The lies of PC

2011-10-04-Sowell-obesity-caused-by-poverty-lie

The 'hunger' hoax perpetuates dependency
By: Thomas Sowell
Washington Examiner Op-Ed, 2011-10-04

The political Left has turned obesity among low-income individuals
into an argument that low-income people cannot afford nutritious food,
and so have to resort to burgers and fries, pizzas and the like,
which are more fattening and less healthful.
[I need to interpolate something here.
Pizza, in its basic configuration, just a bread dough without much grease or oil
dressed with a healthy tomato topping,
is actually quite healthy.
Further, topping it with lots of veggies only adds to its healthiness.
It only becomes unhealthy when the toppings are heavy on greasy meats,
or when the bread dough is saturated with oils or fats.
I think a better common fast food to have knocked would have been fried chicken,
which is certainly popular among some elements of our society
and is, in most fast food versions, high in unhealthy fats.
I know at my favorite pizzeria they produce a very healthy product.]
But this attempt to salvage something from the “hunger in America” hoax
collapses like a house of cards
when you stop and think about it.
Burgers, pizzas and the like cost more than
food that you can buy at a store and cook yourself.
If you can afford junk food, you can certainly afford healthier food.
A Sept. 25 article in the New York Times by Mark Bittman showed that
you can cook a meal for four at half the cost of a meal from a burger restaurant.

2011-10-07-Harbaugh-obesity-and-poverty

For some years I have been wanting to add a personal observation
to the “poverty causes obesity” lie spread by elements of the PC
(who I suspect are especially all those hyper-PC, and often obese themselves, women).

Some years ago I was quite poor,
and needed to save as much money as possible on food.
It was not hard.
The local supermarket sold sacks of dried peas,
and the package contained a recipe for how to make soup from those peas.
A delicious vegetable soup could be produced with minimal cost and expense,
starting with the dried peas and adding carrots, celery, onions, and potatoes,
all of which are quite inexpensive.
To complement the soup it was easy to make delicious home-made French bread,
which only required water, flour, yeast, and salt.
What could be healthier?
A delicious meal of vegetable soup and freshly-baked French bread
could be made for very little cost,
and with absolutely no fat and very few calories.
To enrich the meal a little,
one could buy butter or margarine to spread on the bread.

So when those fat-cat advocates for the poor get off on
how it takes a lot of money to eat a healthy diet,
I can only add that to the many lies of the PC community.


By the way, a variation on the “poverty causes obesity” lie is that
“it takes an education to learn how to eat healthy.”
Yeah, right.
A third-grade education should suffice
for any sane, responsible person possessed with will-power.