Money and food

This has been covered extensively in the past few days, but I'll briefly add to the general consensus that Megan McArdle's comments on food stamps are absolutely moronic. Basically she says that food stamps shouldn't be part of the economic stimulus package (which they're not, thanks to Republican insistence) because . . . wait for it . . . poor people are fat, so the last thing they need is more money to buy food. You really have to know absolutely nothing about *several* topics to reach a conclusion that abjectly stupid -- including, but not limited to, nutrition, poverty, food stamps, health, diet, food cost, and the demographics of grocery supply -- so it's almost an impressive display of ignorance.

Now, I'm not an expert on any of those things, but I know enough to say that a proper, balanced diet promotes health and often correlates with avoiding obesity. Cheap food generally does not make such a diet, and food stamps make the problem worse, rather than better. You can get a lot of *calories* in cheap food, but (and this is reductive, but true) they're mostly bad calories that don't fill you up, so you consume more than you need and can gain an unhealthy amount of weight (or, to even avoid the health issue, enough weight so that Megan will call you a fatty). Yes, there are plenty of rich fat people, and it's not a precise correlation. But what we need is more education about diet, better access to good food, and to move away from making the whole thing about appearance rather than health and choice.

On a personal note, a little over a year ago I randomly read a book about, well, food. Horrified by what I was (unknowingly) putting into my body, I read much more -- on the way we eat, what nutrition is really all about, and even a well-reviewed "diet" (but really more like general health) book. I totally revamped how I ate (and indeed, how I approached eating generally) and a year later I had lost 15% of my body weight. It was easy, once I knew what the hell I was doing. Anyway, the kicker is this: I lost a bunch of weight, felt great, had more energy than ever before, and lowered my blood pressure and cholesterol significantly . . . by spending more than twice as much on food as I had previously. I'm in a position where I have access to and can afford good food (as well as the knowledge to understand what that means), and it makes all the difference.