The cost of our cheapness

Last Friday, in a quest for a tortilla press (I was later informed that real Guatemalan women use their hands, not fancy gadgets, but since I’m Puerto Rican, tortillas do not run in my blood the way red beans and rice do, so I need a fancy gadget, so there) I trudged through the snow to the local kitchenware store.

Not too far into my jaunt, something struck me as rather odd. Though the snow on the sidewalk was too deep to detect any signs of said sidewalk- in some places I sunk down knee deep- the street was perfectly clear. The only other pedestrians I passed were those forced to brave the drifts to catch their bus.

Cars zoomed past as I clumsily negotiated the icy sludge. If there was ever a doubt that we cater to motorized vehicles over foot power, this illustration pulverized them.

But clearing the public sidewalks would take immense amounts of money, and we don’t even have a sufficient budget for plowing the streets. Yeah, I get that. We have to save money where we can. Other ways we choose to save money include:

1. Roads devoid of bike lanes. Even new roads in this city do not include a lane for bikes. After all, not that many people bicycle (maybe because they fear being sideswiped by rude, careless motorists?)

2. Highly processed food. Michael Pollan outlines in his book “Ominvore’s Dilemma” the attraction of the cheap crop of inedible corn that creeps into most of the processed food we consume. Sure the preponderance of high fructose corn syrup contributes to painful, debilitating diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and heart failure, that are killing Americans by the millions, but it’s cheap.

3. $0.79/lb chicken breast and $0.89/lb beef. Ever wonder how you could possibly raise a chicken or a cow for this measly amount of money? You don’t want to know. Really. But it’s already hard enough for struggling Americans to feed their families, especially in this economy. Most can’t afford to buy meat at the prices necessary for sustainable farming. But here’s a well guarded secret: we don’t actually need meat at every meal. We don’t even need it once a day. In fact, our over-meat consumption also contributes to the diseases listed above.

4. Education. Let’s look at American businesses. Those who want to excel and beat the competition attract the best and the brightest employees and managers through generous compensation and healthy working environments. Those businesses satisfied with substandard production and sinking revenue try to get as many work hours for the dollar as possible. Which business models do most of our public schools follow? (This is not a slam on teachers or administrators. The ones I know do the very best they can with the resources they’re allotted, sometimes with fantastic results, but some of the very best burn out before their time).

Are these over-generalizations? Perhaps. They were just the thoughts running through my head spurred on by frozen calves. But then I read this in this morning’s paper, about the ever escalating percentages of Americans with unhealthy diets, weights, and life-styles, despite the increasing amount spent on gyms, diets, and workout equipment. It’s not an individual by individual problem. It’s a massive social issue that requires massive social change.

Because our cheapness is costing us billions of dollars and millions of lives.