gobear, I think you expect a bit much of a homeless teenager. Making sandwiches with multigrain bread??? Yeah. Right. Wonderbread costs half as much, and that’s what most teenagers would prefer anyway. Snappy answer, though. :rolleyes: You probably think that homeless teens should be buying low-salt, low-fat roast turkey lunchmeat instead of balogna or peanut butter, but that ain’t gonna happen either.
You’re right that Subway is better than McDonalds, but that’s not what you said in the OP. When I think “vegetables and whole grains”, I think millet, bulgur, barley, quinoa, etc. Subway isn’t exactly what leaps to mind. Though I guess the guy could be making Instant Quaker Oats for every meal, too.
Turbo Dog, I am hardly saying that McDonalds is the ideal diet for the Young Person Down on His or Her Luck. I was taking issue with the homeless teenager whole grains diet. It is certaily possible to live quite frugally while eating nutritious food. While being homeless would complicate that, one could do better than this particular young man did. Eating at McDonalds every single day is stupid nutritionally and economically. I am in no way defending the suit, nor making excuses for the kid.
(Personally, whether I was eating McDonalds every day or on Turbo Dog’s all-canned-food diet, I’d probably drop dead within a year because of the effect of the sodium on my high blood pressure, but that’s neither here nor there. )
Every corner deli sells a variety of turkey, cheeses, breads, fruits and vegetables at reasonable prices. And you don’t need a Martha Stuart-type kitchen to make a cold sandwich or other meal out of that kind of stuff. If you must cook something, hot plates come in quite handy. Although they can admittedly be a bit of a fire hazard, and I don’t know if a homeless shelter would even allow them. Same for the above mentioned Sterno cans. (I didn’t realize they still made those, btw. I thought that was something from the 1920’s.)
There is a picture of one of those girls in today’s New York Times. I must say, for a homeless person she does look rather well fed. Why is it that the poorest people are frueqently also the fattest? Another one of those uniquely American phenomena, I guess.
I don’t smoke, and I wish no one else did either, but I don’t agree with the tobacco company lawsuits. I think after proof came out that they intentionally misled the public, they should’ve been heavily fined, forced to admit their lies in public and then the matter should’ve been dropped since warning labels are already on cigarettes.
The food suits are even more ridiculous, because no matter how many burgers you eat, I can’t get fat off of them. What a person puts into his or her mouth is for them (or their parents) to decide and they don’t directly affect anyone else by their actions.
Perhaps disbarrment is a bit extreme after all for a first offense. But fines and being “written up” should be the least that happens for frivolous lawsuits, and so many marks against you should be punished severely, even up to permanent disbarrment.
Because healthy fast food is much more expensive than unhealthy fast food. When I was a poor college student, we ate a lot of vegetable and chicken fried rice, because rice and vegetables are very cheap, but it definitely takes much longer to cook. We were both very thin then. You can eat healthily on quite a frugal budget, if you’re willing to work for it.
Enderw24 <sorry havnt figured out the code yet to quote someones passage<blush> I think that eliminating the licences of lawyers that are found to have submitted frivolous lawsuits WOULD send a chilling effect on the litigaters in this country. Thats EXACTLY what we are looking for. If a doctor intentionally operates on someone improperly they should lose thier licence. If an accountant intentionally cooks the books ie Enron they should lose thier licence. I find it ironic that your statement of the word of one court could have his licence removed isnt acceptable to you yet the REST of us have to go by the decisions of that “one court” for everything else. Not to mention the protections of appeals etc. You also talk about the destruction of the livelyhood of the poor lawyer if he loses his licence due to greed. What about the destruction of the livelyhood of MILLIONS that are the victims of these insane suits and that have to pay to defend them wether they have grounds or not?
On a related note, in honor of McHappyDay, my beau and I went to McD’s for lunch yesterday.
I had a happy meal with milk. I got a nifty pair of Hello Kitty sunglasses. It was very tasty. Today, I am not fat.
Conclusion - you can eat at McD’s and not become obese - moderation and all that. I don’t see how lawyers can make the case that it’s McD’s fault that their clients are shwanks.
No shit. Does anybody see anywhere that I said that McDonalds was the ideal diet?
Suspenderzzzz, thank you also for pointing out the obivious.
All I’m trying to say is anyone who expects homeless teenagers to eat a nutritious diet rich in fresh vegetables and whole grains is living in some bizarre fantasy land, especially considering that teenagers who have easy access to healthy, homecooked meals often eat hamburgers and junk food instead. Homeless kids are going to get what’s cheap and available, and if they come into some extra money and splurge, they aren’t going to be treating themselves to a big bowl of tabuleh with a side of hummus on a whole-wheat pita.
Nontheless, it was stupid for the kid to waste his money every day at McDonalds. I think it’s also pretty stupid for a bunch of well-fed folks like us to sit in front of our computers and say, “Well, boy, by golly, if I was homeless, I’d improvise a camp stove from scavenged sheet metal, fuel it for free with oil squeezed from the rags in the garbage at Jiffy Jube, clip coupons for canned green beans, and cook healthful and inexpensive meals and eat three squares a day, I would!”
I’m not saying that this kid didn’t have better choices available. I’m not saying that the difficulties of his situation forced him to eat three meals of McDonalds a day. The thing nobody has pointed out yet is that he was living at a homeless shelter that probably offered at least some meals. The kid was dumb, okay? I just thought gobear’s suggestion in the OP was a little bit dumb, too.
Granted, but this does not mean he abdicates his responsibility for his own health.
Nobody mentioned tabuleh or hummus (both of which are high-fat foods, BTW. I doubt you know much about health or nutrition)). I said he, or more properly, the people who are supposed to be looking out for him, could prepare whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, which are a cheaper alternative to fast food, a factor that should matter to a poor person, as well as healthier than fast foods. Bananas, apples, grapes, tomatoes, and the like can be eaten raw and they cost less than a Big Mac. Ditto for oatmeal and bread.
No, my suggestion comes from experience growing up poor. When my mother left the abusive stepmonster, she was jobless and broke with four kids to feed, so we had to go on food stamps. The advantage we had was that my mother had studied nutrition in college, so we got a grounding how to prepare healthful, inexpensive meals, knowledge that has come in handy during my own lean times.
I know what I’m talking about; you, on the other hand, are talking out your ass.
In any event, this thread is not abuot the nutritional opportunities available to the poor, but about the propensity of weak-willed losers to blame others for their own failings. “I huffed down Big Macs with full knowledge of how fattening and unhealthy they are, so now I should sue the company for doing what I wanted them to…waaahhhhh! It’s not my fault!” Feh, I say.
gobear, I should know better than to contradict you–I knew you’d keep coming up with half-sensible, increasingly insulting responses until I got bored enough to walk away.
There’s no call for saying I’m talking out my ass. I know that taboleh and hummus are high fat; I’ve made both and I gave them both up for my current diet. They’re both usually high in salt, too, unless you make them yourself. They’re also better for you than a Big Mac. At no point have I said anything that was nutritionally incorrect.
In addition, I never disagreed with your main fucking point, and I actually restated my agreement with it in every post I made, after the first one.
But, oh, yeah, this thread isn’t about nutritional choices for the poor. The Boss of this Thread has spoken. See me? I’m picking up my low-fat yogurt and floucing out. So there!
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