Here is a good NYTimes article that summarizes the non-recipe content of Grocery Gaming: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/is-junk-food-really-cheaper.html?_r=1

I am tired of hearing the argument that an apple costs more than a candy bar.  Sure, a good, big apple costs a dollar, but I buy organic carrots for $0.88 /lb and a pound of dry beans or rice runs about a dollar, and cabbage is $0.79 /lb.  A 13 oz bag of chips costs over three bucks.  We don't just choose between apples and candy bars.  There are over 40,000 items in a supermarket.  We can easily and consistently have full, complex, nutritious meals for cheaper than most unhealthy alternatives, and definitely on a tight budget. 

Here is a link to fun illustration (not the original illustration page because I found it on this great cooking comic site that you should also see): http://drawnbutter.tumblr.com/post/10647712329/this-is-one-of-the-main-reasons-i-cook-and-do-my

For less than the price of the McDonald's meal for four in the above graphic, I've made authentic Coq au Vin with steamed broccoli and brown rice that would feed six people and has much less salt, with money left over for dessert.  That was a rare treat to even spend that much, so you can understand me not ever wanting to get fast food.

It is a complete lie that healthy food is too expensive. 

School Lunches

School lunches are a travesty in the US.  This isn't new.  They are plagued by outdated laws, lazy and ignorant staff, and corporate lobbying.  Jamie Oliver also showed how a culture of pride in ignorant inertia instead of valuing performance improvement can contribute to schools fattening up our nation's children like pigs in a factory farm.  Money, however, is not necessarily a problem.

Paul Boundas is demonstrating how easy it is to serve kids delicious and nutritious food that they will eat for less than $2.74 per meal (unfortunately, the article does not say if that amount is just for food ingredients, or if it includes rent, utilities, equipment, cooks, etc...).  Boundas is a great example of what can be accomplished when authority is given to a knowledgeable person with a drive to experiment and apply scientifically proven techniques to the improvement of a system, instead of lazily allowing profiteering suppliers or people who have obviously not valued education or quality in their own lives, to direct programs and policy.

Here are some of the ways that Boundas effectively applied principles from psychology and business to efficiently improving the health and welfare of thousands of children:

• He asks the kids what foods they like, then makes healthy versions of them.
• He gradually increases the proportion of whole grain in his pasta without telling the kids until long after they've been happily eating it.
• He gives foods names that kids associate with other foods they like instead of with foods they erroneously believe they would not like ("power bar" versus "granola").
• He uses fresh ingredients.
• He tailors his menu to what ingredients are inexpensive at the moment (quick breads from bananas that would have gone to waste).

These are things that parents can do at home, too.  Understand the power of expectation biases, and harness them to get your kids to eat good food.  Buy seasonal or discounted ingredients.  Work with your family instead of being a dictator.

Libraries are Good

I've been checking out books on cooking from my local library.  Actually, some aren't directly from my library, but I can get any book in the county delivered to my library.  I can request books over the internet or in person, and maybe by phone, though I've never tried.  All of this is free.

On Cooking, What Einstein Told His Cook, Omnivore's Dilemma, Cooking for Geeks, The Healthiest Diet in the World, all full of techniques and information and recipes, and costing me nothing.  I take notes on the things I want to use in the future, using a $0.10 notebook and $0.10 pen.  As much as I love food, I hate spending money.

Many people don't have much money to spare.  Many people don't know how to find quality resources on the internet, or have internet access in their homes.  These limitations should not prevent anyone from getting good information about food, health, and cooking, universal and essential parts of life.  Public libraries are valuable services that provide us with useful information and resources on all topics, help and skill development, and even community and entertainment.  I really want to emphasize the "us" in that sentence.  Even if you don't personally use your library (why not?), you should recognize the value that it provides for your community, and our society as a whole.  Public libraries contribute to equality and economic mobility, and are integral to America's values and prosperity.  The funding of public libraries is a valid investment in our nation's future.

My Take on Newsweek's Dinner Divide

Newsweek's November 29 2010 issue's cover story was about the great differences between rich, nutrition and environment-conscious eaters and poor, nutrition and environment-oblivious eaters in America.  It was an interesting article, but I have some comments.

I object to the divisive and sensationalist language, such as the comment that "America is a place of extremes, and what you eat for dinner has become the definitive marker of social status..."  That is ridiculous.  Like pretty much everything, America is a place of relatively normal distributions.  Sure, the ultra-rich have gotten ultra-richer over the decades as they manipulate our government, but the overwhelming majority of citizens are in the big middle of the bell.  Secondly, there is no way that dinner is the definitive marker of status.  A third party looking at my great dinners and small apartment compared to someone with a six-figure income who owns a big house but eats fast food is not going suggest that I am of higher status.

The article talks about 50 million Americans living in food insecurity, one third of whom are have very low security, and ties this phenomenon in with poverty, but then goes on to point out that poverty and reliance on food stamps linked to obesity, but it fails to discuss the connection between food insecurity and obesity.  The connection is not obvious, and any astute reader should ask "how are so many people obese and not getting enough food at the same time?"  There is no talk of metabolism.  When a person does not eat regularly, even within the course of a day, that person's metabolism slows down, burning fewer calories and storing more as fat because the body (hypothalamus) worries that the irregularity of food intake is a sign of impending starvation for a time.  The body wants to build up fat stores and use as little energy as possible so that the person can survive until food is available again.  When a person on supplementary nutrition assistance (SNAP, not really food stamps anymore) squanders the rations before the next month, eating a lot for a while then having too little food for some time, the metabolism drops and much fat is created during the weeks of plenty.  A problem is impulsive shopping and impulsive eating when assistance is renewed, or when a paycheck comes in, instead of thoughtful planning and rationing.

The article does point out that "Lower-income families don't subsist on junk food and fast food because they lack nutritional education.... Lower-income families choose sugary, fat, and processed foods because they're cheaper -- and because they taste good."  This is key.  Education is not the problem.  The problem is that the kind of person who is likely to be poor (impulsive, poor planning, poor insight) is also the kind of person who insists on buying unhealthy food.  Cost is a red herring.  I prove constantly that a SNAP budget is adequate for healthy eating.  When SNAP recipients are given the opportunity to buy discounted healthy food, they do not buy more than they usually do, but instead use any savings to buy more unhealthy food.  They don't want more healthy food.  People Like Us showed that whole grain bread could not be given away in a poor neighborhood.  There is not enough demand, and that is why there are so few stores in poor neighborhoods that sell good food.

The author follows a single mother SNAP recipient and her two kids and their eating habits.  The mother spends $100/week on food, which is less than the maximum SNAP allotment for a family of three, so I'm guessing that the mother makes more money than the poverty line.  $100/week for three people is not great, but it's doable to get healthy food.  A super healthy breakfast can be made in two minutes for less than $1, but instead the mom takes the kids to a bodega each morning to buy processed foods and soda at many times the price.  The mom only recently stopped getting doughnuts and lattes at Dunkin' Donuts because of the calories, totally oblivious to her massive daily waste of precious money.  Several nights each week she gets fast food takeout for dinner.  She makes homecooked meals on the weekend when she has more time and energy, but the article doesn't explain why she doesn't make enough to last the whole week.

The authors (Ian Yarett and Jesse Ellison) only skim the issue of a soda tax, though they present a snippet of each extreme side of the argument.  I am absolutely in favor of massive taxes on soda and other "foods" that directly contribute to health problems.  I am also in favor of prohibiting SNAP funds from being used to buy them.  It is appallingly stupid to use tax money to help people develop health conditions that more tax money will have to go towards treating.  Let's instead sensibly tax the harmful actions, and use the revenue to treat the damage they cause, at least.  Nudge people away from harmful decisions, prevent harmful corporate manipulation of people, and behave efficiently with our money in ways that actually serve the American people.

If we have a more self-aware, patient, and thoughtful population, we will have fewer issues with poverty, obesity, violence, and nearly any other problem. The real sources of the problems we have here are the materialist and capitalist drives for immediate gratification of desires, insensitivity to our own internal states, and the lack of conscious monitoring of the ramifications of our actions.

Food Stamp Nudges

Back when food stamps actually were stamps (they may still be in some places, but there has been a change to magnetic strip cards), I had an idea for a possible nudge.  I had read that there was a problem with people using too much of their allotment at the beginning of each month, then running short of food at the end of each month.  I thought that if the stamps were printed in four different colors, people would be subtly encouraged to spend them proportionally by week, with more stamps of one color for the extra days at the end of months over 28 days.  Of course, this wouldn't be applicable to cards.

Another problem with buying most groceries at the beginning of the month is that fresh produce and meats would spoil before the later part of the month.  The food stamp program, as implemented, encouraged people to buy processed foods that would last longer.  This is nutritionally sub-optimal, contributing to health problems that already plague the American poor.

Now, Western Massachusetts is doing an experiment to see if offering a 30% discount on fresh produce will encourage food stamp users to buy more healthy food.  That may be a substantial incentive, but it does not overcome the challenges of impulsivity and spoilage.  This plan may also have negative unintended consequences, as we already have evidence that making healthy food cheaper just encourages food stamp users to use the savings to buy more junk food, increasing caloric intake and not improving nutrition.  If this experiment reproduces the earlier findings that cheaper healthy food worsens obesity or health outcomes for food stamp users, we will have to consider other options, such as making unhealthy food more expensive.

Also, of course, there is the more effective paternalistic approach, which would be to only allow food stamps to be used for healthy foods.  Food stamps can be seen as an investment that taxpayers are making into the overall health and well-being of citizens, and indirectly into productivity.  If food stamps are being used in such a way that increases health care consumption, such as treatments for diabetes, heart disease, etc..., also on the taxpayer dime through CMS and state-reimbursed uncompensated care as well as increasing health care costs for everyone as hospitals shift costs to other payers, then we are all seeing a smaller and smaller return on the investment.  If food stamps were used to help people be healthy, and minimize health care consumption, we are all getting a better return on the investment, and the people using food stamps will have better lives, even if they complain about not being able to buy the junk food they want.

$3/day Diet - A Retrospective

I lived for years on a grocery budget of $20-21 per week, and it was not difficult.  It was also not terribly unhealthy, though not exactly healthy either.  My diet was heavy on carbohydrates and practically meatless.  I almost never went out to eat (and got the $2 chili when I went out with friends), and did not buy alcohol.  I was never hungry, and actually overate, maintaining an unhealthily high body weight.

In the beginning... there was ramen, and it was bad.  Those little packages of ramen noodles are just processed flour, salt, and fat, but they're six for a dollar.  I wouldn't eat them alone, though.  For the one year that I ate a package of ramen daily, I added a couple turkey-dogs (also predominantly fat and salt) and either three sliced carrots or some frozen broccoli.  Actually, it was just carrots for a few months, and I switched to broccoli when my skin turned orange.  Broccoli is maybe the second healthiest vegetable in the world, right after spinach, and may be responsible for protecting me from the rest of my diet.  Besides the big bowl of ramen'n'at each day, I also ate cookies.  Yes, store-brand cookies are a very cheap source of calories, and sometimes some nutrients.  A friend recently reminded me that I once figured out how to live only on lemon cookies, but, fortunately, I never tried.  I did not have any notable health problems during this year that I recall, but I was young.

The other years were better.  I typically had a bowl of cold cereal for breakfast, often corn flakes or frosted flakes with non-fat milk.  These were huge bowls, easily three servings or more.  I made myself two sandwiches for lunch, using whole grain bread, all natural peanut butter, and strawberry jam.  These sandwiches were maybe around 800 calories each.  Dinners were usually spaghetti with Prego sauce and broccoli, and when I lived in a place with a stove I often sauteed fresh onions and bell peppers in olive oil to add to the spaghetti.  I may have been cheap, but Ragu is just too nasty to eat.  My portions of spaghetti were also huge.  Depending on sales, I would sometimes buy Tropicana orange juice, bananas, or fancier cereals (Oatmeal Raisin Crisp, Honey Bunches of Oats, Life).  I no longer bought cookies or ramen, and I still did not buy meat.

I ate in the neighborhood of 3500 calories each day, and weighed 230-240 lbs.  Since then, I have significantly broadened the variety in my diet, and reduced how much I eat, with very good results.  I also spend twice as much on food, but because I can and I enjoy it, not because I have to.  But I still hold on to the gamer mentality at the store, follow my rules, and try to optimize my gastronomical enjoyment to cost ratio.

A huge problem with eating healthily on a poverty-level budget is not that healthy foods are too expensive, but that unhealthy "foods" (cookies, candy, frozen pizza, etc...) are cheap and easy.  Someone has to be knowledgeable and motivated in order to make healthy choices and do some preparation and cooking instead of taking the lazy and immediately gratifying road.  It would probably be good for national health to raise the prices of unhealthy foods, and not lower the prices of healthy foods, motivating the highest risk groups to buy better food, especially for their children.  Childhood obesity and type II diabetes are serious health and economic issues with some straightforward solutions.