This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 16, 2011 - Ruby Payne, an educational consultant based in Texas, has touched off a lively debate by suggesting that social class plays a big role in attitudes about food. She says the poor generally value food for its quantity, while the middle class place more emphasis on quality, and the upper class on the way a meal is presented.
Her views are part of her larger theory that people make choices based on their values and resources. Because the poor face more day-to-day survival issues and tend to have fewer resources, they are more likely than others to overload their plates and have less concern about nutrition.
"When you are middle class, you have stability and resources," Payne says, "you know where you're going to sleep tonight. When you think about food, you have time to focus on whether you like it, whether it's good for you. And if you're wealthy, you can be a lot pickier and have more time to spend on presentation."
Her company -- called aha! Process Inc. -- focuses on helping the haves understand the behavior of the have-nots, learn to work with others across economic classes, and improve student achievement. In seminars for school districts, corporations and other groups, Payne's message is that the resources issue has a big effect on disadvantaged school children. Many of them tend to behave badly and perform poorly, she argues, because they, like their parents, have yet to tap into resources, the "hidden rules" that define middle class behavior. These behaviors can surface at the dinner table, in relationships, in the things they value, in their view of the world, and in the way they think about and solve problems and conflicts.
Initially, many people nod in agreement with Payne, but others take exception to some of her views.
Gardening Cuts Across Lines
"A lot of factors influence your ability to consume a highly nutritious diet other than strictly class," says Gwenne Hayes-Stewart, executive director of Gateway Greening, the group behind the wave of community gardens cropping up across St. Louis. In her own middle-class upbringing, she says, "often convenience trumped nutrition -- how quickly can we put this on the table because people are busy."
In other instances, she says, people may not eat certain foods because of unfamiliarity. "You may not know the difference between a zucchini and a cucumber, which one do I cook and which one is raw. But I think it's based more on income than class. If you're a person with a modest income, you tend to purchase food based on how many calories a dollar will buy. If you're paying $2.50 a pound for fresh veggies and you have a $1.50 pound budget, the veggies simply are not going to be on your plate."
Then she smiles and adds, "Unless you grow it yourself." That brings her to the group's goal of encouraging people to turn to gardening. She says the issue isn't so much about class or putting delicacies on the plate, but about stretching food dollars for basic, nutritious foods. As an example she cites a green pepper that might "cost you a buck and 50." It makes sense, she says, to plant a seed that grows 20 green peppers on one plant "that costs less than a hundredth of a cent. It's the right thing to do."
Like a harbinger of spring, a Gateway Greening crew showed up last Saturday morning working the group's garden at 3871 Bell Ave. Some members tilled the rich black soil inside oblong, wood-enclosed planters while others dropped seeds for snow peas, sugar snaps and other vegetables into the ground.
"People come here and attend workshops to see how certain types of vegetables are grown," says the group's program director, Mara Higdon. She explains that some St. Louisans, including poor people facing serious food shortages, are clueless about planting, harvesting and cooking their own fresh foods.
"They don't have the skills or education to do it or they don't have enough land in their backyards to grow it," says Higdon. She says the scene Saturday morning reminded her of Peace Corps days in Bulgaria, where she says people routinely grow their own food.
She also downplays class, saying the issue of food choices isn't limited to any single group and that people from all incomes come to Gateway Greening for help. "It shows that people of all classes want to grow their own food."
One area where class might come into play, Hayes-Stewart suggests, is in the fact that some people might create health problems in the way they prepare foods.
"When it comes to health, preparing those foods in a traditional method may not be the best, so we try to teach people to be careful about the things that they add to healthy fresh food," she says. The group encourages consumers to ask whether it's necessary to add "salt, sugar and fat to things that are wonderful and healthy for you in the first place."
You Are What You Eat
A different take on the class and food-choices issue comes from Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Obesity Research at the University of Washington. He says certain food choices are "unmistakable markers" or distinctions of social class. Examples where class comes into play, he says, include consumer choices of "whole fruit versus fruit juices, or worse, fruit drinks; potatoes versus mesclun salad greens; frankfurters versus prosciutto; canned tuna versus fresh seafood; and French fries versus salad greens."
He adds, "The obsession with fresh, local, intact, minimally processed (food) sets the person apart from someone who would eat anything that is frozen, canned or preserved."
Drewnowski finds it ironic that federal food assistance emphasizes whole fruit, fresh vegetables and other nutritious foods in an apparent "attempt to get lower-income people without the money to behave more like middle class."
Speaking of food and social class, Drewnowski was asked about a "no kidding" item on the Missouri Dietetic Association's website calling attention to the millions of snails consumed by the French each year. He says Missourians shouldn't be led to believe that snails are a must-have delicacy.
The interesting thing, he says in an email, is that "in France, snails were actually pests that destroyed vineyards so that snail cookery originated in the bistros in the Bourgogne region of France (now the snails are imported from Eastern Europe). So that snails were never really upscale -- more like fried locusts elsewhere."
He was asked about "in" items among the class conscious in this country.
"For an American 'aspirational' obsession," he replied, "I would say Starbucks and sushi."
Funding for the Beacon's health reporting is provided in part by the Missouri Foundation for Health, a philanthropic organization that aims to improve the health of the people in the communities it serves.
