Letters to the Editor
-
Food Poverty Luxury and Nutrition
What's the point of the cartoon? That the poor are just really bad at managing their money? I mean, for what ever else you want to say, the Rich Dog is right, Lucky Ducky has chosen to spend his hard earned money on luxuries as opposed to necessities, so perhaps his status as a poor person is less the fault of the shrewd hard working dog, and more to do with Lucky and his families tendancy to put short term gain over long term stability.
It should be noted that in the past in order to get social services one had to show that they did not have a radio, and later a television, and social workers would inspect your home to ensure that you did not have other visible means of support (say like men's clothes in your closet).
It is good that we don't do this any more, but making the receipt of services more onerous does keep people from relying on it, as perhaps Lucky Ducky's family has for too long.
As to the nutrition issue, The poor tend not to eat out, and eshew large potions of solid muscle meat which are highly nutritious in favor of carbohydrate lodaded grains, and fats which are far cheaper due in part to government subsidies.
Eating vegtables is great, but hardly more nutrious than lean rare muscle meat, and far less efficient since most of what vegtibles are (cellulose) is undigestable by human beings. The real problem is that Americans (and humans around the world) over cook their meat, and eat far too many grains. Take an animal, feed it local grasses, eat the animal, and you transfer the calories and nutrients from the unusable, but sustainable grasses to you. This is far better for your health and the environment than trying to grow enough vegtibles to feed the world. Because meat is more filling far less raw tonage of meat needs to transported than to transport an equal ammount of calories transported in the form of flour, grains, vegtable oils or vegtables.