A Prescription for Produce

We were strolling down Central when a woman stopped us to ask if we could help with some change. No, she didn’t want a drink, nor was she craving weed—asks we’d seen advertised on handheld signs that week. Rather, she was experiencing an ice cream deficiency. She trotted out her story, almost bringing herself to tears as she described the refusal of other passersby to help her meet this basic need. Sadly, we only gave her another refusal to add to the next rendition of her tale. In large part, this was because we had no change nor any cash at all, but we’ll admit it: We were also showing off the control that comes from being able to choose to give, or not to give.

Would we have more quickly complied if the request were for a carton of yogurt? A tofu or tempeh wrap? If she’d said, Excuse me, I’ve been trying all day, and all I want in the world is an apple, could we have possibly resisted backtracking with her to La Montanita and buying her a Pink Lady or a Gala, maybe even a Cosmic Crisp?

And if the ice cream shop that she’d gestured at had been, say, Heidi’s or Pink Pony rather than a national chain, would we have been quicker to donate our dollars to the cause?

These questions call to mind the debates raging about the health of the nation, not to mention arguments about social control that go back well beyond former New York Mayor Bloomberg’s failed soda ban to the Volstead Act. Anyone who portrays concerns about processed foods as historically leftist has never been to a birthday party hosted by a Mormon mom who doesn’t allow soda and makes just about every last thing from scratch. What does feel at least sorta new is the brewing consensus that government regulation might be in the best interest of eaters, rather than an infringement on personal liberties.

We’re not about to fight for the rights of corporations whose successful marketing relies on the use of cancer-causing dyes in children’s cereals, nor do we take issue with the mission to define, and ultimately somehow regulate, ultraprocessed foods—although we do suggest those involved in the latter project take a look at past failures because, for instance, a soda ban that limits soda sizes everywhere except the places where the majority of soda is purchased wouldn’t have much impact, even if the courts didn’t tear it down.

But it’s the apple that has our attention. Is a piece of fruit that can be picked from a tree and eaten straight not the pitch-perfect counterpoint to that bowl of Froot Loops? Count us puzzled, then, by a health-food movement that is not (at least, not yet) foregrounding support for food and farm programs that make it easier to grow and buy healthy food. Of all the pitches we’ve come across this week, it’s the ones for programs like SNAP Double Up Food Bucks andFreshRX that seem to make the most sense.

In short, why not support programs that shape what people can eat, too?