I know there has always been a high end of the food market.  Those people who can afford truffles and caviar but this post isn’t about these people.  I’m talking about the difference between eating healthy foods and those who would love to eat healthy but can’t afford to.

A friend of mine would love to serve only organic foods to her family.  She’d love to buy free range chickens that have no residual antibiotics or hormones and she’d feel better about eating eggs from chickens not kept in battery cages.  Sadly, for her, buying food like this isn’t in her budget.

She shops at the discount stores where you bag your own groceries and everything in the store has a preservative filled shelf life similar to that of a Hostess Twinkie – pretty much forever.  The other day I stopped by to visit just as she was getting home with sacks full of food for this week.  I have to say from my perspective, it didn’t look all that bad, although much of what she bought had black and white labels and there were lots of pretty unhealthy looking snacks for the kids.  I asked her where the fruit was and she said she just can’t afford it any more so the only fruit she buys is in a tin can.

I worry that her situation and that of many others is just the beginning of two tiers of food quality.  For those who don’t have lots of money to spend on food, they’ll end up eating all the trans fat filled foods.  I know, she could make her own cakes and cookies and crackers and everything else, but as a single mother of 3 kids who has a physically tiring job, she doesn’t have the time.  As she says, “I can mow the lawn, do the laundry, help the kids with their homework, clean the house and cook dinner or I can bake.”

It’s not that I want the farmers and bakers to earn less because I know that’s a tough job too, but where will it all end?  Will we end up with a large proportion of the population not able to afford healthy food?  Is that the world we want to live in?  It’s all too easy to say “let them eat cake” or get a better job because we all know it’s not possible for most of them to get a much higher paying job.