It's hard for poor people to eat a balanced diet. While calorie-dense foods containing lots of fat and processed carbohydrates are cheap, fruits and vegetables are expensive. This is partly because we allocate 0.37% of farm subsidies to fruits and vegetables, compared to 73.80% for meat and dairy (much of which goes to subsidizing feed grains for animals). The results are predictable -- in order to meet the USDA guidelines for a healthy diet, poor families would have to spend 70% of their food budget on fruits and vegetables. They actually end up spending about 15%. As the linked article describes, people in rural areas where there aren't enough people to support supermarkets also have problems. They have to buy food from small convenience stores which have a meager selection and don't allow for healthy eating.
In addition to expanding food stamp programs and funding more nutritious school lunches, John Edwards' plan to fight hunger and poor nutrition in America includes an interesting proposal to increase access to healthy food in communities that aren't getting enough:
As president, Edwards will launch a public-private partnership to bring fresh, nutritious food to new neighborhoods. He will create a national food access map that identifies neighborhoods lacking grocery stores, emergency food banks and regular access to fresh produce. His new Healthy Neighborhoods Seed Fund will offer needy communities challenge grants for projects including full-service supermarkets, community gardens and food stamp-friendly farmers' markets.
A lot of the proposals we talk about for fixing problems in the health care system involve cutting private-sector bureaucratic bloat and controlling costs. Those are very important, but it's also nice to see ideas -- especially in areas not usually associated with health care -- which could simply make people healthier. And that's what this proposal promises to do.
