The top twenty worst foods in America?

[termyt]

If only it was as easy to get food to the starving. I think we'd gladly do it. Many tons of US food rots on foreign docks while people starve just miles away from it as well.

I don't think eating less cheese fries will help that situation any. Even if we only wasted 3.6 billion tons, it's not like the the remain 3.4 billion tons would find the mouths of the starving.

[Nate]

I agree with termyt here. While it's a travesty that people are starving in other countries in the world, if I decide to only get the medium fries instead of the extra large, the fries I don't get aren't going to go to those starving people. Even if I get the extra large fries and only eat half of them, there's no way for me to send them to these countries. If it was as easy as just putting them in a box and slapping a mailing label on it that said "Starving Children, Africa" then you'd bet I'd do it. But since that's not going to happen, I don't really see a point in feeling guilty about stuffing my face. :\

[Syreth]

But we can do what we can to help. I think that's important. There are a number of groups who do relief work in less fortunate countries.

At the same time, we can't blame the western world, or America at large, for the food distribution problem. For the most part it's a problem of political instability.

I will agree that it's disturbing that there's such a huge difference in living standards, when there certainly doesn't have to be. But I think our primary motivation to help should be compassion rather than guilt.

[Lilac#18]

I think restaurants should lessen the price of healthy food and up the price for unhealthy food and maybe it would make people pay for healthy foods. well, just my opinion.

[Nate]

The problem with that idea is that healthy food is more expensive, thus if they charged less for it they wouldn't turn a profit, and they'd go out of business.

[Lilac#18]

Oh yeah,you're right, but they should make the food healthier and hopefully still have it taste good enough without the blandness. I don't know.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

Oh yeah,you're right, but they should make the food healthier and hopefully still have it taste good enough without the blandness. I don't know.

But if they did, then it would probably be more expensive...

[Lilac#18]

Maybe,maybe not.

[ShiroiHikari]

Personally, I can't eat all of the huge portions that restaurants serve, and I don't think that eating it so it isn't wasted is going to help starving people either. I'd rather keep myself healthy than eat it just because I feel guilty and then get sick and fat.

Also, it pisses me the heck off that healthy food costs more. What kind of sick joke is that? If I wanted to eat crap, I could get a lot of food for $150 every two weeks, which is what our grocery budget is (give or take a few bucks). But since I try to buy healthy things, I often can't get enough food for that much money. Are vegetables made out of gold now or something?

[Jingo Jaden]

Never underestimate the monster burger.

[uc pseudonym]

If only it was as easy to get food to the starving. I think we'd gladly do it. Many tons of US food rots on foreign docks while people starve just miles away from it as well.

For that matter, the same is true in most third world countries where there are so many starving. There are definitely massive systemic problems involved and I'm not suggesting that there is an easy solution.

I agree with termyt here. While it's a travesty that people are starving in other countries in the world, if I decide to only get the medium fries instead of the extra large, the fries I don't get aren't going to go to those starving people. Even if I get the extra large fries and only eat half of them, there's no way for me to send them to these countries. If it was as easy as just putting them in a box and slapping a mailing label on it that said "Starving Children, Africa" then you'd bet I'd do it. But since that's not going to happen, I don't really see a point in feeling guilty about stuffing my face. :\

I think we both agree that this isn't about getting the medium instead of the large. However, I have you point out that you could have not spent whatever the difference was and sent it to an organization attempting to provide relief to a poverty-stricken region. Even with the best organizations there is a bit of overhead, but the fries were probably priced much higher than the resources necessary to make them, so it might balance out.

Obviously that's a trivial example. But how many times has a similar incident occurred in your life? Multiply that by the rest of the population in the US and you get numbers like seven billion.

Poor corporate policy and other issues are certainly a bigger problem than consumption by the average person. Those are major issues that need a lot of attention. I don't know about you, though, but I'm not going into politics or business and I can't impact those greatly (maybe I could be part of a number on my senators' desks, but that's a bit optimistic). As a Christian I don't feel comfortable saying I should do nothing just because I can't do very much.

Like termyt said, reducing our consumption doesn't magically give food to those who need it. But continuing to do exactly what we've been doing is a great formula for changing absolutely nothing. As difficult as it might be for wasted food in America to get to Africa, I suspect it's more improbable that the food we gorge ourselves upon will arrive.

Not that I seriously believe this is going to change the world, or that my actions particularly matter in the scheme of anything. I do believe I'm called to try, though. Even if changing my lifestyle to a sustainable level was purely symbolic, I think that has some meaning.

[Radical Dreamer]

In all honesty, none of that looks good to me. Cognitive Gear said some of what I was thinking: are these items balanced by serving size, or did they just end up with a list of the biggest of the high-calorie foods? What about your deep-fat-fried twinkies and such?

One thing that I found interesting about the article from a visual perspective was just that, actually--all of the food is made to look unappealing. Every dish is served on a tin plate, messed up and a little squished. Colors are made to look bland, and drinks have been spilled over the side of the cup. It all looks really messy and disgusting.

However, if you look at any other food advertisement, the food is served on a platter with garnish, it looks ready to serve, and the colors are really vibrant. When you order the actual food, it usually looks like something in between what this site shows and what the advertisements show. XD I just found it interesting, the way the advertising and counter-advertising was orchestrated. XD

[EricTheFred]

Contrariarian argument time. I'm responding to everyone who has stated one variation or another of "Food we waste in America wouldn't have gone instead to some starving kid in Africa."

Wrong. Dead wrong. We live in a global food market, folks. Excess food going to waste in America (and certain other countries: we aren't alone in this) and insufficient food supplies in other parts of the world are directly linked.

This is a little complicated, so bear with me.

Regardless of where food is produced, it tends to go to the place it can get the highest profit. What this profit is, partially depends upon the cost of transportaion, import/export tariffs and other laws, but also, how deep are the pockets of the people buying the food. More demand leads to higher prices, and people who habitually buy more food than they need create higher demand. If these people can afford to spend more on their food, the food flows from the global food supply into this higher demand.

This larger flow has to be offset by either increased production, or decreased flow into other places. Generally, it is both. So, where does less food flow?

Where people have less money to spend on it.

Ask anyone involved in a charity fighting international hunger. Their costs have skyrocketed in recent years. My church recently listened to a retired pastor who stumps for one particular organization. He apologized to us about his pamphlet. One particular suggested donation amount claimed it would feed 67 families, but he informed us that this number had been cut in half in the less than a year since the pamphlet was printed.

We haven't seen that big a rise in food prices here, but I can verify it using one particular commodity that both my family and poor folk in Southeast Asia are eating. My household runs on rice (Asian wife.) I can't eat it, but my kids and my wife eat it with nearly every meal. We've watched the price of a twenty pound sack double from eight bucks to sixteen bucks (same store and brand) in the last year.

We're still eating as much rice as ever, but I can afford it. I guarantee the family of some day-laborer in Metro Manila earning less than a hundred dollars a month sure isn't.

[Maledicte]

While on the subject of world hunger and rice: http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Improves your vocabulary while donating rice to people in need. Sounds like a good combination.

[Nate]

What kind of sick joke is that? If I wanted to eat crap, I could get a lot of food for $150 every two weeks, which is what our grocery budget is (give or take a few bucks). But since I try to buy healthy things, I often can't get enough food for that much money. Are vegetables made out of gold now or something?

The biggest reason is that it takes a lot more time and effort to grow healthy foods. For example, organic vegetables. You can't use pesticides on them, so you have to do crazy stuff to keep bugs off of them. Since keeping bugs off of a gigantic field of vegetables without using pesticides just isn't going to happen, that means you have to grow smaller amounts of those vegetables, and work a lot harder to make them decent. That gets factored into the price. Mass produced veggies that get sprayed with chemicals are abundant, hence they can afford to sell them cheaper.

Regardless of where food is produced, it tends to go to the place it can get the highest profit.

. . .

So, where does less food flow?

Where people have less money to spend on it.

I still completely disagree with your assessment. It also has to do with political climate in those areas too. For example it doesn't matter if fifty million pounds of food had been sent to Myanmar after the cyclone hit, the government there wasn't going to let all that food go to the people who needed it. It would have had nothing to do with profit margins or how much America consumed or wasted, it would have everything to do with the government there and their attempt to use propaganda against their citizens.

I'm not saying your statements are 100% wrong. Obviously there is a little truth to the profit angle too. But it's not the only reason, heck, it isn't even the biggest reason.

[Syreth]

Not that I seriously believe this is going to change the world, or that my actions particularly matter in the scheme of anything. I do believe I'm called to try, though. Even if changing my lifestyle to a sustainable level was purely symbolic, I think that has some meaning.

I was thinking about this earlier today quite a bit, and I fully agree with you. Whether it makes a difference or not, the right thing to do is the right thing to do.

Also, it pisses me the heck off that healthy food costs more. What kind of sick joke is that?

I understand what you're saying, but it all goes back to supply and demand.

Wrong. Dead wrong. We live in a global food market, folks. Excess food going to waste in America (and certain other countries: we aren't alone in this) and insufficient food supplies in other parts of the world are directly linked.

I understand many of your conclusions, but I still think that a country's political stability comes into play more than almost anything. For instance, if a citizen in country X cannot earn a decent living because of exorbitant inflation, or if a farmer cannot grow crops because he would be raided twice a week by renegades, then honest people will never have the resources to buy what they need regardless of how much another country consumes.

I'm sorry if this is bending the forum rules regarding political discussion. If so, please disregard (or delete) my last comment. ^^;

[GeneD]

One thing that I found interesting about the article from a visual perspective was just that, actually--all of the food is made to look unappealing. Every dish is served on a tin plate, messed up and a little squished. Colors are made to look bland, and drinks have been spilled over the side of the cup. It all looks really messy and disgusting.

However, if you look at any other food advertisement, the food is served on a platter with garnish, it looks ready to serve, and the colors are really vibrant. When you order the actual food, it usually looks like something in between what this site shows and what the advertisements show. XD I just found it interesting, the way the advertising and counter-advertising was orchestrated. XD

I agree. I took one look at that first dish and I could feel my arteries clogging. It just looks like it's going to make you blow up 3 sizes. There's no way they'd put that picture on the restaurant’s menu. I just had a look at the worst pizza, and it's not even on a plate, just a random slice on a flat surface. I guess it's also a type of advertising or "propaganda" if you will.

[EricTheFred]

I understand many of your conclusions, but I still think that a country's political stability comes into play more than almost anything. For instance, if a citizen in country X cannot earn a decent living because of exorbitant inflation, or if a farmer cannot grow crops because he would be raided twice a week by renegades, then honest people will never have the resources to buy what they need regardless of how much another country consumes.

Political instability and poor law enforcement in the Third World are a very old thing. They can't be called upon to explain a relatively recent upswing in global food prices.

To a small extent, both the recent rise in oil prices and increased use of biomass for fuel have contributed, but from what I've read, the rise tracks best with increased consumption in North America, Japan, Europe, and two very large Asian countries with expanding populations and rapidly rising economies capable of outcompeting poorer countries for the food.

We can't do anything about the other countries, but we could at least stop being the most wasteful of the bunch. Every little bit matters.

[uc pseudonym]

One thing that I found interesting about the article from a visual perspective was just that, actually--all of the food is made to look unappealing. Every dish is served on a tin plate, messed up and a little squished. Colors are made to look bland, and drinks have been spilled over the side of the cup. It all looks really messy and disgusting.

That's interesting. I honestly didn't notice, partially because I'm not very effected by food presentation. So my feeling about the food stands - no matter how aesthetically pleasing you make cheese fries look, I don't want to eat them.

I still completely disagree with your assessment. It also has to do with political climate in those areas too. For example it doesn't matter if fifty million pounds of food had been sent to Myanmar after the cyclone hit, the government there wasn't going to let all that food go to the people who needed it. It would have had nothing to do with profit margins or how much America consumed or wasted, it would have everything to do with the government there and their attempt to use propaganda against their citizens.

I understand many of your conclusions, but I still think that a country's political stability comes into play more than almost anything. For instance, if a citizen in country X cannot earn a decent living because of exorbitant inflation, or if a farmer cannot grow crops because he would be raided twice a week by renegades, then honest people will never have the resources to buy what they need regardless of how much another country consumes.

Setting aside the global market argument for a moment, I want to point out that there are ways around this. Plenty of NGOs directly distribute food to regions with major food crises - sure, that doesn't change the overall economic problems, but the point is that starving people don't die. Unless these organizations have been entirely banned from a country (which is fairly uncommon; note that even Myanmar has allowed aid) a dollar to them will translate into close to a dollar of food for those who need it.

[Syreth]

[quote="uc pseudonym (post: 1230862)"]Setting aside the global market argument for a moment, I want to point out that there are ways around this. Plenty of NGOs directly distribute food to regions with major food crises - sure, that doesn't change the overall economic problems, but the point is that starving people don't die. Unless these organizations have been entirely banned from a country (which is fairly uncommon]
I couldn't agree more. Short-term help is still help.

[termyt]

Before I get pigeonholed as being on one side or the other of this discussion (I'm pretty neutral, really), I would state this:

Just as saying "there are starving kinds in <insert country>" is not a valid complaint about the amount of food wasted in the US (Which is a food exporter, when allowed to be by law) it is equally, and even more so, invalid to say, "because of laws and distribution and sucky dictators this food would not make it to the starving anyways, so it's OK to throw it away."

Neither of those statements is particularly helpful in finding a solution to world hunger. The solutions are hard and involve things like free and fair trade and honest good governments. If we could fix that, we could waste the amount of food we waste and feed all of the hungry at the same time. There's plenty of food and we have the ability to make a lot more.

In the meantime, though, is where each of our individual responsibilities lie. Our personal responsibilities include being fiscally responsible, helping organizations that are actually on the ground feeding people right now, and supporting good government practices and free fair trade.

[Nate]

I just need to know one thing. Where would this fit on the list?

[Sakura15]

I just need to know one thing. Where would this fit on the list?

*feels like barfing*

[EricTheFred]

I just need to know one thing. Where would this fit on the list?

Somewhere between "Astonishing" and "Bewildering", I would say.

[Nate]

*feels like barfing*

For once, I think you have the right idea! If I barf out all the OTHER food I've eaten, I'll have more room to eat that delicious hamdog! Heck, if I barf enough, I might be able to eat TWO of them! That would pretty much be the best day ever.

[goldenspines]

[quote="Nate (post: 1231254)"]I just need to know one thing. Where would this fit on the list?

*imagine picture of hamdog here because I don't care to post it again XD]

I don't think it would fit on the list, Nate. It's not food; it's just a pile of grease. :p

[Nate]

[quote="goldenspines"]I don't think it would fit on the list, Nate. It's not food]
You know how in video games, if you get the super-duper high score, it eventually flips back to zero?

The hamdog is so unbelievably awesome, that some people can't handle how awesome it is, and so they see it as disgusting. Apparently you are one of those people. :p

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

It doesn't look healthy or appetising but the ingredients have me drooling.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

The hamdog is something that I would eat only once in my life.

And that is when I have completed everything in my life, and I am ready to die.

[Nate]

I would eat a hamdog every day for every meal if I could.

Nah not really because if you ate ANYTHING every day for every meal you'd get sick of it eventually. But I would eat a hamdog at least once a week if I could.