Michelle Obama’s $400 Million ‘Food Desert’ Scam

[boedicca]

Convenience stores near me all carry fresh and frozen vegetables and fresh fruit. I've never been in one that doesn't. NJ has one of the strictest nutritional standards for school lunches and the kids throw the healthy stuff out. You can lead a horse to water...

Have you seen how much food is thrown away every day at the grocery stores? It is sinful. That's what will happen.

It's not difficult to purchase healthy ingredients and cook nutritious foods if one takes responsibility for oneself and one's family.

Just sayin'.

 

[Stephanie]

Yea...except they lack the cars to get there



Gee Steph....a tenth of a mile closer

Guess you made your point.



But .85 miles is a lot farther if you have to walk it

what the hell are you babbling about?
can you EVER stick on the topic of the thread.

You're just too stupid to follow him, Steph. On his worst day he has more smarts than you do on your best. I think you hold the distinction for being one of the stupidest bitches I've ever encountered.

you kiss your mother with that mouth.
and you would know about what being a bitch is I suppose, just look at this post.

 

[Vel]

While researching Michelle's "food deserts" I came across this article. It's interesting reading and should be testament as to how the problem should be remedied. Private sector investment. The article is over a year old and I haven't yet found if the store is still in business.

*************************************************

Can America's Urban Food Deserts Bloom?
By Steven Gray / Chicago Tuesday, May. 26, 2009

Karriem Beyah, 47, is out to change all that with Farmers Best Market. He grew up on Chicago's South Side and worked in his godfather's neighborhood grocery store. So it isn't surprising that he embarked on a career chopping raw meat, loading food trucks and, eventually, managing a dairy distributor's operations. As he built his personal savings and a base of industry contacts, he noticed the growth of stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods in Chicago and its suburbs. "This should be on the South Side," he recalls thinking. But, he says, when he approached industry colleagues with the idea of opening such a store, they reacted by saying, "Who wants to go over there, in that negative element?"

So far, in 10 months of operation, Farmers Best has failed to turn a profit. Beyah attributes that partly to slowed consumer spending amid the recession, as well as a need to grow awareness about his venture. He is running ads on black radio stations, hoping to lure affluent blacks, who are likely to shop more frequently and not just at the top of the month, which is when customers who rely on government assistance to buy food receive their aid. Meanwhile, he regularly invites local students into the store. "We're trying to teach the children how to eat properly," he says. Despite such tactics, Beyah regards himself as a pure businessman, not an activist. He's also an optimist — and hopes to open at least five stores in the coming years. "I will survive," he declares.




Can America's Urban Food Deserts Bloom? - TIME

 

[ConservativeDad]

I just skimmed the study, but I didn't see any trend analysis. It would seem to me you would need to know whether or not the situation is progressing or deteriorating over time without government involvement before deciding government invovlement is necessary. Taking point-in-time data and recommending policies based on that point-in-time seems illogical. You don't have a full picture of what is actually happening.

Government involvement increases costs, decreases efficiency, and gives the politicians more power over their constituents.

 

[Intense]

I just skimmed the study, but I didn't see any trend analysis. It would seem to me you would need to know whether or not the situation is progressing or deteriorating over time without government involvement before deciding government invovlement is necessary. Taking point-in-time data and recommending policies based on that point-in-time seems illogical. You don't have a full picture of what is actually happening.

The last thing they want is a clear picture. What they want is the check.

 

[Intense]

While researching Michelle's "food deserts" I came across this article. It's interesting reading and should be testament as to how the problem should be remedied. Private sector investment. The article is over a year old and I haven't yet found if the store is still in business.

*************************************************

Can America's Urban Food Deserts Bloom?
By Steven Gray / Chicago Tuesday, May. 26, 2009

Karriem Beyah, 47, is out to change all that with Farmers Best Market. He grew up on Chicago's South Side and worked in his godfather's neighborhood grocery store. So it isn't surprising that he embarked on a career chopping raw meat, loading food trucks and, eventually, managing a dairy distributor's operations. As he built his personal savings and a base of industry contacts, he noticed the growth of stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods in Chicago and its suburbs. "This should be on the South Side," he recalls thinking. But, he says, when he approached industry colleagues with the idea of opening such a store, they reacted by saying, "Who wants to go over there, in that negative element?"

So far, in 10 months of operation, Farmers Best has failed to turn a profit. Beyah attributes that partly to slowed consumer spending amid the recession, as well as a need to grow awareness about his venture. He is running ads on black radio stations, hoping to lure affluent blacks, who are likely to shop more frequently and not just at the top of the month, which is when customers who rely on government assistance to buy food receive their aid. Meanwhile, he regularly invites local students into the store. "We're trying to teach the children how to eat properly," he says. Despite such tactics, Beyah regards himself as a pure businessman, not an activist. He's also an optimist — and hopes to open at least five stores in the coming years. "I will survive," he declares.




Can America's Urban Food Deserts Bloom? - TIME

I wish Him well.

 

[Intense]

You don't think poor people demand good food? To buy free produce in the inner city is almost twice as expensive as it is in the suburbs, its not a matter of low demand or that people don't want good healthy food, its a matter costs and affordability.

Why does it cost more in the inner city?

Bump for Flaylo.

It doesn't. Furthermore there are Pantries, Soup Kitchens, and other various Social Aid Programs, both Government and Private. Ton's of food given away.

 

[chanel]

Intense - my grandmother also lived in Elmhurst for 70 years. She never learned to drive. There were no supermarkets in her neighborhood, yet she still managed to make healthy, low cost mealsw for her five children. Go figure.

 

[Stephanie]

Given the crime rate in many of these inner city neighborhoods, is it any surprise that businesses don't want to locate there. A business goes where it is safe and profitable to do business. A point seemingly lost on the first lady.

Another point lost on her is waste. Ever see how much good food gets trashed in a school cafeteria??? It's pretty sad.

very true, I work in one.

 

[MikeK]

Welfare is a relatively new concept. It was called Home Relief when I was a boy growing up in Brooklyn and there were Home Relief centers in the low-rent districts. They didn't mail out monthly checks and there were no food stamps. People who qualified as needy were given rent vouchers and food parcels.

My aunt worked for the New York City Department of Social Services as a "Cooking Counselor." The centers held classes where she taught recipients of weekly food parcels how to cook healthy meals from what they were given.

That was back in the 40s and 50s. Different world today.

 

[Intense]

Welfare is a relatively new concept. It was called Home Relief when I was a boy growing up in Brooklyn and there were Home Relief centers in the low-rent districts. They didn't mail out monthly checks and there were no food stamps. People who qualified as needy were given rent vouchers and food parcels.

My aunt worked for the New York City Department of Social Services as a "Cooking Counselor." The centers held classes where she taught recipents of weekly food parcels how to cook healthy meals from what they were given.

That was back in the 40s and 50s. Different world today.

Are you familiar with "Welfare Island"? Do you know what it is called today? Just Curious.

 

[Rozman]

You are the idiot who equates a poor family having to walk .85 miles to get to a Supermarket to the middle class mother throwing the kids in the minivan

who's the fattest and what's the problem with walking two miles a day? anything?

Two miles is a piece of cake when you just throw the kids in the minivan

Try walking two miles toting kids and groceries aand then tell me about it

How bout we get the Dad to stay home with the kids on a Saturday afternoon and The Mom grabs two of the oldest to go with her,walk if she must with the kids using a shopping cart?

Please don't make me add on to this post......( on no he didn't go there with the Dad thing.....Oh yes he did....mmmn mmmmn mmmmn )

 

[Rozman]

My job take me to my companies customers out and about.One day I'm in a fish store that my company provides service to.I said to one of the guys behind the retail counter where the fish is sold.It's 1 PM and the store is unusually quiet.I mention this to the guy and he tells me it's the end of the month.This means nothing to me so he explains further.The first few days on the month the people wth the EBT food stamps load up on lobster tails,King Crab legs and they blow through the money on the "good stuff " really quick,then the end of the month comes and the money is long gone.

Talk about a scam.....

 

[Flaylo]

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 supermarket—to buy fruits and vegetables—without 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 deserts’—these 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. “Let’s move to ensure that all families have access to healthy, affordable foods in their community,” she said. “(W)e’ve set an ambitious goal here: to eliminate food deserts in America within seven years.

“To do that,” she said, “we’re creating a Healthy Food Financing Initiative that’s going to invest $400 million a year—and leverage hundreds of millions more from the private sector—to 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. Obama’s stump speech.

In February, she promoted it in a Philadelphia neighborhood she said had just emerged from a 10-year period without a supermarket—thanks 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 don’t 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 study—“Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences”—was published in June 2009.

The report demonstrates that Mrs. Obama’s 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

You dumbass woman, its a known fact that healthy food is less available and more expensive in under privileged and low income neighborhoods than in more affluent areas. A 400 million dollar a year invested to change this will also mean less money spent on health care and doctor's visits because these people will not as sick as they are now.

LOL, rant and rave at the people who DID THE STUDY, DUMBASS.

I ranted at your thread title dumbass, you sound like a rightwing bred attack dog.

 

[Flaylo]

Why does it cost more in the inner city?

Bump for Flaylo.

It doesn't. Furthermore there are Pantries, Soup Kitchens, and other various Social Aid Programs, both Government and Private. Ton's of food given away.

Depends on where you're from and or where you're at, that isn't always the case and people still starve.

 

[Flaylo]

Intense - my grandmother also lived in Elmhurst for 70 years. She never learned to drive. There were no supermarkets in her neighborhood, yet she still managed to make healthy, low cost mealsw for her five children. Go figure.

Quit telling lying stories, plus you're talking about two different time eras.

 

[Flaylo]

You are in denial. We are all responsible for personal behavior.

Inmates are not responsible for the conditions in prison, they just live in it, the same for ghettoes, these places were never great places that went to shit, all of the people who were denied the right to live in cleaner, well off places were by default to live in ghettoes. Ghettoes were never intended to be good places to live.

Conservatives would get up off their asses, organize a work party and clean it their own neighborhoods. Lefties sit back and whine about how the conservatives get all the 'nice neighborhoods' and wait for someone to come along and do it for them.

Don't lkecture me about what conservatives would do you partisan dumbass its not like liberal people all stand out there with their hands out looking for a free ride, we're not the one's asking the government to give us free cash through tax breaks. Thats your problem, you're so damn hypocritical with your partisan shit and then you want to make folks believe you're impartial, now how can that be when you say all 'leftists' do this while all 'conservatives' do this? Not every good neighborhood is full of all conservatives and people in bad neighborhoods are not all leftists you fucking idiot. The difference between inner city neighborhoods and well off neighborhoods is availability of resources, not whether the people are conservative of leftist.

 

[MikeK]

Are you familiar with "Welfare Island"? Do you know what it is called today? Just Curious.

It's Roosevelt Island now.

 

[chanel]

Intense - my grandmother also lived in Elmhurst for 70 years. She never learned to drive. There were no supermarkets in her neighborhood, yet she still managed to make healthy, low cost mealsw for her five children. Go figure.

Quit telling lying stories, plus you're talking about two different time eras.

Lying stories? Who the hell are you? She lived there until 2005.

 

[Flaylo]

Intense - my grandmother also lived in Elmhurst for 70 years. She never learned to drive. There were no supermarkets in her neighborhood, yet she still managed to make healthy, low cost mealsw for her five children. Go figure.

Quit telling lying stories, plus you're talking about two different time eras.

Lying stories? Who the hell are you? She lived there until 2005.

Anytime somebody tells a story that frames the exception as the rule its most likely a lie or an exaggeration.