Prudence Or Cruelty Analysis

In the nation today all the healthy and nutritious foods are getting to be outrageous with the prices. “Families with average incomes are now struggling to provide foods that pack good nutrition as well. The price of fresh fruit

The United States is known as the wealthiest country in the world. But, there are many people that can't afford to buy food for their families, many are also homeless. “While hunger affects people of all ages, it's particularly devastating for children even short-term episodes of hunger can cause lasting damage."(“Child Nutrition Programs") Child hunger in the United States is caused by poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, and food shortage; however there are many solutions to this problem like FRAC strategies, food banks, summer feeding programs, and backpack feeding programs.

For most Americans, the word poverty means insufficient access to to housing, clothing and nutritious food that meet their needs for a healthy life. A consequence of poverty is a low socioeconomic status that leads to being exposed to poor nutrition. Since food and dietary choices are influenced by income, poverty and nutrition go hand in hand. There are many important factors that threaten the nutritional status of poor people. The number one factor is not having enough money to buy food of good quality and quantity. Not having enough money can have a profound impact on the diets of low-income people. Limited financial resources may force low income people to make difficult decisions about what kind and how much food to buy. Limited

Christina deeply cares for kids, to the point where she will only eat if there is enough food for her to consume. Christina says, “I eat lunch if there’s enough, but the kids are the most important. They have to eat first” (The New Face of Hunger). To go deeper into this family’s life, Jim, the husband of Christina, often works until eight at night, applying pesticides on commercial farms for $14 an hour. To continue, after reading simply the first part of this article, it is clear that both Christina and Jim want only the best for their kids. What one does not know, unless one has watched the video provided by “The New Face of Hunger”, is that the Dreier family, particularly Christina, are a bit over weight. Now, I asked myself, if one is low on food, how is one overweight? To follow up, this is where the “healthy resources” stated in the introduction come in to play. For many, “the extra pounds that result from a poor diet are collateral damage—an unintended side effect of hunger itself” (The New Face of Hunger). In other words, due to the fact that the food supply is severely limited to Americans, the healthy food supply is even more minuscule, making the limited (unhealthy) food cause long term damage to the

How does Hallie characterize cruelty? Why does he think that institutionalized cruelty is the worst kind of cruelty?

For centuries, the United States has been seen as a food and food-product paradise; with a constant bombardment of daily specials, “two-for-one” deals, and never ending combo options oozing from every corner of the food-scape. For many Americans, over indulgence is a frequent occurrence-studies show more than 50% of adults say they eat out at least once a week (“58% Eat at A Restaurant”, 2013). Even in this scene of gluttony, the poverty stricken and systematically oppressed find themselves in food deserts across The States; that’s more than 45 million Americans without access to healthy, reasonably priced foodstuffs. Of this group of 45 million, the African American community holds the seat for the highest poverty rate among various racial and ethnic groups at an astounding 26.2% in 2014 (DeNavas-Walt, 2015).

In Lisa Miller’s essay “Divided We eat,” she describes her usual morning breakfast that consists of fancy foods and claims that she is a food snob. She then goes into detail about what her neighbor's routine is like, and what Alexandra Ferguson’s morning routine is like. Food is typically a big issue for these families and the parents will usually spend hours thinking about how they will feed their families. Miller and Ferguson later discuss that some children don’t get enough eat, and some of these children are within five miles of them. Miller then tells us that seventeen percent of Americans are food insecure. The income gap has increased and now more Americans are becoming obese because of this.

All food should be available to all people. The concept of this is dwelled on in the article, “Food justice and Food retail in Los Angeles” by Mark Valliantos. Throughout the article, Valliantos maintains the notion that healthy food should be within everyone’s reach, yet inner cities are still suffering from shortages of fresh produce. To see this issue in action, Valliantos documented this reoccurring phenomenon in Los Angeles. The author gives a description of two areas within the city of Los Angeles, and how they are economically divided based on the amount of healthy produce one has at its disposal. He makes note of programs that already exist to help low income families receive healthy foods that they could not afford. He also

Americans today are no strangers to stretching every dollar earned in an attempt to live the American dream. Most people work long hours and eat on the fly with very little thought to what, or where, the food they have purchased came from. The reason food is so inexpensive has not been a concern to the average American, but the article written by Michael Pollan “The Food Movement Rising” attempts to convince the people that it is time to remove the blinders and take an accounting of the situation that America finds itself in. With obesity at epic proportions, and preventable diseases like

The dollar menu section of this documentary focused on how processed foods and fast food are typically less expensive than healthier foods. The documentary shows one family having the dilemma at the grocery store: a family is aware that the father who has diabetes needs a healthier diet with more fresh, but they are forced to buy foods they can afford. As the film implies people with lower incomes are more likely to eat processed, cheaper, foods, leading to a higher rate of diabetes, obesity and other health problems. The federal government spends billions each year subsidizing commodity crops. Over time, prices of certain crops, like soybeans and corn, were lowered due to these subsidies causing overproduction which made them a lot cheaper than other crops. Since these crops were so cheap, meat and food producers started using them for a variety of purposes, such as, high-fructose corn syrup, animal feed and hydrogenated oils. The lowest-priced options at the grocery are processed foods made from subsidized ingredients that have refined grains with added fats and sugars. This cheap food has had the greatest impact on low-income families. Because are on a tight budget, the price difference between fresh healthy foods and food with subsidized

Many people do not realize that hunger and malnutrition is a problem that many Americans face on a daily basis. Maybe, we are failing to realize that our country is not perfect, but if we don’t try to do anything then more and more children will die. The problem with child hunger is that the United States may not face as dramatic problems with hunger as that of other countries, but

We live in a nation where a large percentage of its inhabitants suffer from economic hardship and are left with no other option but to pick and choose between certain necessities over other fundamental needs due to a lack of financial resources. Many of these people are forced into having to choose between taking their life-saving medications and being able to eat for that day, while others simply have no choice at all. These people simply have no other choice but to go

This statement is very dependable to people’s experiences, just like the family of Maria in the movie. Her husband is suffering from Diabetes, and their income is mostly goes to her husband’s medicine for Diabetes. Because of that, they are left with no choice but to buy fast-food burgers almost everyday. Maria states how one cabbage is usually a dollar and something cents, and in that same price, she can already purchase a burger to fill up her family’s hunger. Yes, I agree that fast-food meals are very cheap and convenient compare to other things, however, Maria and other families should not think this way. People resort to this option because they don’t have enough money and they prioritize their money into something more important, like Maria’s husband’s medicines, but that shouldn’t mean they have to eat fast-food burgers every time. Because if they continuously do this bad habit, their family will suffer in the future, and not only will they be paying for her Maria’s husband’s medicines, they might also pay for her kids’ medicines. Indeed, healthy foods can be a little costly compared to fast foods, but Maria can start from something small, like plant some organic foods in her backyard, and make soup out of it, or go to a local farmer’s market and purchase food that will suit your budget. These adjustments will not only help save our environment and one’s health, it will also lower the

But if we join together we could make big changes in one or more ways. The first step toward changing our food system is lobbying together for higher wages and lowering the prices of health foods. Industries are always against raising the minimum wage, because it would lower the need for the underprivileged to buy their cheap genetically modified foods which would hurt those said industries. Joel Berg, Executive Director, New York City Coalition against Hunger said “The biggest problem with food in America is not enough people can afford it. Forty-nine million Americans live in households that can’t afford enough food, so all the talk about organic, locavore delightfulness and fresh arugula is great. But if you’re in a family that can’t even afford the junk food you’re surviving for now, it’s a secondary issue. The way to fix it is the way we almost ended hunger in the 70s: by having more jobs, paying higher wages, and ensuring that there’s an adequate safety net to fill in the gap. It’s quite simple, we know what works, we know what worked in Scandinavia, we know what’s worked in the past in America, and if we do these simple things, we can end hunger in America almost overnight.” Which begs the question why does our government make it so hard to afford food when we produce 30 million tons of food waste each year!

A man named Norman Borlaug or more commonly known as the Father of the Green Revolution stated that “the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world.” The scarcity of food in low-income and impoverished populations have led to the theory that the relative absence of access to full-service supermarkets and the easier access to fast and convenience foods may be linked to less stellar eating habits and the increase of first world problems such as obesity and other diet-related health issues (USDA, 2009). As a consequence federal, state, and local governments are faced with supporting costly environmental and social justice movements.