not every meal-the majority of meals. and one does not have to eat at a fast food joint to be getting junk. grocery stores sell plenty of junk. cheap and terrible for you but fills a stomach.
truthfully, most fast food patrons are probably in the middle-class.
I would agree for the most part.
I am not trying to make it out that choice doesn't enter into it. It does.
Bad habits most definitely play a part, and barriers to access don't help.
Sort of self-reinforcing cycle, IMO.
Education, and access to work on both ends of the problem.
i am familiar with an HSA but what i should have been more clear about was how taxes generated from a fast food tax would be allocated to HSAs
Rofl more obsessing per par
Were your findings unreasonable?
Tell you what. You open a neighborhood store, and charge the lower prices. See if you can make a go at it.
My findings were that that prices were not entirely unreasonable, that is correct.
That is, however, the problem.
The business environment in some places needs to be altered.
We need to monkey with the market and pick winners and losers.
Sorry, I disagree.
The root problems need to be addressed. Band-aids ate temporary.
Something similar to how Lone Star cards are used should work. Basically just give every household/individual a card that functions like any credit/debit card does. Use the tax revenues to fund the accounts tied to the cards. An individual gets $X put on his card, a household of 4 gets $4X put on their card. People could then use those cards to pay for prescription or OTC drugs, Dr. office copays, or whatever other expenses are allowed per the tax laws covering HSA accounts. You could even let people submit claims on those accounts to get reimbursed for their insurance premiums.
Anyone with a social security number qualifies.
self-employed people can open an HSA, which covers more expenses and can be rolled over for later years vs employees' FSA, Flex Savings Accounts, which are quite restricted in types of payments and can't be rolled over year to year.
A person funds his HSA with pre-tax income, just like FSA.
FSA max account in $2500, while HSA max is $5000, IIRC.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 05-17-2012 at 02:26 PM.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/utah...-during-lunch/
A Utah high school is learning the hard way that the government is serious about nudging students away from food it doesn’t want them to consume. Davis High School in the Salt Lake City area is having to fork over a whopping $15,000 in fines to the Feds because it accidentally sold soda through a vending machine during lunch.
Federal law requires the school to turn off its soda machines during the lunch period, which is 47 minutes a day. And Davis High school did turn off the machines in the lunch room. However, the school didn‘t realize that there was another machine in the school bookstore that wasn’t being turned off. And when the food police realized it, the school was hit with a $0.75 fine per student for the duration of the offense.
Now the school is going to have to cut money to fine arts programs to make up the cost.
KTVX-TV has the report:
But here’s where things really get nutty, so to speak. Davis High School Principal Dee Burton said that the law is disingenuous. For example, while students can’t buy soda, they can buy sugar-loaded sports drinks and even Snickers bars because they contain, you guessed it, nuts. In addition, students can buy soda earlier in the day before the machines get turned off and drink it during lunch.
And simple economics is at play, too. The ban isn’t forcing students to stop drinking or eating the sugar-laced food and drink. It’s just driving them to places where they can get it.
“The misconception is if we don’t let kids buy candy and pop, we drive them to the cafeteria, it doesn’t drive them to the cafeteria it drives them off campus,” Burton told KUTV.
One commenter on the KUTV website picked up on that.
“The principal is right, the kids will leave campus. What are you going to do? Close Walmart and Quick Trip for 47 minutes every day?” the commenter wrote.
Don’t give them any ideas.
As a disclaimer I do not generally read the Blaze. but I thought this was right on point to the problem of turning to the government for regulation.
The kids will leave campus?Is that standard for high schools to let all their students leave school for lunch?
It's certainly a pretty half-assed attempt.
Been a while, but back when I was in HS seniors got to go off campus for lunch. Naturally, we all ended up at nearby fast food joints.The kids will leave campus?
CG, they had stopped that even before I started HS in 1993. Not to say that we didn't, but it was an adventure to slip past the Vice Principals and jump into a car and drive off while dodging the cops. because of this trouble, we didn't do it very often
Looks like I might have been in one of the last groups to get that perk. I can vouch that NISD was letting seniors off campus in '89.
That's a great example of stupid regulation
they allow it here for juniors and seniors. but, gotta keep your grades up.
Sigh. *Grabs walker*
Cheer up! We still have to pay full price at Luby's.Sigh. *Grabs walker*
Yes, my parents still make me go to Luby's.
Cheer up! We still have to pay full price at Luby's.
Yes, my parents still make me go to Luby's.
I can't fathom how expensive Lubys would end up being if a junk food tax gets approved.Cheer up! We still have to pay full price at Luby's.
Yes, my parents still make me go to Luby's.
Not surprising.
LOL, and to make matters worse, I mis-remembered 94-95 was freshman year.Sigh. *Grabs walker*
heard this on NPR this morning and thought that I should post it here since it posits that healthy eating is indeed less expensive. Interesting.
An Agriculture Department study released Wednesday found that most fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods cost less than foods high in fat, sugar and salt.
That counters a common perception among some consumers that it's cheaper to eat junk food than a nutritionally balanced meal.
The government says it all depends on how you measure the price. If you compare the price per calorie — as some previous researchers have done — then higher-calorie pastries and processed snacks might seem like a bargain compared with fruits and vegetables.
But comparing the cost of foods by weight or portion size shows that grains, vegetables, fruit and dairy foods are less expensive than most meats or foods high in saturated fat, added sugars or salt.
That means bananas, carrots, lettuce and pinto beans are all less expensive per portion than French fries, soft drinks, ice cream or ground beef.
"Using price per calorie doesn't tell you how much food you're going to get or how full you are going to feel," said Andrea Carlson, scientist at the USDA's Economic Research Service and an author of the study.
For example, eating a chocolate glazed donut with 240 calories might not satiate you but a banana with 105 calories just might.
In the comparisons, the USDA researchers used national average prices from Nielsen Homescan data, which surveyed a panel of households that recorded all food purchases over a year from retail outlets.
The cost of eating healthy foods has been the subject of growing debate as experts warn Americans about the dangers of obesity. More than a third of U.S. adults are obese, according to the government, and researchers expect that number to grow to 42 percent by 2030.
"Cheap food that provides few nutrients may actually be 'expensive' for the consumer from a nutritional economy perspective, whereas food with a higher retail price that provides large amounts of nutrients may actually be quite cheap," the study said.
The USDA study criticizes a 2010 report from researchers at the University of Washington, which found that calorie-for-calorie junk food is more cost-effective for low-income people than eating healthy.
Adam Drewnowski, director of the Nutritional Sciences Program at the University of Washington and lead author of the prior study, said he stands by his findings that a healthier diet generally costs more. He said there is no government recommendation for how many pounds of food an American should eat each day, but there are federal guidelines that suggest a 2,000 calorie diet.
"Some of these calories are in fact empty calories, so from the standpoint of nutrition they are not terrific," Drewnowski said. "But the empty calories keep you from being hungry, and this is why people buy them, especially lower-income people."
Margo Wootan, a nutrition advocate with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said some people don't think they get as much value from fruits and vegetables as they get from other foods.
"If they buy a bag of chips for $2, they think it's a good deal, but if they buy a bag of apples for $2, they think it's a lot," Wootan said. "We need to do more to help people understand that fruits and vegetables are not as expensive as they think they are."
Wootan said shopping smart can make healthy eating more affordable. Consumers should be more flexible about choosing less expensive fruits and vegetables that are in season and supplementing those with frozen or canned fruits and vegetables so they don't have to throw away as much.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=152846630
VHS started letting people go off campus again around 93 or 94, provided you passed your D.A.R.E. monthly tests!
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