<p>None within 10 miles of where I grew up (but it’s a nice thing, if you can afford it.)</p>
<p>The Mayor does what he can, and I commend him for it. I just wish he could tax the sale so heavily that he could price the stuff out of the market.</p>
<p>"Let’s get back on topic.</p>
<p>BLOOMBERG…"</p>
<p>Bloomberg is Mayor of New York. Without understanding New York, it is hard to make a critique of Bloomberg’s actions.</p>
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<p>There never would have been a trans fat problem if nutrition policy “experts” hadn’t mistakenly promoted the use of margarine and crisco over the healthier products (butter, lard, etc.) that people had used for centuries. These idiots forced places like McDonalds to switch to trans fats only to discover that trans fats literally kill you.</p>
<p>This is precisely why we would be better off with less “help” from policy experts. As a society, we would be a lot healthier if we had never switched from butter and lard in the first place.</p>
<p>All the information is out there. It’s really not hard to eat healthy. I mean walking 5 blocks to get groceries is supposed to be hard? really? I can see where Bloomberg is coming from, with this micromanagement strategy to help the misinformed and clueless people from getting fat. But honestly, it’s a waste of tax dollars and everyone’s time. You might as well make transfat illegal in New York, or tax cable TV to make kids read more. It’s dumb.</p>
<p>He’ll appeal, of course.</p>
<p>And if they are doing the exact opposite thing in Mississippi one must know that Bloomberg’s law is a step in the right direction. </p>
<p><a href=“http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-news/2013/02/mississippi_lawmakers_say_no_t.html[/url]”>Mississippi lawmakers say no to local food regulation - gulflive.com;
<p>I loathe Michael Bloomberg due to my work on a specific issue. On this one, I couldn’t care less personally, but it does bother me that he is wasting so much of his time and attention on this when there are so many more pressing problems in NYC right now. </p>
<p>And as much as I just can’t stand the man, even I have to admit that Mr. Bloomberg brings a level of competence to the job that his successor, whomever she may be, will not.</p>
<p>I think Mike is getting a little old and has been in office a little too long. The soda thing is a definite slip. There are many, many, many things in NYC that should have been, could have been addressed before that. He hit on that because it looked like an easy hit, and it was a stupid thing to do. Wasted a lot of time, money, paperwork, other agencies’ attentions and hurt some of the smaller businesses. </p>
<p>In the meantime, the air quality and resources at a lot of the city schools are deplorable, do not meet standards and are left that way because no one wants to fight for the money to make the necessary changes. I was at a city school right after Sandy where they were housing those with no place else to go, and there is no way they could have children go back there in the shape it was after that was done, any time soon. The transportation for the kids is abysmal for going to school, and don’t even get me started about handicap access in NYC. Flagrantly in violation of ADA regs, and they just pay the fines, and won’t even incorporate them in future plans. Try to maneuver a wheel chair with the subway. Shame, shame on him for focusing and putting so much focus on soda size. </p>
<p>What’s scary is when one wonders who will do the job better. For all of my criticisms, he and Giuliani got a lot of things done, unlike some mayors who may have some ideals that were up there, but couldn’t pull it off. You have to have ice in your veins for that job. And things are not looking so good right now. I saw more homeless sleeping on the sidewalk this weekend than I have in the last 10 years. Not a good sign.</p>
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I remember we had this conversation not too long ago and I told you I was seeing this, as well. This is definitely getting worse and crime is up in many places.</p>
<p>On a purely personal note, it has been very surprising to me to see how completely disengaged the Mayor has been with regard to the hurricane Sandy relief efforts. I commend Governor Cuomo, but I think the mayor shouldn’t have been quite so hands off. The people of the Rockaways agree, apparently, because he was resoundingly booed at their recent parade. The Staten Island St. Patrick’s day parade is coming up next week and I think Mr. Bloomberg will not be well received.</p>
<p>It’s a tough life being poor anywhere, and in NYC, there are a lot of resources nearby. You can walk just about everywhere to anything,(and get your exercise that way too!) It all comes down to having family and helpmates when you don’t have the resources yourself. </p>
<p>My DH comes from a small town in a rural area that is a depressed down with a lot of people under and around poverty level. We have family members there who are having a tough time, and they do rely on their family and people they know. The problem being there is that there are limited resources for any and every body, including the needy, and you gotta have access to wheels as everything is spread out. The library hours are now severely limited and there is only the one library within 20 something miles. The options are limited. So it’s a tough go there, and it’s not safe in a lot of areas there either. There are kids who graduated from high school years ago and they haven’t found jobs. No transportation is a problem, plus no jobs in the area, and no one has money to give out for odd jobs. They are truly flat broke. If you get stuck there, getting anywhere is almost impossible. I just finally got a nephew into the Pittsburgh job corp, and things have really changed for him, just because he can get around to places there on his own. He was literally a shut in at his house as there was one car and dad took it to work all day. And NYC has far more opportunities abound, one can see them walking down the street. </p>
<p>I have a son who lives hand to mouth in Manhattan in cheap digs, at a price hard to believe is NYC cost. He finds jobs here and there, enough to make a go of it at a few bucks over minimum wage Found something right now that pays reasonably well and lets him make his own hours. The opportunities are everywhere to bus tables, clean toilets, sweep sidewalks, be a sales clerk, hawk ticket and flyers, Getting free food when you get to know where the soup kitchens, free sandwiches, group meals , college buffets for welcoming tour group (yes, he does), is easily available. He is able to be independent there whereas the instant he comes home, he needs rides to get anywhere. </p>
<p>So thought NYC does have a lot of poverty, it is also teeming with opportunities and give aways for those who seek them.</p>
<p>I remember, Zoosermom. At that time, I had not seen so much of this. I walked from Grand Central to Carnegie Hall Friday night and back again, and there were at least a half dozen bodies that I had to walk around, and I did not even go underground where I presume there would be more as there is more shelter from the elements (though the MTA police might clear them out). That was a big jump from previous forays into the city. </p>
<p>We are at capacity level at our local soup kitchen, and have run out of food a number of times and those who we could not accommodate inside, had to eat outside in the cold. I opened the food pantry outside of hours and distributed whole wheat bread and small peanut butter and jelly packs to those who did not get a meal, and am looking to get more of them. We usually have a surplus of whole wheat bread, and with some give away butter packs, Peantu butter and jelly, they can make a meal. But it has come down to this, which is scary. In my 12 years working there, we have had only a few overflow days, and now this has happened a number of times this month alone. I’m also going to be making sandwich packs for those who can’t be accommodated for the meal.</p>
<p>Cpt, in the area where I work there has been a bunch of construction lately, and the homeless have made camps underneath the scaffolding. They’ve been there for a while and are pretty well dug in.</p>
<p>The literacy program I work with also has a food pantry and soup kitchen. They are pretty well maxed out, also. Much of that is due to Sandy, though, because so many people are still displaced and so many businesses haven’t yet opened. Staten Island isn’t a walkable borough, so people without cars are not able to cover large distances to get to grocery stores in the areas where they haven’t reopened.</p>
<p>My church has a community garden from which the food grown is either delivered to the soup kitchen or poor people can utilize a plot to grow their own produce. Of course, it’s not year round, but every little bit helps.</p>
<p>You make excellent points, of course. The Mayor is fixating on soda when there is so much real suffering in the area and large parts of the City are still devastated by the storm. I wonder about his priorities, and I seem to recall other elected officials being held very much accountable after other storms in a way that this mayor has not been. Also, crime is up and other quality of life measures are slipping. I think this mayor will not leave the City better than he found it.</p>
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<p>You can get a rice cooker in Chinatown and use that. It does take time to cook it but you don’t have to spend time attending to it.</p>
<p>There’s also oatmeal. During the week I have a cup of oatmeal for the day and then have more food in the evening (have been trying to keep the calories down around 1,200). Oatmeal takes less time to cook than rice, lentils and beans but I think that it’s more expensive per calorie.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that a soda makes you feel full outside of the carbonation that goes away in a short period of time. One of the problems with sugar is that it adds calories without making you feel full.</p>
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<p>Do they have something comparable to the old Haymarket Square in Boston?</p>
<p>[Haymarket</a> Square (Boston) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_Square_(Boston)]Haymarket”>Haymarket Square (Boston) - Wikipedia)</p>
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<p>Some unsolicited advice here. 1200 calories is way too low for a male (and for an active female). You are actually ruining your metabolism. This is what I did to mine and it’s taken me years to make it burn fat again.</p>
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<p>Sorry, a bit off topic, but: What does kids “facing hunger” mean? H and I had this conversation after hearing something about a “hunger” statistic, and we both noted that growing up, we constantly felt STARVING. Neither of us were from poor families, and we were both thin kids.</p>
<p>[Mayor</a> vows to press on after NYC soda rule nixed - Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mayor-vows-press-nyc-soda-064249677.html]Mayor”>Mayor vows to press on after NYC soda rule nixed)</p>
<p>He is not done yet. What is worse than a fool? A stubborn fool.</p>
<p>In NYC, there are school breakfasts and lunches every day, including in the summer, and in many poor schools there is dinner, as well. Not all offer dinner, of course, not by a long shot, but many do.</p>
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<p>I think what mini is trying to say that these families do not have anything in refrigerator or cub-boards and there is absolutely nothing to eat because of lack of money. I am not sure how true it is.</p>
<p>When I was (much) younger, my family was poverty level and we always had food. We had a horrible apartment with rats (no dishwasher, no central air) and all our stuff was second-hand, but we never had a problem with food. Except, we did not have money for fast food and we never bought processed food. All our food was prepared from scratch and we were not fat.</p>
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<p>In order for kids get that food, they need to get to school. How is attendance in those schools?</p>
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<p>It’s in combination with a low-carb diet and running four miles a day. Perhaps you should take a look at the hierarchy of fat loss.</p>
<p>There were times when we didn’t have food at home. My mother considered calling social services and putting us up for adoption. We went without meals from time to time and we were all pretty skinny too.</p>
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<p>I did. long time ago. I ruined my metabolism long time ago. It is fine now. I eat low carb and do either strength training or cardio (almost) every day, so I am pretty fit. As I said: UNSOLICITED advice :).</p>