This is going to be a quick, stream of consciousness ramble. I’ve got a lot of school work to do, but instead I’m thinking about grocery stores again.
Yesterday, there was a meeting of state transportation leaders in Portland and today I’ve been reading the BikePortland coverage. There’s a ton of stuff of interest, most of it being somewhat disappointing (typical ODOT!). Something did catch my eye – and it’s a piece from House Rep Tawna Sanchez.
When we’re building low-income housing, we’re building it without parking for the most park, and have an expectation that people will – somehow or another, miraculously be able to shop for their five, six kids or whatever, however many people they have in their home once or twice a month – and be able to bring that all back on the bus or something like that. That is not reality for poor people, let’s just be realistic.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but I think the most salient point for me is the assumption that someone who lives in a presumably urban area is going to be shopping just once or twice a month. She went on to say (from this Tweet)
Which means that people end up having to go to the store more often and spend more money than they normally would have if they were able to shop [in bulk]. They can’t go to Costco. That’s not an option.
The assumption here is that bulk shopping is a winning strategy for low-income Portlanders. Though bulk purchases have lower unit costs, they are also more expensive in absolute terms. This matters if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, though isn’t something I really am hoping to highlight. However, for produce - and especially fresh produce (the generally least expensive and absolutely most healthy way to cook for yourself) - buying things a full month in advance is not a winning strategy. The end use of groceries does not happen when you buy them, but rather when you eat the food. Getting any sort of food weeks or up to a month before you eat it means there’s just a much higher risk of spoilage than if you shop more frequently.
It’s also just an assumption – that a monthly or bi-monthly “large haul” trip for groceries – that feels fundamentally suburban/car oriented. In New York, it’s common to shop more frequently, for fewer items – since you do most of your shopping on foot. Likewise in Japan. And Italy. And Greece. In fact, in just about every topic I could find written on a travel blog or whatever, a common refrain would be “local people here shop for their food multiple times per week, even daily!”
According to a 2011 study, fully 60% of trips to grocery stores in North America were reportedly to “stock up”, compared to under 20% in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America (Europe sits between the two, presumably because of the UK). While the study talks about “the structure of trade, household size and refrigeration availability around the world”, I think this is somewhat misleading. Realistically, most of the reasoning for “stocking up” driven grocery store visits in the US has to do with the availability of cars (to move the huge hauls) and the predisposition of US households to favor processed foods (for a variety of reasons too complex to discuss in depth here).
And while I just promised I wouldn’t discuss the predisposition for processed foods in the US (which includes canned goods), it does require at least a cursory look. Since the mid 20th century, the US government’s broad strategy for agricultural policy has been to heavily subsidize corn and soybeans, both of which are energy rich and can be processed into other food items that can then be sold for a hefty profit by manufactures. We’ve been so successful at subsidizing corn, that something like 40% of corn grown is converted to Ethanol (assuming I got that right on the crossword I did today anyways). It’s a bit maddening.
In any case, this is to say that stocking up only works if you can buy a lot of processed food in bulk, and you have a car. While I wouldn’t claim that it’s a consensus, there is plenty of evidence that there are negative health impacts of processed foods (though usually processing like canning is not part of that – to be clear, I’m not anti canned food either. I don’t think it tastes as good, but that’s somewhat subjective). And I don’t think I need to reiterate with much detail on the negative public health outcomes relating to automobile ownership.
I’m willing to believe that Rep. Sanchez had good intentions with her quotes here. I can only assume that she is not familiar with the particular nuances of grocery shopping in other parts of the world; I’ve yet to meet anyone other than myself who really would call it an interest. I don’t mean to single out Rep. Sanchez on this front, I’m not familiar with her policy work in the slightest and it was far from the most egregious point made last night, but I think this lack of understanding on how people in different contexts do the daily task of living is still deeply disappointing to me.
So often in our lives, we are constrained to the system that has been constructed around us. But there are moments – like when the state legislature is considering broad strokes on what matters for transportation funding – that we have the opportunity to look beyond the pale. If all we can manage in those moments is the cynical reconstruction of the status quo, then we will never be the city, state, or region we say we want to be.
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