Milk prices are up, and may well go higher. What can be done about it? Dr. Henry Miller, a former FDA official now with the Hoover Institution, has an idea:
One way to ease the shortage and lower the prices is to take greater advantage of a proven 13-year-old biological technology that stimulates milk production in dairy cows — a protein called recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), or bovine growth hormone. The protein, produced naturally by a cow’s pituitary, is one of the substances that control its milk production. It can be made in large quantities with gene-splicing (recombinant DNA) techniques. The gene-spliced and natural versions are identical.Dr. Miller's op-ed prompted lots of responses, some of which are available here.Bad-faith efforts by biotechnology opponents to portray rBST as untested or harmful, and to discourage its use, keep society from taking full advantage of a safe and useful product. The opponents’ limited success is keeping the price of milk unnecessarily high.
When rBST is injected into cows, their digestive systems become more efficient at converting feed to milk. It induces the average cow, which produces about eight gallons of milk each day, to make nearly a gallon more. More feed, water, barn space and grazing land are devoted to milk production, rather than other aspects of bovine metabolism, so that you get seven cows’ worth of milk from six.
I find it interesting that opposition to rBST largely consists of what economist Bruce Yandle termed a "baptist and bootlegger" coalition. The "baptists" are ideological interests, such as anti-biotech activists and animal welfare groups. The "bootleggers" are small and boutique dairy farmers concerned that rBST can increase the competitive advantage of larger dairy producers. Such combinations of ideological and economic interests are common in environmental law, and can be quite influential.
Much more on that here.
This is just the latest example of the massive amount of negative unintended consequences farm subsidies have visited upon consumers and ag producers.
I think you mean "competitive advantage".
Oops. I've made the correction. Thanks.
JHA
I see biotech products as similar to global warming. The existing evidence is so limited that it's extremely difficult to evaluate the harms/benefits.
Even if I did agree with this, I'd rather err on the side of caution and not wake up in 20 years under water and full of cancer when avoiding these problems would have been so much easier
It's a Luddite view that sees change and technology as presumptively risky when in fact history and science suggest precisely the contrary.
If rBST lowers the price of milk, it will be more accessible to the poor, who will consume more, and, presuming milk is a healthy food, will promote their health from the greater consumption. Why doesn't caution counsel against taking action to increase the price of milk.
Your view is fully compatible with what I said. I tend to err on the side of caution, too. My point was that those who assert that biotech products are safe or that global warming is real and dangerous are stretching the evidence quite a bit.
And when I buy milk for my home, I prefer a soy-based product, preferably organic. When I'm out, I drink what they got.
I'm a big fan of technology and using it to better all mankind. So why not use the technology to prevent cancer instead of possibly enabling it.
I am not sure I agree that using rBST will lower the price. And making food cheaper by using chemicals that can remove paint off my Prius so the poor can consume more has led to so many more problems then it has solved. I think of obesity and the general decline in health and how Tucker pointed out that since many of the obese are poor, they obviously aren't being under-fed.
But that's besides the point. I think that technology should be used to create safe ways for our modern society to function, like cars that run on garbage and fly.
Your view is fully compatible with what I said. I tend to err on the side of caution, too. My point was that those who assert that biotech products are safe or that global warming is real and dangerous are stretching the evidence quite a bit.
On one hand your erring on the side of safety (don't believe that biotech products are safe because they might cause cancer) and on the other your erring on the side of recklessness (ignore the potential risks of living underwater because, just like the tobacco companies, the oil-industry and their kind have but out evidence to the contrary)
Ethanol is a very bad idea and the problems with it are just beginning to manifest themselves. Probably not too many critics in the grain belt as yet, however.
"Milk prices are up, and may well go higher. What can be done about it?" Why should something be done about it? The price increase in milk has little to do with the BST labelling controversy, and a lot to do with agriculture and energy policy. And the related question, already raised above: the sucessful efforts of rBST opponents, at least in the U.S. (I suspect, but I don't know, among the largest per adult-capita consumers of milk products)have so far been limited to demanding truthful labelling. Why would a generally anti-regulatory administration want to ban or limit truthful labelling?
In the absense of government regulation, something that reduces cost and/or increases supply will ultimately lower the price. So, the argument is to remove the government regulations and allow firms to lower their costs and increase their supply.
I'm not sure I know exactly which chemicals can remove pain off your car, but rBST is a protein and surely doesn't have that capability; are you saying that additives in general have caused more problems than they have solved? Or are you just against the really bad ones, like DDT*?
What about the preservatives which probably can't remove paint, but in high doses can probably prevent a dead pet frog from stinking up your home-- have they done more harm than good?
I suspect you think they have. Do you realize, though, that they have allowed the very poor who at one time could hardly afford 2 meals a day to now fill their carts full of fresh vegetables and fruits and meats in the supermarket, all without the government dime? Can you say "double their standard of living"?
Agricultural technology, from the first tractors and combines to chemical fertilizers to preservatives to finally genetic engineering and growth hormones have literally brought us from the dark ages of depending on the weather for survival to today where, indeed, our poor can become obese if they so please.
* You have probably heard: the actually quite poisonous chemical DDT has saved millions of lives in the Western world first and more recently Africa, as it has all but eradicated Malaria in the areas where it is widely used.
Indeed I think the dairy industry is foolish for hiding its use of rBST. If consumers want to purchase rBST-free dairy products and will pay for the privilege why not label? The market demand is there. If as the science seems to show, rBST is neutral, then presumably dairy products will be cheaper relative to rBST-free items, and consumers will be free to make an appropriate choice.
On one hand your erring on the side of safety (don't believe that biotech products are safe because they might cause cancer) and on the other your erring on the side of recklessness (ignore the potential risks of living underwater because, just like the tobacco companies, the oil-industry and their kind have but out evidence to the contrary)
Apparently I have not been clear enough. I try to avoid biotech products and I support fighting global warming, even though the evidence for biotech safety and global warming danger is limited.
Saying we ought to take the risk averse choice is a fine position but the problem occurs when we try and determine what choices really minimize the chance of harm. Now in the US milk prices are more than low enough that milk price is not a significant barrier to health. However, when we are looking at milk exports and these issues there is a serious question whether or not higher milk prices are really the more risky option.
Now it's quite possible that for milk this isn't really an issue. However, what I really dislike is the frequent bias that wants to only count 'unnatural' things as harms and neglect the risks from 'natural' things. Additionally I dislike the "let them eat cake" attitudes that this biotech stuff is always wrong. Now it might be a reasonable tradeoff for first world citizens to give up some pocket change to avoid the risks of new technology but that doesn't mean it is a good trade for the third world poor whose choice is often between biotech and poor nourishment.
That is not what I said. I said that stressing the metabolism of cows by forcing an unnaturally high level of milk production is NOT the same as overclocking computers.
And avoiding a demonstrated problem is not the same as being "risk averse." Issues with overuse of antibiotics and with diseases passed through milk are real issues whether you like what they imply or not.
I mean imagine a religious group which demanded the government warn against new (non-missionary) sex position claiming that we just don't know if it will cause huge psychological damage to it's participants. Now certainly this group could use the language of caution in the face of uncertainty but the lack of such studies would not immunize such a group from criticism for assigning irrational prior probabilities. That is we generally think it is acceptable to criticize groups advocating caution when it seems they unreasonably rate unknown risks of things they find objectionable much higher than other risks.
My problem with anti-biotech groups is not that it is unreasonable to scrutinize biotech and do safety studies. What I find objectionable is the fact that they seem to treat the risk of new biotech technologies much differently than the risk of new 'natural' behaviors. For instance consider the reaction of the anti-biotech types to the use of a new natural fungus or organic farming technique to fight pests versus their reaction to inserting a new gene into a plant to defend against pests.
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Once again I am speaking in generalities I'm not really sure in this case. Also I certainly think manufacturers should be free to label their products as biotech free.
It is always the last refuge of a villain to claim that biotech firms first concern is always to save the poor malnourished of the third world. What an absolute crock of shit. The last thing they care about is the downtrodden and the poor. They steal plants and genes from third world countries and try to patent plant strains that are naturally occurring and thousands of years old. They foist high cost seed on poor farmers (who then are also pressured to buy the Roundup to spray on their Roundup Ready Soybeans) and require the farmers to buy new seed each year instead of following the age-old practice of holding seed back from the previous years crop.
So spare the false platitudes about how the biotech companies are white knights trying to bring prosperity and fill the bellies of the poor while those who question the safety of biotech are nothing more than latte sipping elites who would rather let the poor starve to death than have their soy milk contaminated with Roundup Ready soybeans.
Kevin
This statement, is of course patently untrue, fresh fruits and vegetables are generally not directly subsidized and are relatively expensive (although they are indirectly subsidized through the massive public works projects that provide almost free water to the west, the transportation grid and a myriad of other ways) so it is very difficult for the very poor to have a balanced diet. Instead, high calorie, high fat, foods that are made out of products that are heavily subsidized (especially corn and animal protein that is fed on corn) makes up the bulk of the diet of the poor in this country. This leads to the odd situation where poor people are both fat yet have incredibly bad and unbalanced diets.
Didn't people go around drinking it to prove it is harmless to humans?
the evidence says otherwise. i spent a good portion of my life working, living in/near and shopping "in da hood". i can tell you firsthand that people make CHOICES that are unhealthy despite numerous healthy choices that are just as cheap and available to them.
go shop in any low income neighborhood and see what many people are buying for food - overprocessed crap. i don't see people buying 50 lb bags of brown rice, etc.
for the first time in recorded history, the #1 health problem of the poor and a contributor to the majority of health problems (according to the CDC) is OBESITY/foodchoices.
and there is a simple solution. shop responsibly and STOP STUFFING YOUR FAT FACE. that is not industries fault, etc. it is the fault of individuals who refuse to make healthy choices and then the people who want to step in and blame everybody BUT the people who show no discipline and no personal responsibility.
i have done a lot of personal training in my life for all sorts of athletes at various levels, and I can tell you that eating healthy and in a way that will improve body composition is both cheap and very doable. but it takes personal responsibility. i can do it for $5 a day. so, the people who are to blame for obesity among the poor are, sorry to say it, those who choose to keep stuffing their faces and in the cases of young children who are obese, it is in large part - their parents.
we have never in the history of mankind had greater knowledge about nutrition. but the CHOICE still comes down to the individual to "empower themselves" and make the right choices, not the easy and gluttonous choices. sugar tastes good. the easy choice is to eat foods heavy with sugar, and other processed rubbish.
From the New York times article article Jonathan Adler discussed.
Maybe an equation form sentence will help J. F. work out the relationship.
Milk shortage + inability to increase production because of high feed costs related to ethanol policy = continued milk shortage + continued high prices.
Please post your secret here. I've wanted to get healthy for a long time and I spend more then $5 on cigarettes each day.
Frankly I'm not a biotech luddite. Or even a luddite at all. But I'm of the group that isn't persuaded that going slow is a bad thing when applied to biotech.
Sorry but biotech isn't the same as overclocking a CPU. If you make a mistake when overclocking a CPU and it burns out then all you need to do is buy a new CPU. Make a bad mistake with biotech and you be faced with millions of consumers needing a new set of kidneys. And while punitive lawsuits might make lawyers happy it won't suddenly make an adequate supply of kidneys appear.
My personal hesitation comes from my work programming computers. I'm as careful as anyone could possibly be when programming and yet I find mistakes all the time. Most mistakes I catch before the programs go into production. Some don't show up until they go into production. And some particularly irritating mistakes don't show up or make themselves apparent for years.
And this is in an industry where all facets are completely known and are the result of human manufacture. Quite unlike biotech which is based on modifying or using existent genes to create new effects.
Consider Monsanto. They tried to produce a seed that would result in a plant that wouldn't then produce seeds. This is so that farmers would be forced to purchase new stocks of seeds each growing season instead of the traditional holding back a portion of the harvest for the next year. Yet it turns out that these non-seed producing plants also produced pollen that carried this same gene. Monsanto had to stop testing this product because they couldn't guarantee that no other crops would be cross-pollinated with this modified pollen and then thereby become sterile.
In a worst case scenario a plant sterility pollen that would result in more plants that couldn't produce seeds but yet could produce more sterility pollen would be an absolute nightmare. I'd like to think it couldn't happen but I don't know as I'm a computer programmer not a bioengineering grad.
But isn't the potential damage worth slowing down to make sure? While people like to make comparisons to manufactured systems it is a mistake to do so as manufactured systems are not self-replicating. They require humans to make the decision to carry on creating such systems. However living organisms are generally self-replicating so correcting a problem after the fact is definitely more difficult.
Show me a balanced, varied diet that can be had for $5 that you can get shopping at a regular grocery store. I won't even ask for one that will meet the needs of an athlete. Shouldn't take long. $5 doesn't go a long way.
I would love to see that.
Just go to a graocery store. Put some carrots, lettuce, potatoes, cans of beans or bulk beans, a bag of rice, vegetable oil and chuck steak in your cart. Pay the $20 at the cash register and enjoy one week's worth of balanced meals. If you are decent cook, you will have a variety of different meals, all balanced, all healthy.
That is at a regular grocery store, you do much better than that in many ethnic neighborhood markets (e.g. ChinaTown in NYC or some of the Mexican or Asian markets) and farmer's markets.
By the way, despite bad agricultural policies, our food prices are far far lower than in most countries so the dollar of our poor goes much farther and can buy a healthier meal than in most first world countries.
the key is to wait for sales to buy nonperishables and buy them in BULK. buy staple foods, not processed foods (on the whole).
buying whole wheat and making your own bread ROCKS! cheap, and tasty, and much more nutritious than store rubbish.
the hardest part of the diet to get inexpensively is produce. obviously, if you can grow a small garden, that's the cheapest choice, but that is not an option for many urban residents. but in one of the poorest hoods i ever worked in they had a KICK#$(#$( farmer's market every weekend that offered VERY reasonable produce. these are very common in the seattle area, and some great deals can be gotten.
when bananas go on sale (i have seen them under .25 a pound) you remove the fruit from the skin and freeze the fruit. it will not go brown as long as you remove it from the skin and then freeze it. i have a champion masticating juicer that makes a great frozen dessert if you use frozen bananas fwiw.
potatos are very cheap and if you eat the skin, that lowers the glycemic index significantly and provides good nutrients.
also, cereal can be bought very cheaply in bulk (like at topfoods) less than 1/2 the cost of standard cereal boxes (since you don't pay for the packages and tv advertisements).
another economical way to save food in bulk is to learn how to can (many church groups around here participate in this) and its very cheap. they sell their canned stew for very very cheap (about 1/2 the price of the cheapest store bought) and it lasts for years, but you have to participate in the process.
a typical breakfast might be an omelette with a couple of whole eggs and a couple of egg whites, some brown rice, and some FCOJ (frozen concentrated orange juice... cue Trading Places reference)...
for lunch, tuna salad on bread.
for dinner, some of the chicken with some vegetables and a glass of nonfat dry milk.
on other days, you can substitute cereal for the egg breakfast.
you can eat (generic) kraft dinners with tuna fish.
there is a local outlet place that (once a month) sells overstocked etc. ice cream etc. for .50 to 1.00 a container! that's a cheap treat.
it's very easy to make homemade yogurt, which is also very cheap and healthy and tasty and you can add flavors to it. i do not recommend clam chowder flavored yogurt though. TRUST ME.
personally, as a weight training athlete, i try to get at least 150-250 gms of protein a day, which is much more expensive than a conventional diet fwiw. but i did the $5 a day diet for a month, as an experiment (with a trainee) and it was very doable.
this is correct. we have among the lowest cost for food as a percentage of disposable income among all countries. far lower than those in europe, for instance.
remember, for most of recorded history, the #1 food problem of the poor was NOT GETTING ENOUGH FOOD. now, the #1 health problem is frigging obesity! it's absurd. i repeat. dieting is not difficult. stop stuffing your fat face!
Poor people in Africa are starving because they cannot get genetically modified grains, which produce much more grain than existing strains. In addition, the luddites fought the introduction of golden rice, which would alleviate blindness among the really poor who depend on rice as their primary staple.
But go ahead, blame the guys who invented the better foods, they’re the real culprits.
but again, it's the fault of industry. why just the other day, i saw a hostess rep holding a poor man down and force feeding him some twinkies. oh, the horror.
I guarantee you no one was drinking Malathion or any other pesticide. In fact I challenge any of you idiots to go to the your local Home Depot and buy any damn liquid pesticide you want (or any pesticide of the past for that matter), and if you can keep a cup of the pesticide in it's commercial application concentration and solvent down without getting violently ill, I will pay you $100.
Yeah, you guys are all talk and absolutely no action. Not one of you actually spends $20 a week for groceries. In fact, I bet you spend five times that much. I notice you didn't mention the subject of this thread, whole milk.
The mediterranean fruit fly was a big deal in California, as was the ensuing debate over the widespread use of malathion. So the following odd display of malathion's safety is well-remembered.
B.T. Collins, 40, director of the California Conservation Corps, gave the most dramatic demonstration of its safety: he drank a glassful of Malathion diluted with water to the concentration used in the spray. (Time)
You're a weight trainer. The typical low-income person is a single mother working at a minimum wage job. She doesn't have the time or the energy to make her own bread, can her own vegetables, keep a veggie garden. She doesn't have the transportation to go all over the city in search of rock-bottom sale prices. She probably doesn't have a car at all, and probably doesn't have the energy to lug 30 pounds of bulk foods onto a bus and then to her house.
You did your experiment as an experiment, for a month. You didn't have to feed any kids, plus yourself, on that kind of budget, for years on end. You didn't have to stay on that kind of stringent budget long enough to see what it does, in the long term, to your energy levels, your immune system, your ability to concentrate for long periods of time, your ability to learn new skills and tasks. You didn't need to try keeping to that budget when you and/or your kids are sick, or have allergic reactions to something.
Your experience was not, in other words, comparable to a real-world simulation of trying to feed an entire family health food on a $5 per day budget.
One problem in low income neighborhoods is the *lack* of stores that sell fresh produce, good quality rice and potatos, and other healthy foods. Most corner stores sell nothing but beer and junk food, thereby limiting the options of the poor.
Another reason small farmers do not use rBST is because it is labor intensive. Large farms have the skilled labor to administer and track the use. Small dairy farmers do not need one more thing to do.
Did you use any supplements in that month of $5 a day meals?
Dairy Industry Crushed Innovator Who Bested Price-Control System
While on a limited budget it is possible to feed oneself; however, it becomes more difficult to get a diet that is varied and healthy. Thankfully, in the city I live in there are many organizations (shelters, churches, etc.) that provide assistance.
Second, I think his post demonstrates the importance of education. Taking him at his word, what it suggests to me is that we need to do a better job of educating people about health. That's a long term project -- it can take a generation or two to implement real changes over an entire society. Self discipline isn't a meaningful option in conditions of ignorance.
The education also has to consist of more than words. As anyone with kids knows, kids learn much more profoundly from what is done than from what is said. At my daughter's school, for example, the cafeteria will commonly ask the kids "what vegetable do you want, corn or french fries?". No matter what the teachers say in health class, the kids watch what adults actually do. And what we do is give out bad advice in the form of conduct. The same is true when vending machines on campuses sell high fructose drinks. We can preach till the cows come home about the health value of milk, but until we behave in ways which make obvious the greater value of milk than Coke, the kids won't get that lesson. (And that's putting aside the fact that we can't expect kids to show the same self discipline we expect from adults.)
Third, it's important to reinforce the point others have made, namely that the poor have limited time and opportunity to shop for healthy food. This means that they need to know what they are looking for, but even more that they need to be able to obtain it quickly and cheaply. This leads to the obvious point: that we need to correlate health and pricing. All too often, those price signals are crossed; it's no wonder people make unhealthy choices.
nor did it claim to be. it was $5 per PERSON. try some reading comprehension.
and i didn't use a garden for this experiment. again, try some reading comprehension. i didn't say i did. i said it was a nice option for those who DON'T live urban.
i've spent thousands of hours in the hood, seeing how people live, work, etc. the idea that it is a matter of not having enough time is largely laughable.
and it takes little time to mix some nonfat dry milk into milk (once a week... approximately 1 or 2 minutes), make tuna and mac and cheese (with nonfat milk and no butter), or steam some frigging vegetables, vs. buying deep fried crap.
again, try shopping in alow income neighborhood. people, on the whole, buy crap, eat like crap, and it's their fault. it's that simple. you make your choices, and you live (or not in the case of obstructed arteries) with your choices.
because of THEIR choices. look, like many other issues that you externallocusofcontrol people like to whinge about being caused by evil corporations, racism, oppression, etc. etc. it's a matter of CHOICES.
there is NO obesity crisis among, for example, japanese americans. REGARDLESS of income level. why? well, the same reason they average over 1.5 times the average US income, have lower crime rates, STD rates, better education, etc. because they make BETTER choices. and better choices are rewarded with better results.
WHICH IS 100% doable in the hood. see, i have LIVED there (no longer) and worked there for most of my life. the opp's are there. people CHOOSE to make the bad choices. i see ALL THE time people go into the local corner store and pay inflated prices for junk food vs. walking the extra block and buying healthy food at the grocery store.
people make their choices and they live with them.
also, several people are ignoring the MARKET. the reason why the local convenience stores sell mostly crap is because CRAP sells. if there was a demand for healthy food, they would sell healthy food. there isn't, so they don't. why? because people without discipline and self-respect (and if you gorge yourself on crap day in and day out despite declining health and expanding waistline, you are not exhibiting self-respect) make those CHOICES.
there is plenty of time, and plenty of opportunity for people to eat healthy and cheaply. grabbing a carrot to munch on is not as tempting as grabbing a bag of potato chips. so, all too many grab the latter.
the idea that you can't get "good quality" produce in the hood is also laughable. i did FOR YEARS.
people make their choices. too many people here continually fail to recognize that all too many maladies in society are caused by lack of responsibility and lack of good behavior/choices.
churches, civic groups, etc. can do a lot to help people understand the importance of making good choices, but unless you want a total nannystate (NYC banning transfats etc.), you let people make their own choices, and you stop frigging assuming that no choices they make are their fault. it's all 'evul corporations' and society's fault. yawn
This is just plain wrong. Consumers don't set the prices for the products they buy, producers do. Nor do the poor set agricultural subsidies. Nor do the honest poor rob supermarkets, such that there are few to be found in low income areas. Nor are they the ones who decide to spend less on the education of their children than gets spent on the education of, say, mine. And on and on.
How would you know this? You are making an assumption, but we needn't make it personal, you can simply look at the prices in the stores and do some simple calculation. Whether or not any of us on this thread have done it is irrelevent. I could tell you that I have, and I have many friends and family members who have, but I could not prove it, so that line of discussion is weak.
As for milk-- a) so what? its not required for a healthy diet, and you can take very cheap vitamins for your calcium, b) you can buy a gallon every few weeks and stay in that budget, thats plenty; c) get rid of government regulations and watch milk prices plummet.
This is simply not true. There are stores with mostly beer and junk (responding to DEMAND as stores do) but many poor neighborhoods also have farmer's markets and "ethnic" markets filled with fresh produce, as described above. The cheapest vegetables I have ever found are in Chinatown in Manhattan -- probably among the poorest neighborhoods in the US, full of immigrants many fresh off the boat from China (remember: that place that keeps stealing our jobs because they are so poor and will work for practically nothing).
no, again. it's just plain true. it's called the market.
it's just like what i referenced with McD's and their "McLean". they stopped selling it because there was no demand. for much of my life, *i* had to go out of my way (thank god for the internet) to find the more esoteric supplements and foods (flax oil 10 years ago, for instance) because there was little demand.
it is not industries fault that the poor are fat. it is not society's fault. it is not ray kroc's fault. it is not colonel sanders fault (cue: chris rock joke).
it's the fault of people with no discipline and little self-respect.
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No. 1. Choices are constrained. Poor people suffer greater constraints than those who have more money. The greatest constraint is ignorance, but it's not the only one. 2. The "market" is distorted in numerous ways.
Have any examples you care to share?
Do you really believe the poor don't know that smoking is bad for them?
Do you really believe the poor don't know that eating high fat food is bad for them?
Do you really believe the poor can't figure out why their waistline keeps expanding and therefore don't know how to correct the problem?
Do you really believe the poor don't understand the healthy benefits of exercise?
Do you really believe the poor don't understand that feeding their children a diet high in sugar will lead to tooth decay? I've seen third grade students at my local school who already have gold caps on their teeth because their parents fed them soft drinks from the age of 2. The parents understand the reasons for tooth decay, but they made the bad choices anyway.
Do you really believe it is impossible to find healthy food in the inner cities? Expand your world a bit and go exploring someday, you'll be surprised by the choices that are actually available and how those choices would expand if there was more demand.
As a former elected public official, I could go on and on and on with examples demonstrating poor decision making by the poor (which is why many of them are poor in the first place), but it won't do any good until everyone understands that the key to a healthy diet or a prosperous life is personal responsibility.
I submit that lots of people know this and don't know how to put it into action. My oldest niece had multiple cavities and bad tooth decay of her baby teeth because my sister-in-law fed her lots of fruit juice. My sister-in-law didn't like milk, so didn't keep much in the house, and she thought the juice was healthy. But most juices have as much sugar as soda pop and are hardly more nutritious.
I have and am prone to high blood pressure. I like to keep a couple of convenience meals in the freezer for those nights I work too late (not frequently), and there are some canned and bottled products I buy. Buyinh them takes a lot of time and work, scanning multiple product labels to find the ones with the least sodium and the least multiple sugars.
Of course, the only reason it can be done AT ALL is because of government regulation--the regulations that require those ingredient and nutrition labels.
Second, food choices aren't either/or. They are a balance. For example, salmon, nuts, and seeds are all relatively hight fat foods, but it's not meaningful to say "they aren't good for you". They provide important nutritional benefits as part of a balanced diet.
Third, yes, I do expect that the poor understand that exercise is good for them (at least at some level). I think your question, though, assumes that they lead a middle class life. I'm lucky enough that I was able to afford a housekeeper when my kids were young. That allowed me time to do things like go to the gym or out for a run. But my housekeeper couldn't do that. She had to go home, clean her own house, cook for her own kids, etc. And it hardly would have been safe for her to go out running in her neighborhood after dark or before sunrise.
No, I'm asking you to explain your comment that their choices are constrained greatly due to ignorance. Ignorance of what? Basic dietary facts? You made the claim, so please explain it, provide examples, or admit you're just making excuses for poor behavior.
I think your question, though, assumes that they lead a middle class life.
What does living a middle class life have to do with living an active life? So only the middle class can turn off the tv and go outside to play? Only the middle class can walk a mile to the market to buy fresh, healthy vittles from the local farmers market or ethnic food shop? Only the middle class can take the family to the local park for a day of physical exertion? Only the middle class have bicycles? Only the middle class can go to WalMart or the corner grocery to buy bags of healthy to eat rice and chicken?
Excuses, excuses, excuses. Make as many as you want, but it all comes back to personal responsibility.
I responded to this by citing high fat foods that are, in fact, good for you. That suggests just how confusing the food advice can be. But there's another meaning to his question, namely, the effect of a high fat diet. Taken that way, his question exposes his own lack of understanding.
This is a thread about obesity, not about general health. High fat diets (Atkins) have long been advocated as a method for losing weight. Studies have supported those claims. Thus, it's hardly surprising if the public believes that the high fat food they eat is not responsible for their obesity. Dogwood's own question, assuming I've read it correctly, shows that he too suffers from confusion on this point; surely we can excuse others of less education for making the same mistake.
In my personal view, the obesity problem has more to do with eating too much high glycemic food (sugar, refined starches). That, however, is a theory of fairly recent origin, has yet to make its way into popular consciousness, seems inconsistent with longstanding previous advice to eat lots of carbs, and is somewhat complex to follow. I can't blame people who don't understand the ins and outs of that.