The smug, it burns!

[sabotabby]

I meant to post about this awhile ago, but let's face it—it sucks having to do all of my typing standing up. And all of my checking of e-mail standing up. And all of my reading standing up. I'm way behind on responding to a lot of things because it takes me forever to read a long post or answer an e-mail. Also, my feet hurt.

But anyway, I run into a lot of posts like this particular one and I don't feel I've ranted on it lately, so here we go:

Frugal food: 10 DIY tips to save money while eating better and healthier.

It's another rehash of the classic "LENTILLLLLLLS" flamewar: privileged people with lots of free time telling the rest of the world how to eat. There's a few dissenters in the comment section, but overall it's a circle-jerk of smug.

Now, I am pretty privileged myself, current disability status aside. I do eight out of these ten things already, and plan on doing the other two (visiting the farmer's market and starting a garden) come the spring, assuming that I am back to being able-bodied by then. But it's like the post's author and the commenters are blissfully unaware that very few people do have that sort of privilege. Issues like food deserts, water pollution, disability, and poverty seem to barely enter the conversation. If I, for example, were living in the neighbourhood in which I teach, chances are that there is not a grocery store in walking distance, and not everyone can afford a car. There certainly isn't a nearby farmer's market (and farmer's markets in Toronto tend to be far more expensive than the grocery store or the local fruit stand). Some people can't afford to buy crockpots. Many, many people don't have storage space for bulk purchases. Most people don't have any green space in which to start a garden. A good many people lucky enough to be employed are too busy to cook every night (and I am certainly one of them).

And yet, with one aside about fracking and countries without potable water, these pitfalls never even enter into the discussion. It's assumed that everyone has equal access—in my experience, even an average, middle-class person in the First World doesn't necessarily have the access the post assumes. And like practically every article about food economics and health, there's the assumption that problems are individual and can be mitigated by individual choices, rather than collective, informed by corn and meat subsidies that artificially inflate or deflate prices, poor urban planning, and economic disparity.

Comments

[outcastspice.livejournal.com]

Absolutely good points! It's frustrating how unaware people can be of the basic privileges that underpin the suggestions they're making.

The individual vs systemic problem concept has been fascinating to me lately. We see it in so many aspects of our society!!

[sabotabby]

Yep. And while I love a good individualist narrative in fiction, it pains me greatly to see people using it in the real world.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

I once read a really good essay that broke down some differences between poor rural, poor suburban, and poor urban living, and how the "poor-skills" for each one are just completely different. I only wish that I could remember where it was :/

[sabotabby]

If you find it, let me know. Because "growing a garden" is a completely valid, if obvious, bit of advice to follow if you're poor and rural, but condescending and vapid if addressed to the urban poor. Talking about poverty without an acknowledgment of geography is useless.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

I would also be very interested in reading this.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

It was a link from a friend, so I posted in my journal asking people if they recalled it. It's the weekend though and a lot of my friends aren't around them, so I'm hoping someone might see and respond early next week if they do remember. If I do, I'll make sure to come back and let you and Sabs know.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's fricken BoingBoing.

When I made four figures, I bought bread with preservatives in it on purpose. I couldn't afford to buy non-preservative bread in portions small enough that I could eat it before it went bad.

I do think rich people spend shocking amounts of money on their fancy $5 daily coffees or bottled water. You could probably buy a car for all that money. We all have our addictions I guess.

But the rest is idiotic. You can spend less cooking at home or going to the farmer's market IF the alternative is eating out at or take out from yuppie restaurants. Unless you're eating rice and beans, though, cooking fresh food can't beat a slice of pizza or Subway or McDonald's for sheer price. Maybe, if you have a lot of time on your hands or can cook in massive bulk. The cheapest, easiest options are prepared foods: ramen, soup cans, pasta sauce, etc.

And of course, food deserts make everything worse.

What really gets me going about all this, though, is the food moralism. Eating home cooked baguettes or whatever the fuck and then posting about it on the Internet doesn't make you a better person, only yet another tiresome prating hobbyist. Stories like this frame disapproved eating habits as personal failures of will or imagination. People should be able to eat healthy food, but I'm far from convinced that beyond real-life vitamin deficiencies, eating disorders, and known toxins (like trans fats) there's any consensus about what that means. Mostly these seem like food fads that allow middle-brow upper-middle class ignoramuses (e.g. BoingBoing's target demographic) to reassure themselves that despite all their consumerism they're not like the braying, shlubby, unenlightened sheeple.

Yesterday I made up a poll:

Taking your kids to McDonald's is:
a) a cheap way to feed them between jobs when you're too tired to think
b) a fun treat for the whole family
c) tantamount to child abuse

[sabotabby]

You've hit the nail on the head in terms of what bugs me about this. It hurts my soul that McDonald's exists, but in the same way, it's not hard to imagine the set of circumstances that makes it a desirable option for an exhausted single mom with kids and two jobs.

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

Ta-Nehisi Coates also once wrote a blog post about how for many poor people, food pleasure is the one reliable, affordable pleasure available. Fast food provides that pleasure when lentils or cereal no longer do. But in the US, see poor people aren't allowed to have pleasure until they've stopped being so damn embarrassingly poor.

What bugs me about McDonald's-stigma is that their food tastes good! Their fries are the gold standard, and I hear that their apple pies are pretty good too. Their food can be a little hard to digest, but in moderation, anyway, it's not going to poison you. The evil parts of McDonald's are mostly on the back-end, industrialized agriculture, labor issues, cultural hegemony, and so on. But you'd be hard-pressed to find food at any price point that's not problematic in this way. And one person's individual preference isn't going to make much difference, and the difference it does make is vastly overstated. So to me, sneering at McDonald's eaters always feels like sneering at lower-class or uneducated people for the crime of bad taste.

Or to put it another way, the people who think it's a harmless treat are wrong, but the people who think it's tantamount to child abuse are also wrong. It's a possibly reasonable albeit suboptimal choice among the narrow array of suboptimal choices the market system allows/provides.

Maybe an unwillingness to face this suboptimal narrowness is what motivates the fantasy of consumer-choice liberation among the digerati of the BoingBoing set. Next stop, the Singularity!

[sabotabby]

Oh, I read that post! That was a good post, and very true.

I personally loathe the taste of McDonalds, and did even when I was a child and ate meat. But I have my own low-brow tastes: No matter how much money I make, Zoodles, ramen noodles, and Pizza Pizza will never not taste good. (Same with McCain's ice cream pie, but I have the willpower to avoid that.) So I am not one to judge. Anyway, sneering at poor people for eating at McDonald's is akin to that godawful People of Wal*Mart blog in its blatant classism. It distresses me to see my kids eating at McDonald's every day (especially when the school cafeteria, owing to a well-intentioned but misguided school board policy, stocks exactly zero items that are appetizing), but shaming them and presenting them with less-tasty, more expensive, good-for-you foods is not the way to break them of the habit.

It's a possibly reasonable albeit suboptimal choice among the narrow array of suboptimal choices the market system allows/provides.

Exactly this.

Maybe an unwillingness to face this suboptimal narrowness is what motivates the fantasy of consumer-choice liberation among the digerati of the BoingBoing set. Next stop, the Singularity!

*snerk*

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Google "the fellini kroger". That's my kroger! I'm one of those people.

Poverty is a funny show for people.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

HOW MANY OF THOSE PEOPLE HAVE EVEN SEEN THE SATYRICON

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

aka "dumb kids from rich neighborhoods"

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

And I've shopped there hundreds of times. Or at least dozens and dozens. IT'S NOT WEIRD. It's just a store.

UNLESS I'M ONE OF THEM

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

Hell's Kitchen is not Hell's Kitchen either. It's now a restaurant row with $20/plate entrees.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Totally. 'Start a garden' is the most ridiculous, but so many of them are just not practicable for people having to work all hours to make ends meet.

there's the assumption that problems are individual and can be mitigated by individual choices, rather than collective

This in particular. The economics of food is something that doesn't get nearly enough attention.

[sabotabby]

As someone who's starting a garden (hopefully! Finances and body and time allowing!), it's so obvious why this isn't an option for practically anyone who has to worry about making ends meet. It will certainly be an enjoyable hobby, but in no way an economic solution for most people.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

There's also the fact that gardening is both a skill and a lot of work. I've tried it, and I have no talent for it. So far the only thing I've been able to reliably harvest is snails.

I haven't given up on it, but being able to dedicate that amount of time and money to something that doesn't work right away is in itself a privilage.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I've lived in situations where the closest thing I had to a stove was a hotplate, and my only fridge was the coldish water in the back of the toilet. So yeah, that kind of limits your food options.

[sabotabby]

At my friend's school, a huge percentage of the student population is Roma and lives in that strip of motels in the east end. Try telling them that they should buy crockpots.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

I don't know if that person visited a farmers' market recently, but it's definitely not a sure-fire way of saving money. There's a lot of preying on locavores. In Toronto, the best way of saving money on food, produce in particular, is to shop in a Chinese-run shop, whether in Chinatown or elsewhere. That rarely equates to the farmers' market.

[sabotabby]

Agreed. Not local, probably not entirely safe, but cheap as anything and very tasty.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Our co-op is really expensive. It's less than whole foods, but it's a way to buy 'ethical' and high-end. This is also true of the farmers' markets. The hipstavores have pretty much wrecked both of them if you're not well flush.

The cheap places are all Mexican.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

The Good Food Box is both localish and cheapish. I've had pretty good experiences with them here, and heard good things from Toronto.

This doesn't cancel out any of the above points, it's just potentially a useful thing to know about.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

The picture of the cat about to steal the raw steak was precious, though.

(No useful contribution other than that, I'm afraid.)

[sabotabby]

I would completely buy steaks for Marinetti if I thought he'd eat them. He has no interest in people food, though.

[sabotabby]

That and the smug.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Food's been gentrified. Hipstavores.

[sabotabby]

I think food was always gentrified. And hipsters are all over the burgers now, apparently. Goes well with PBR.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

That is a spectacularly bad article. It doesn't say anything that isn't not only very obvious but also only possible if you are well-off, and also assumes the reader does silly things like spending a fortune on lunch and expensive coffee every day in the first place, and drinks "soda" (? - don't have that in England, but if wanting to save money one would simply add bicarbonate of soda, sugar and, say, a bit of ginger to tap water and hey presto...if one could be bothered) instead of tap water!

I don't know many people who work who could afford to buy lunch rather than take sandwiches, yet alone buy coffee. My dad allows himself one or two coffees a week.

Farmers' markets here are extraordinarily expensive. The nearest to me is in Marylebone, where people like Madonna live/have a home (and where Sherlock lives) and frequented by people who say, "ooh yah dah-ling, shall we hev a pheasant for supper?" I used to go every week to get the cheaper bitties at the end.

Better money saving advice would be to join a buying group, where people get together at local community centres to buy wholesale, if that is possible where one lives, or to go to local street markets (again, if you have one near enough - I don't think I have the energy I used to have to cycle or walk to my nearest any more), to cook in bulk and freeze (if you have a freezer - again, not everyone can afford one: my mother bought me mine as a present), or, more simply, to live on chips.

An even better solution is for city councils to plant fruit trees down every possible street and provide allotment land everywhere instead of selling every available corner for office blocks, and to make it law (as in Tokyo) that said office blocks must have green rooftops (used for food growing), but that involves things like caring, political will, etc..

London is getting better at such stuff but it is slow progress.

I am out of date as it was five years ago I did qualifications in local-community food initiatives. Things seem to have got a bit better since.

[sabotabby]

An even better solution is for city councils to plant fruit trees down every possible street and provide allotment land everywhere instead of selling every available corner for office blocks, and to make it law (as in Tokyo) that said office blocks must have green rooftops (used for food growing), but that involves things like caring, political will, etc..

Collective solutions to collective problems? I can't hear you! La la la lentillllls!

It's been forever since I bought coffee from a coffeeshop on a regular basis. I do when I'm out and in a hurry, or I'm hanging out at a coffeeshop for social reasons, but I have a coffeemaker at home and work and these supply me with my caffeine fixes. As for soda, it tastes gross, though I'll occasionally drink it out of desperation if I'm thirsty. I couldn't buy my lunch even if I were inclined—my only options are the unpalatable and heavily meat-based foods on sale at the cafeteria, or the mall across the street, which also lacks vegetarian options.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I am currently privileged as I have enough money for nice food, and time to cook. I am however a crap cook and too depressed to manage at the moment, so have bought expensive chocolate cake.

I alas stopped going out of my way to shop affordably and ethically (I used to put a lot of effort into it) since a Waitrose opened round the corner from me. It is so much more ethical than most supermarkets (though presumably far from perfect) that I use that as an excuse. And it has extra nice food.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I've been buying Ubuntu fairtrade coke.

There are lots of community food projects taking off in London at the moment. I should get more involved. In fact, I must must must remember tomorrow to post the money and form for the intro to permaculture course in two weeks at this wonderful project I have been wanting to visit. It isn't far from here and combines the sort of modernist architecture in the Soviet factory buildings exhibition I went to recently with an inspiring example of scary, run-down housing estate turned nicer by its community working together:

http://www.maidenlanece.org/photos-of-green-spaces.html

I am worried I will be too run-down with depression to make it, but if I do, it will probably work better than any bloody anti-depressants to cheer me up.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

There is certainly soda in England, or at least there was in the 00s.
(It's also possible you're taking the piss, and I've just missed that due to lack of familiarity.)


Agreed about fruit trees and gardens. When I fantasise about city planning (I've weird world-building-related fantasies) they usually involve blocks with a central courtyard w/ garden plots.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

Talking of gardens, it has been over a year we have had an allotment now, and I have realized it is unlikely ever to cover the cost in my train fares to and from it! There are so many initial costs for things like manure and compost (until you can make your own), tools, blah. I still love it because it is YEY a bit of land! and learning gardening! but it is nowhere near providing us with meals. We've had some potatoes, broad beans, chard and strawberries. So it's not a bad start. My severe allergies to most green leafy things (I get anaphylactic shock from them) makes affordable, healthy eating more complicated, I suppose, and means there's a lot less I can grow to eat easily. But yes, growing one's own food takes effort and skill and initial outlay!

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Not to mention all the community gardens that communities have taken it upon themselves to organize that have been destroyed by cities and/or developers.