| This ignorance comes from a barely-regulated advertising industry and an inadequate and highly unequal education system, which is a lot of the point I’m trying to make. Don’t lose sight of what it’s really like to be poor. Being poor means having very little time, and mostly thinking about survival. Learning to cook from scratch is a real hobby and something of a luxury. This isn’t the pre-industrial era where peasants had ample free time, this is an era where the poorest people have the least amount of time. They and their parents work multiple jobs for long hours with no paid time off. It’s also a system where healthier food costs more and there’s no good societal way to offset that and make nutrition more equally accessible. (Let’s not forget the federal government recently playing political games with SNAP) Let’s also talk about food deserts. I am an upper middle class person and I once lived on the border of one of the poorest areas of a rust belt city with declining population. I once went into a big chain grocery store because it was close by, but it was the B tier store for the poor local population. I shit you not, they did not carry tortellini. One of the most common pastas you can find in an American supermarket. Not fresh, not frozen, not dry. They didn’t have it. I asked an employee and they said they don’t carry it, it wasn’t out of stock or anything. This was a full grocery store, which the community was lucky to have instead of just a corner cigarette and energy drink store, and they didn’t have a basic staple pasta. |
Tortellini are common, yes, but I wouldn't consider a grocery a food desert because of that. Food desert is the grocery never having stock of more basic things, like milk, oil, meat, that's a real food desert, and I've seen that happen in a high inflation country.