Long Live Film

I miss film cameras. Every shot matters when you only have 24 pictures in a roll. I miss the complexity involved in threading the film and the thrill of picking up the developed photos at the drug store. It was like opening up a present you made yourself, a surprise present none the less. You had no idea which shots would turn out and which wouldn’t, that made it fun, and sometimes disappointing.

These days I can cram a thousand crappy shots on my iPhone without missing a beat. The Cannon SLR can blow through 15 shots in a matter of seconds. I now have hard drives, online storage, multiple CDs and DVDs loaded with memories, but they don’t seem to mean as much. These days you take a picture and you store it. No one goes through a thousand pictures on a trip down memory lane. Isn’t that sad? When I only had 24 shots, I thought long and hard about each one before I clicked the shutter, I cared about every single picture in a way that is lost in this digital age ours.

Things change and I totally get that, but I think there should be room made for the things that require patience and forethought. Our children are growing up in a world on-demand; don’t you think that’s sort of sad?

Nothing is Going to Be the End of Everything

I’m beginning to believe that “nothing” is going to ruin us.

Sure there are big companies selling poisonous products and factory farms cranking out hormone pumped, antibiotic laden meats. Sure we have insurance companies who refuse to insure us and doctors who seem to care less about our health. Don’t even get me started on how the government seems to be unperturbed by the power of mega industries like big tobacco and giant corporations like Monsanto. But these days apathy is the true threat, because without apathy none of these things could exist. We can choose to do something, or we can choose to do nothing at all. More and more doing “nothing at all” seems to be the winner. It's so much easier to do nothing than it is to do anything. Nothing is going be the end of everything.

Can Low-income Families Afford to Eat Healthy Whole Food?

By Shawn Swanson

One dollar can buy 1,200 calories of potato chips, or 875 calories of soda, but only 170 calories of fresh fruit (Walsh, B, 2009). Webster’s dictionary defines whole food as “a natural food and especially an unprocessed one (as a vegetable or fruit)” The keywords to note are “natural” and “unprocessed”, but the term healthy also springs to mind. Low-income Americans are faced with a dilemma when it comes to food. Can low-income families afford to eat healthy whole food? It is a difficult question to answer due in part to the fact that the United States is a large and diverse country, and each community has its own unique obstacles. Many low-income families are inclined to believe that they have no other choice because it is cheaper to buy a McDonald’s cheeseburger than it is to cook a healthy meal. But is it really cheaper? Cost can be measured in many different terms. The cost of a bag of potato chips may be less expensive monetarily than a cup of fruit but the price difference is paid in terms of health. The United States is considered the most obese and unhealthy nation on earth. In the 20th annual survey of the health of all 50 states, undertaken by the nonprofit group “America's Health Rankings” it was reported that “while smoking has been the greatest challenge of the past 20 years, it will soon be overtaken by obesity.” ( Arnst, C, 2009) The nation is standing on the precipice. The question is not “Can Americans afford to eat healthy”, it is instead “Can they afford not to?”

Is it less expensive to eat at McDonald's?

The argument has been made that it is less expensive to eat at McDonald’s with its $0.99 cheeseburgers than it is to cook at home. This logic is called “subjective notion of affordability”, which basically means that it is assumed that buying a $0.99 cheeseburger is less expensive than making one fresh. Often this type of logic is used to describe produce. Many Americans perceive produce to be more expensive than, for instance, processed cheese. Although this perception is inaccurate the outcome is that these individuals avoid the whole-food section of the grocery store and head straight for the processed junk food.

Junk-food is not cheaper than whole-food, and the McDonald’s $0.99 double cheeseburger is the perfect example. The double cheeseburger at McDonald’s contains 3.2 ounces of “100 percent USDA-inspected beef”, 2 slices of processed American cheese, 1 hamburger style bun, 2 pickle slices, 1/2 ounce of chopped onion, ketchup and of course some mustard (McDonalds, 2010). In order to purchase the ingredients to make a McDonald’s style double cheeseburger, the first challenge will be to find meat of equal quality. This becomes an obstacle considering McDonald’s hamburger patties contain nearly 35 percent fat. In fact they are so high in fat and sodium that most grocery stores do not carry a facsimile. For this demonstration the low quality, high fat beef will be replaced with 80% Lean Ground Beef Steakhouse Patties with no more than 20% Fat. 3.2 ounces of 80/20 beef totals a whopping $0.25. Two slices of processed American cheese ring up for $0.35. A single bun costs $0.30. The burger is topped with pickles, onion, ketchup and mustard altogether totaling about $0.10(Prices are from recent Vons ad, 2010). The grand total for a homemade double cheeseburger is $1.00.Fast food is not cheaper, or healthier than home cooked food, but it is more convenient.

Food Deserts