud posted:

lol oh word you mean you miss the days when you got to practice the same unwarranted complacency that got us President Donald Trump? Some of us never got to be so comfortable, friend.

euphronius posted:

I should not have called trump voters fat

Cyron posted:

god i can go for some nice biskets and gravy with bacon on the side.

and before you ask i had high fiber ceral for breakfeat i just like having the fatty southren foods at times.

CheesyDog posted:

Shoulda known Trump was coming when the Cracker Barrel beat out the meat-and-three with the breakfast bar and homemade gravy.

Cookies are one thing but what corporations have done to Southern cuisine is WRONG

Agean90 posted:

what are we even arguing about