Poor in Merica

Varmintmist

Dont know if you can read the white sign, but I have been passing this for a few months. I got stopped at the light this morning right in front of it so I got a pic.
The white sign reads POOR MATTER with "also" written in between smaller. The bike is about 3-4 years old. A Suzuki M90 from the looks of it. MSRP 12K, current value 7K aka cycletrader if my age guess is correct. One would think that there is about 7K available to the "poor" person in this case. It would probably put 35% down on that house.

Now, I like scooters, and if you have the right one, it can be a economical way to get to work. Like a 1975 twin. (fyi, unless he is working shifts, this bike seems to be parked here a lot more often than it is gone) Not a new production cruiser where the rear tire is going to run 200+ if you dismount the wheel yourself.

bisley

There is a difference between poor and worthless. A poor man is one who works hard for not enough money, due to lack of skill or opportunity. A worthless man is one who won't work at a poor man's job, because he can buy a $7000 vehicle, a color TV, and a six-pack a day with taxpayer money.

I guess a sign that said,"Worthless Llives Also Matter" wouldn't tug at the heart-strings sufficiently enough.

tennmike

I've seen a lot of poor people from Appalachia. They work for a living, but can't get ahead. But they work themselves into the ground to provide for their families. I've also seen a lot of worthless people too trifling to work as taste testers in a pie factory, too. The work ethic of the latter is nonexistent; they think the world owes them a living.

Jayhawker

Most people in America don't have the slightest concept of what "poor" is.....I have made ambulance calls to houses with dirt floors that had a satellite dish, a large screen TV and a new F150 in the drive way...the owner going near 400 pounds and the house knee-deep in McDonald's and Twinkie wrappers......America has the richest poor people in the world..,

JerryBobCo

Jayhawker wrote: »

Most people in America don't have the slightest concept of what "poor" is.....I have made ambulance calls to houses with dirt floors that had a satellite dish, a large screen TV and a new F150 in the drive way...the owner going near 400 pounds and the house knee-deep in McDonald's and Twinkie wrappers......America has the richest poor people in the world..,

And the fattest. That alone places a heck of a burden on our medical system.

snake284

Real poor people aren't fat. They need to take some of America's poor to Manila or Bangkok and show em a person sleeping on the side of the road in a cardboard box. They get up early in the morning and go panhandle a few pesos or bot to get a cup or two of rice for breakfast. And that might have to do them all day.

Jermanator

alphasigmookie wrote: »

It's way easier to get fat in this country than eat healthy. You can get 1200 calories of fat and sugar from McDonald's for $3-4 but will cost you at least 2-3x that to get a meal with actual vegetables, lean protein, etc.

You don't have to spend all that money to eat right, but it does take a bit of planning and effort.

bullsi1911

Jermanator wrote: »

You don't have to spend all that money to eat right, but it does take a bit of planning and effort.

That is truth. Obesity and being poor CAN* be a symptom of the same problem- being lazy.

*not always IS, by often

jbp-ohio

alphasigmookie wrote: »

It's way cheaper to get fat in this country than eat healthy. You can get 1200 calories of fat and sugar from McDonald's for $3-4 but will cost you at least 2-3x that to get a meal with actual vegetables, lean protein, etc.

High Fructose Corn Syrup....................

Jermanator

We have been eating a lot of carrots lately. They are selling 25 pound bags for $3 as bait to deer hunters. They aren't always straight and pretty, and you actually have to peel them. I will blanch and freeze a bunch before it is all said and done. They do that with apples too-- sell the "drops" like that. My uncle buys a bag, cuts off the bruises, and makes applesauce for the year.

My wife went to the store yesterday and restocked our pantry with pasta and canned corn/green beans-- the pasta was 49 cents a pound and the Green Giant veggies were 49 cents a can. I buy frozen veggies when they hit $1/pound. The hams in my freezer (bone in and boneless) all cost 99 cents a pound. Same with pork shoulders-- first night it is roast pork for dinner. Some of the leftovers get shredded for pulled pork sandwiches, then the bones and skin go to the stock pot where they are simmered to make a pot of posole. Beef, chicken, and game get treated the same way. I buy and freeze my wild Alaskan salmon when they are running in the summer. Fresh fruit and veggies get bought in season-- it started with strawberries in June, cherries in July, peaches in August. Now we are into apples and grapes. Pretty soon, we will have some good oranges.

While I am obese, it isn't so much from eating the wrong stuff as it is too much of everything-- that, and I do have to plead guilty of having a sweet tooth. But it is certainly not due to the unavailability of affordable wholesome nutritious food.

breamfisher

Jerm,
You've bothered to learn how to cook your food. How many folks don't like healthy food because it "tastes bad" or has a bad texture? And how much of that is because person cooking the food doesn't know what the devil they're doing? I cooked some asparagus for some folks who said they didn't like it - they loved it! Later I had the asparagus they were used to: canned and cooked to a big pile of mush. OTOH, cheap starchy foods are easy to get, harder to "ruin" it seems, and even when overdone taste better, generally!

Don't get me started on food education in this country...

Jermanator

jbp-ohio wrote: »

High Fructose Corn Syrup....................

While I would argue that the body handles that exactly the same as sugar, I won't. I am going to argue that it is only found in convenience foods. If people actually cooked instead of simply reheating stuff, they could avoid HFCS entirely and the only added sugars in their food would be the ones they add themselves.

breamfisher

Recently saw a tag online for "sugar-free, non-dairy ice cream." Intrigued, I looked at the recipe.

Yep, no dairy. It was made with mashed bananas.

And the no sugar? Well, it lacked refined sugar. It had molasses. And the natural sugars in the bananas.

The article linked to a non-dairy gingerbread recipe that used molasses and brown sugar. But there's no HFCS or white sugar...

Jermanator

...and your body will handle those sugars exactly the same way if you were mainlining corn syrup. People are idiots.

Skolnick

Jayhawker wrote: »

America has the richest poor people in the world..,

Will Rogers, during the Depression: We are the first nation in the history of the world to go to the poor house in an automobile.

Jermanator

breamfisher wrote: »

Don't get me started on food education in this country...

Coincidentally, while we were discussing this, I got an email from community education. They are hosting a cooking/nutrition class for men only this month-- it goes on for 2 hours a night for 6 weeks. I think I am going to sign me and the boy up for it. He can sort of cook, but hasn't paid as much attention to me and the Mrs. in the kitchen as his sister has.

Cooked vegetables-- cooking them right is the key. Cooked wrong, you may as well toss them in the trash. They don't have to be fresh either-- like I said, we buy a lot of frozen vegetables when they are the right price and they are almost as good or better than fresh but are always in season, come already prepped, and usually cost considerably less than fresh. They are just as wholesome nutritionally.

breamfisher

Jermanator wrote: »

...and your body will handle those sugars exactly the same way if you were mainlining corn syrup. People are idiots.

"But they're natural/not refined!"

You know what makes trying to learn about food so hard? Do a Google search. Natural Health News, Dr. Mercola, David Wolfe, and other blogs with tenuous connections to real data predominate. It's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Fisheadgib

alphasigmookie wrote: »

It's way cheaper to get fat in this country than eat healthy. You can get 1200 calories of fat and sugar from McDonald's for $3-4 but will cost you at least 2-3x that to get a meal with actual vegetables, lean protein, etc.

That's only true if you do all of your shopping at some boutique grocery store like "Whole Foods". I can run down to our local grocery store and get a huge pork loin for 15 bucks and have enough lean protein for three or four meals. And a full meal at McDonald's hasn't been $3-4 since the early eighties.

breamfisher

Jermanator wrote: »

They don't have to be fresh either-- like I said, we buy a lot of frozen vegetables when they are the right price and they are almost as good or better than fresh but are always in season, come already prepped, and usually cost considerably less than fresh. They are just as wholesome nutritionally.

Actually, unless your fresh produce is locally sourced, frozen is better nutritionally. They can pick it when ripe and freeze it. Fresh food that's not local (think CA produce shipped to MI or FL) has to be picked under-ripe and allowed to mature in shipping. During that time it doesn't get the nutrients it would while staying on the tree/vine/bush.

breamfisher

Another problem - our food portions are way too big. It helps if you don't eat a rail car load of food at each sitting.

And avoid "diet" foods. They can be just as full of calories, but because they lack fat they stock them full of simple carbs, which are just as bad or worse, depending on who you listen to.

Jermanator

Fisheadgib wrote: »

I can run down to our local grocery store and get a huge pork loin for 15 bucks and have enough lean protein for three or four meals.

Those are an excellent bargain! I can almost always find one for $1.99/lb and it is almost entirely lean meat. They were selling them for $1.29/lb awhile back so I ended up grinding some up as pork burgers-- if you don't overcook, they are delicious. I am not sure how many people at the store I have had to explain that cut up into steaks-- that same pork loin is sold as "center cut boneless pork chops" for $5/pound.

Jermanator

breamfisher wrote: »

Another problem - our food portions are way too big. It helps if you don't eat a rail car load of food at each sitting.

That is still my big issue. Not the quality, the quantity.

Fisheadgib

Jermanator wrote: »

That is still my big issue. Not the quality, the quantity.

Remember when an order of fries came in a small paper sleeve?

Jermanator

While true, nobody puts a gun to my head and makes me stuff it all in my mouth. While it would be easier to blame McDonalds, my mother, or "big ag" the real culprit is the man in the mirror.

breamfisher

It's not that we've not had nutrition education. It's that it's not been that great (and that things have changed, but that's actually to be expected.) Problems are that folks either never learned, haven't bothered to learn what's changed, don't want to change, or just choose poor sources for info. And in some cases folks are still holding onto the old food pyramid... which ain't that great....

Varmintmist

Diet and exercise take the exact same mindset as saving money. Took me a lot of years to figure that out but it seems to be working. Eating healthy costs about the same. The basic meal is more, but taking the junk food out of the picture saves money.

Jermanator

There is a lot of confusion out there, and as a country we seem to be struggling with separating good information from bad. I had a step-daughter go on a vegan raw cleanse diet that was supposed to "heal her gut" ( does that mean?). She lost 13 pounds so she thought it was working great, but claimed it clouded her thinking because of the "toxins" leaving her "gut".

After the wife and I chewed her out for being a ing idiot and explained the weight loss and cloudy thinking were due to plain and simply, malnutrition, she finally quit that. Now she is still into this whole "vegan/raw" type thing that has absolutely no good science to back it up. At least we got her to stop the "cleanse" though. And then she has problems making ends meet since all her food has to be "organic" and "unprocessed" (expensive).

I really think that is what it is-- people get this crap marketed to them and they lack the critical thinking skills to understand they are being lied to.

breamfisher

Problem with the food pyramid was it put too much emphasis on grains, not enough on vegetables, gave no differentiation in types of foods within a group, and lumped fats and sweets together....

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/mypyramid-problems/

MyPlate is probably more correct. But I don't even follow that. I do like how they stress keeping out the simple carbs.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/

I've cut out carbs, increased veggies and fruits, slightly upped my proteins. Worked for me. Others might have more success with something else.

Jermanator

That was the big thing with the food pyramid-- They stressed lots and lots of carbs and using fats sparingly. We are finding out that the fats aren't as bad as they used to think and not all carbs are created equally. I don't think there is such thing as too many vegetables as long as you get some fats and quality protein.

bullsi1911

cpj wrote: »

Food pyrimad is all I know. And great or not, following it will result in a pretty healthy lifestyle.

Not when you put potatoes in as a vegetable and tell people to eat a LOT of them.

Jermanator

Jermanator wrote: »

I don't think there is such thing as too many vegetables as long as you get some fats and quality protein.

...and that takes us back full circle to cooking vegetables like crap. Of course people don't want to eat them when they are cooked terribly!