Stephanie
Diamond Member
- Jul 11, 2004
- 70,230
- 10,864
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open your eyes people.
SNIP:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
By Terence P. Jeffrey
First lady Michelle Obama discusses the findings of the Childhood Obesity Task Force report in May. (AP Photo)
First Lady Michelle Obama has called on Congress to create a $400 million-a-year program to encourage the establishment of supermarkets in places she calls food deserts.
The situation in these food deserts, as Mrs. Obama describes it, is quite dire indeed. American children are growing fat because their parents cannot get to a supermarketto buy fruits and vegetableswithout undergoing the hardship of boarding a bus or riding a taxi. As a consequence, food-desert-dwelling children are forced to eat fast food and junk procured at chain restaurants and convenience stores.
In a March 10 speech, the first lady painted a sad picture of their plight. Right now, 23.5 million Americans, including 6.5 million kids, live in what we call food desertsthese are areas without a supermarket, she explained. And as a result these families wind up buying their groceries at the local gas station or convenience store, places that offer few, if any, healthy options.
She offered a solution. Lets move to ensure that all families have access to healthy, affordable foods in their community, she said. (W)eve set an ambitious goal here: to eliminate food deserts in America within seven years.
To do that, she said, were creating a Healthy Food Financing Initiative thats going to invest $400 million a yearand leverage hundreds of millions more from the private sectorto bring grocery stores to underserved areas and help places like convenience stores carry healthier options.
Pushing this $400 million food-desert-eradication plan became a standard part of Mrs. Obamas stump speech.
In February, she promoted it in a Philadelphia neighborhood she said had just emerged from a 10-year period without a supermarketthanks to subsidies from the enlightened state government of Pennsylvania.
For 10 years, folks had to buy their groceries at places like convenience stores and gas stations, where usually they dont have a whole lot of fresh food, if any, to choose from, said Mrs. Obama. So that means if a mom wanted to buy a head of lettuce to make a salad in this community, or have some fresh fruit for their kids lunch, that means she would have to get on a bus, navigate public transportation with the big bags of groceries, probably more than one time a week, or, worse yet, pay for a taxicab ride to get some other supermarket in another community, just to feed her kids.
Congress left town for the November election without having approved any fiscal 2011 spending bill. So, as of yet, it is uncertain whether Mrs. Obama will get her $400 million-per-year to subsidize supermarkets in food deserts. The agricultural bill that has been working its way through Congress includes only a $40 million earmark for the program.
But does it deserve a single penny?
In the 2008 farm bill, Congress mandated that the department conduct a $500,000 study of food deserts. The studyAccess to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequenceswas published in June 2009.
The report demonstrates that Mrs. Obamas depiction of American food deserts is fatuous at best. Lower-income Americans live closer to supermarkets than higher-income Americans.
read it all here..
Michelle Obama?s $400 Million ?Food Desert? Scam | CNSnews.com
SNIP:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
By Terence P. Jeffrey
First lady Michelle Obama discusses the findings of the Childhood Obesity Task Force report in May. (AP Photo)
First Lady Michelle Obama has called on Congress to create a $400 million-a-year program to encourage the establishment of supermarkets in places she calls food deserts.
The situation in these food deserts, as Mrs. Obama describes it, is quite dire indeed. American children are growing fat because their parents cannot get to a supermarketto buy fruits and vegetableswithout undergoing the hardship of boarding a bus or riding a taxi. As a consequence, food-desert-dwelling children are forced to eat fast food and junk procured at chain restaurants and convenience stores.
In a March 10 speech, the first lady painted a sad picture of their plight. Right now, 23.5 million Americans, including 6.5 million kids, live in what we call food desertsthese are areas without a supermarket, she explained. And as a result these families wind up buying their groceries at the local gas station or convenience store, places that offer few, if any, healthy options.
She offered a solution. Lets move to ensure that all families have access to healthy, affordable foods in their community, she said. (W)eve set an ambitious goal here: to eliminate food deserts in America within seven years.
To do that, she said, were creating a Healthy Food Financing Initiative thats going to invest $400 million a yearand leverage hundreds of millions more from the private sectorto bring grocery stores to underserved areas and help places like convenience stores carry healthier options.
Pushing this $400 million food-desert-eradication plan became a standard part of Mrs. Obamas stump speech.
In February, she promoted it in a Philadelphia neighborhood she said had just emerged from a 10-year period without a supermarketthanks to subsidies from the enlightened state government of Pennsylvania.
For 10 years, folks had to buy their groceries at places like convenience stores and gas stations, where usually they dont have a whole lot of fresh food, if any, to choose from, said Mrs. Obama. So that means if a mom wanted to buy a head of lettuce to make a salad in this community, or have some fresh fruit for their kids lunch, that means she would have to get on a bus, navigate public transportation with the big bags of groceries, probably more than one time a week, or, worse yet, pay for a taxicab ride to get some other supermarket in another community, just to feed her kids.
Congress left town for the November election without having approved any fiscal 2011 spending bill. So, as of yet, it is uncertain whether Mrs. Obama will get her $400 million-per-year to subsidize supermarkets in food deserts. The agricultural bill that has been working its way through Congress includes only a $40 million earmark for the program.
But does it deserve a single penny?
In the 2008 farm bill, Congress mandated that the department conduct a $500,000 study of food deserts. The studyAccess to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequenceswas published in June 2009.
The report demonstrates that Mrs. Obamas depiction of American food deserts is fatuous at best. Lower-income Americans live closer to supermarkets than higher-income Americans.
read it all here..
Michelle Obama?s $400 Million ?Food Desert? Scam | CNSnews.com
nice try
