KPLU Local News
(2010-05-07)
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Chef Cat Cora gives a cooking demonstration to students for The Teaching Garden, a California program that teaches elementary school students about healthy living.
(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
You may have heard the phrase "food desert." It refers to neighborhoods where there are no grocery stores, just mini-marts and fast-food outlets. Typically, these are poor neighborhoods, and one theory says residents eat unhealthy diets because that's what's available. Adam Drewnowski of the University of Washington's Center for Public Health Nutrition says, there is no food desert problem in King County, and probably not in many American cities.
Wealthy or poor, he says, we overwhelmingly tend to drive to a store we prefer, not necessarily the closest. Drewnowski has meticulously surveyed King County residents about their eating and food-shopping habits.
"In our study, although there was a supermarket within a mile, that's not the one they went to," says Drewnowski. "They went to one 3 or 4 miles away."
He's convinced obesity is largely an economic issue. His earlier work has shown obesity is far more common in low-income zip-codes. And he suspects it's because people choose to spend their limited budget on foods that offer the most calories per dollar.
Cheaper is usually junkier, but not always
"If you have two dollars and it's dinner time, what will it be? A hamburger and fries or ... two apples?" he asks.
Two apples will leave you still hungry. On the other hand, the hamburger and fries is unhealthy but fills you up. Same goes for a lot of processed foods. In this light, eating poorly may look somewhat rational.
Now, here's the twist. Certain foods are nutritious, filling, and also cheap. The list includes, for example: eggs, beans, milk, potatoes, carrots, broccoli and soups.
The challenge sometimes is knowing how to cook, and how to use raw ingredients you've never touched. Drewnowski wants public health officials to consider sponsoring cooking classes. He's urging supermarket chains to do the same, and provide shopping tips - with an emphasis on foods that give the most nutrition per dollar.
"We have lost those skills and we need to bring them back," he says.
(To listen to the full story from KPLU science and health reporter Keith Seinfeld, click the "play" arrow above.)
Keith Seinfeld has been blogging on topics related to obesity this week at Science and Wonder.
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