What the poor are eating in Suburbia

Years ago, when I first starting working with the poor, I had imagined that poor people would be skeleton-thin and shivering in rags. I was surprised that many of the people I helped were overweight, and some were obese.  A lot of people had diet-related problems, and diabetes was rampant. I didn’t realize that the types of foods accessible to the poor would cause these problems.

Then I started helping out at food banks. My job was to sort through food donations given by individuals, organizations like churches or social groups, and food/beverage companies. I had to toss out damaged, spoiled, and expired foods – and honestly, some of the food was so moldy or decayed that we used plastic gloves so we didn’t have to touch it. Other people volunteered to package the good food into bags, according to whatever was on the pantry shelves that day.

People coming to the food bank go through an approval process and are given a certain amount of food depending on the number of residents in the home. Here’s the groceries that a family of 2-3 people would receive for a whole month:

Don’t get me wrong – the hungry people in suburbia are glad to receive this food.  But when I think of a diet like this, full of carbs, sugar, and fat, I understand some of the health problems of the poor.  If you’re allergic to wheat, dairy, or nuts, you’d find little to eat from food donations. Maintaining a vegetarian or dairy-free diet would be a luxury. Even if this food bank haul was only a supplement to a family’s grocery supplies, the poor still have to choose between buying food that will be most filling and food that will be most healthy – at the lowest possible price.

Around the same time, my zeal to save the environment prodded me to go to some of those trendy Farmer’s Markets. Chicagoland is surrounded by some of the richest, most productive farmland in the Midwest, and locally-grown produce should be cheap and plentiful. Instead, I found that the produce was much more expensive than store produce. Even if it was fresher and used less of the earth’s resources in getting to me, that made no difference if it was priced out of my budget range.

Ecology and nutrition are issues that the poor can’t afford to worry about. These are the issues of the people rich enough to shop where they want and the ability to choose what to eat, rather than taking whatever food they can get. The relatively rich folks don’t suffer as much from more diet-related health issues than their less-fortunate neighbors. Why should you care? Because there are people in your own neighborhood, town, or city that are struggling with this problem, and there’s always something you can do to change that.