Critical Viewing Revisted

A few months ago (wow have we really been in school that long?), I posted a blog about my trip to Kenosha (can be seen here) and about the eating habits of lower income families. Today, I was on a mission to make cookies for my best friend's family for Hanukkah and I realized we had NOTHING in our house to make cookies with, so I ventured to the store. Unfortunately, my family only had cash accessible today, much like many American families, so I had to shop on a very strict budget. While in the store, I got baking soda on sale for 99 cents, chocolate chips for $3 and brown sugar for $2. I was pretty excited that I found so many things on sale that I needed, but then I got to the dairy section. We were desperately in need of butter, not just for my cooking, but for veggies and everyday stuff. I had $6 left in my pocket and looked over my choices. To my dismay, I couldn't afford any of the butters offered. I had no idea what I would do because I really wanted to make these cookies and I didn't want to come back from my trip empty handed, so I looked over the rest of the section to see if there was anything I could get. I then see the Imperial Margarine box on sale for 99 cents. For those of you who don't know, margarine is filled with trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils and was created to be a butter substitute (more info on the history of margarine here). Being somewhat health conscious, I knew that margarine is not the healthiest choice, but I really needed something to bake with so I compared it with butter nutrition wise and I posted my findings below!

On the left is butter and the right is margarine. Margarine has double the calories and 2g of trans fats. This is obviously a lot less healthy, yet on my visit to the store it was 1/6 of the cost of the butter. Ultimately I took the margarine, knowing that I would be able to buy butter tomorrow, but what about the families who don't have that option? I really realized how much food really costs and how a family could, by simply trying to provide their family with necessities like butter, could be forced to use unhealthy substitutes because they don't have the funds to spend $6.34 for 4 sticks of butter.