Food from Dumpsters Healthier, Tastier than McDonalds.

Ever since reading Travels with Lisbeth, the memoir by Lars Eighner, an obese college professor who spent three homeless years eating from Dumpsters, Recharger has understood that the poor are fatter. They also have more diabetes, according to a new report from The New York City Coalition Against Hunger. Obesity and diabetes rates are higher in poor neighborhoods because, says the NYCCAH report, instead of fruit and vegetable stands, poor people eat cheap, fried food from fast-food restaurants and bodegas.

Two reasons: in poor areas, supermarkets are far apart, and healthier products are too pricey for people with limited incomes.

We think another reason is that advocates for the poor talk like our college Psychology 101 professor: “Rather than patronizingly lecturing low-income New Yorkers on the need to eat better,” says the fascinating Joel Berg, executive director of the NYCCAH. “our public institutions should devote more resources to giving low-income families the tools to enable them to do so.”

A slightly more sound-bite savvy City Council Speaker Chrstine Quinn proposes that farmers’ markets accept food stamps, a move that might attract supermarkets to iffy neighborhoods.  “No one wants to feed their kids chips from the corner store as dinner.”

– Darren Xu