Inequality: A Glimpse In The Food Market

The world food market with its amazing supermarkets, alluring discounters, magnificent hypermarkets, convenience stores, small food stalls, neutraceuticals that mix nutrients and medicine, monstrous agribusinesses, small-scale farms and cooperatives, whole sellers, retailers, hoarders, black marketers, speculators, big “organic” food business, future markets spreading over the entire world bears all the ills capital produces. The market conceives all the contradictions capitalism is capable of creating. Inequality is a part of it.

Market, it should be mentioned, with all its tentacles stands opposed to democracy. Food market is no exception. “[T]he guiding principles of the market economy and democracy” … “often contradict one another and are more likely to go head-to-head than hand in hand”, says Jacques Attali, a world famous banker and diplomat, in his “The Crash of Western Civilization: The Limits of the Market and Democracy”. (Foreign Policy, Number 107, Summer 1997) Attali writes: “[T]he market economy and democracy … are more likely to undermine than support one another. … The market economy accepts and fosters strong inequalities between economic agents, whereas democracy is based on the equal rights of all citizens. By depriving some people of the ability to meet their basic economic needs, the market economy also leaves them less able to exercise their full political rights.” (ibid.)

However, democracy is an integral part of struggle against inequality. The autocracy of market ruins people’s lives as market is one of the domains of capital, which is always active for maximization of profit. The global food market doesn’t go beyond this.

Consumers, billions in number, are there at the one end of the world food market while the other end touches the environment and ecology, the producers of raw materials, the labor-power that produces commodities for the market. Over the arch, sits political arrangement for safeguarding the interests with its power of legislation and execution. In the entire kingdom, from one end to the other, people pay high prices as deceived producers fallen prey to the power of market, as victims of demolished environment and pilfered ecology, as labor whose labor-power is being appropriated, as poor consumers deceitfully connected to commodities sold in the market, as people’s brains are manipulated with a vast propaganda machine.

Inequality increases in the reality as a class owns the temple, the entire food market, while billions of people languish under the Lord’s Table, the profit. Activities of related capital are an area to find the “game” of inequality that starkly show limitless power and domains, and, at the same time, limits of the interests that dominate the area: it can harm limitlessly, but it can’t deliver wellbeing to the people. It also shows limits imposed on people that hinder their access to better food.

Capital creates opportunities to increase profit. Obesity, as example, is such a case of opportunity. “Drug companies had attempted to capitalise on obesity, but their fingers got burnt. Still, there was a winner: the food industry. By creating diet lines for the larger market of the slightly overweight, not just the clinically obese, it had hit on an apparently limitless pot of gold.” (Jacques Peretti, “Fat profits: how the food industry cashed in on obesity”, The Guardian, August 7, 2013) Ordinary persons can’t access the “pot of gold”.

Big food companies armed with elusive marketing mechanism are selling candies, cereals, chocolate milk, infant formula, yogurts, etc. that reach all corners of the world. “Many unhealthy products are very profitable. … Many firms … [are] continuing to hawk unhealthy products yet also touting elaborate plans to improve nutrition.” (The Economist, “Food companies play an ambivalent part in the fight against flab”, December 15, 2012)

To increase profit, the food market compels consumers to pay more, and consumers are made loyal to brands. And, it’s the commoners that is allured and compelled to consume tasty but unhealthy food. The profit fattens the owning class while the commoners pay, and the inequality-story survives. Products with health claims are being introduced by the power of big money advertisement: chewing gum with vitamins B6 and B12, whole grains and protein filled cereals, etc. (Jeffrey Cohen, “Food Industries’ Healthy Margins”, May 23, 2013, IBIDWorld, Media Center) Ordinary consumers, masses of people, buy, and they pay, and the inequality increases with draining out of their money, with their hurt health.

“Over the past decade sales of packaged foods around the world have jumped by 92%, to $2.2 trillion this year … In Brazil, China and Russia sales are three to four times their level in 2002. … Sales of soft drinks across the world have more than doubled in the past decade, to $532 billion; in India, Brazil and China sales of fizzy drinks have more than quadrupled.” (The Economist, op. cit.)

“These impressive sales figures look set to rise further” with new buying of companies, new products for local markets, competition for domination of the global market, investment in emerging markets, and wider spread into developing markets. “McDonald’s is now in 119 countries. Yum! Brands, owner of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, derives 60% of its profit from the developing world, and there is plenty of growth potential left. Yum!’s chief executive, David Novak, explains that the company has 58 restaurants for every 1m Americans, compared with just two restaurants for every 1m people in emerging markets.” (ibid.) Sarah Murray, Financial Times contributor and author of Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat informs: “[B]ig retailers such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour have been building more supermarkets around the world.” (“The World’s Biggest Industry”, Forbes, November 15, 2007) Citing FAO Sarah Murray writes: “Between 1980 and 2001, the five largest global supermarket chains (all of them based in Europe or the US) each expanded the number of countries in which they operate by at least 270%”. (ibid.)

A look at the impressive geographic expansion of the market tells its lucrative nature. Ordinary consumers form most of the market, labor provides the surplus value, and people languish in hunger. The face of inequality turns “bright”.

Sales of fast-food are increasing although the food is not helpful for health. Market, claimed as free, is manipulated – deregulated or kept under control or segmented – by mongers of free market as part of competition. Roberto De Vogli, Anne Kouvonen & David Gimeno looked into fast-food sales in 25 high-income countries from 1999 to 2008. Per-capita purchases increased in all these countries during the period. (“The influence of market deregulation on fast food consumption and body mass index: a cross-national time series analysis”, Bull World Health Organ, 2014; 92:99 – 107A)

With connections, the food market is wide as the world, and the market has wide connections – from government to legislative assemblies, from small producers to big hoarders, from media managers to uninformed consumers, and many others – that apparently appear contradictory but, is fully in accordance with the character of capital.

“Global food retail sales are about $4 trillion annually … Most of the leading global retailers are US and European firms …. The top 15 global supermarket companies account for more than 30 percent of world supermarket sales. …Together, the top 50 food manufacturers’ share of global packaged food retail sales account for less than 20 percent.” (US Department of Agriculture, Global Food Industry, last updated: May 31, 2012)

At the end of 2012, the global food market was valued at US$4.2 trillion, of which fresh food and agricultural produce accounted for 52.6% and packaged foods had the rest. During the five-year period leading up to 2012, the food sector expanded at a compound annual growth rate of 3.7% (by value), from US$3.7 trillion. The global market is expected to record a compound annual growth rate of 4.4% between 2012 and 2017, and will reach US$5.3 trillion by the end of this period. (Pegasus Agritech)

In 2013, the US fast food industry generated approximately US$191 billion. More than three and a half million workers were employed with over 232 thousand fast food establishments in the US in 2013. With a brand value of almost US$86 billion, McDonald’s was by far the most valuable fast food brand in the world in 2014. Its closest competitor was Starbucks with US$60 billion. In 2013, McDonald’s was also the largest fast food company in terms of revenue. It was followed by sandwich chain Subway and Yum! Brands. (Statista, “Statistics and facts about the Fast Food Industry”)

A market difficult to grasp

Despite huge data the worldwide food market is difficult to grasp. It’s simply difficult to take an account in monetary term. By using the example of a noodle stall Sarah Murray presented the difficulty in the following way:

“The noodle stall is one of the reasons analysts get jumpy when asked to quantify the size of the global food industry.… Like the peas on your plate, financial figures for food are notoriously hard to capture.” (op. cit.)

In the market, there is any food, packaged food, food made in homes, and food sold in street shops, many of which go beyond account. There is food not sold in shops but the poor scavenge in urban centers/collect in rural areas in their fight against hunger. There is the task of defining processed food, packaged food, etc.

“Euromonitor International”, Sarah Murray writes in the article mentioned above, “reckons the packaged food industry – including everything from pasta and cooking oil to canned and frozen foods – is worth almost $1.6 trillion. Meanwhile, the World Bank puts the food and agriculture sector at 10% of global gross domestic product, which, taking the bank’s 2006 estimate of about $48 trillion, would make the sector worth about $4.8 trillion.”

It’s admitted: “Food … is a confusing commodity, and our noodle seller’s soup illustrates why. His wontons are made from shrimp, part of the global seafood market, which the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says is worth more than $400 billion. That’s simple enough. But the shrimp are covered in a wrapper whose primary ingredient is flour, which could be measured as a commodity or in its milled form. And is the dish they are in soup or noodles? Euromonitor says the market for soup is worth $12.9 billion, and the market for noodles, measured separately, worth $27.2 billion. The trouble is, food is a commodity, an ingredient, and a meal, and its value can be measured at every stage along that chain. ‘If you look at it as the output from the farm sector, it’s sold and processed, and sold again,’ says Mark Gehlhar, a senior economist at the US Department of Agriculture. ‘Then you have flour being produced and dough being produced. So you can easily double count.’ Of course, you could also lump our noodle soup seller’s business in with the restaurant trade. Euromonitor puts the global consumer food-service business – everything from cafés and fast-food chains to full-service restaurants – at $1.85 trillion. But with many restaurants operating on a cash basis, even in the US, the true value of this industry is hard to pin down. In fact, a huge amount of food is bought and sold informally. ‘When you talk about the food industry, the first thing people think of is Coca-Cola or Starbucks,’ says Florence Egal, a nutrition specialist at the FAO. ‘But of course, women’s groups in Mexico transforming maize into tortillas and sending them from house to house would also be part of the food industry.’ Despite these difficulties in measuring the absolute size of the food business, nearly everyone agrees: The sector is growing at an astonishing pace.’” (Sarah Murray, op. cit.) Intricacies, manipulations and informal type of market activities in the periphery, and unreliable data there also make the market difficult to comprehend. These have relations and implications that impact consumers. These are factors impacting inequality.

Global Pet Food Market

There is another global food market many of the poor and self-contained middle class are unaware of: the pet food market with billions of dollars. A comparison between the global pet food market and the food market the world poor fall victim to help comprehend the inequality the poor are imposed with.

The global pet food market was worth US$58.6 billion in 2011. It’s expected to reach the value of US$74.8 billion in 2017. It’s expected that North America will remain the largest regional segment for the pet food industry in terms of revenue generation, accounting for around 40% of the total revenue. The North America pet food market valued at US$21.7 billion in 2011 was followed by the Europe market. (Transparency Market Research, “Pet Food Market – Global Industry Size, Market Share, Trends, Analysis and Forecast, 2011 – 2017”, April 15, 2013)

It’s, in one sense, indecent, unjust and crude to make a comparison between pet food market and human food market as human is not equivalent to pet. But the global capital compels to resort to such a comparison as capital compares everything in market, and as capital has degraded human existence below all characteristics of humane, and, as, in real terms, human has been made a commodity sold in the global labor market. To the rich, human is less valuable than the pet of the rich. The rich love their pets, but there’s is only brutality the rich keep accumulated for the poor. An enquiry at some peripheral society will find the level of brutality: the amount of money a peripheral rich, a lumpen rich in a peripheral society, spends daily for a pair of pet’s food is much higher than 5 poor living in peripheral slums or villages, slums or villages in the periphery of the world system. Sometimes, the amount of money allotted for a pair of pets reaches to Taka 500-700 daily. Even, the poor are not aware of this “love” as a lot of information essential to them doesn’t reach them.

Poor doesn’t own drone

Inequality in food and health doesn’t come to sight with its full “bloom” if food market is not divided into the food market of the poor and the food market of the rich. There are two food markets: one for the poor with rotten or near-rotten, toxic or semi-toxic, engineered or adulterated “food”, and another catering to the hunger of the rich. Sources of commodities sold in the two markets, color, tastes and prices of the commodities, purchasing capacity of the consumers in the two markets, labor-power spent for producing the two types of commodities, sales trend, environment footprint made for producing the two types of commodities for the two markets are different. The account is difficult to get hold of. However, inquiry in societies gives the picture that can make the poor aware of inequality.

Even the two food markets in advanced capitalist societies and in the poor southern hemisphere are different. In the poor periphery of the world system, the food inequality-picture with two markets turns vulgar and appears a cartoon as one encounters food-luxury and food-wastages enjoyed by the nouveaux-riches of poor societies. Making food wastages are part of the luxury the rich enjoy as it shows their opulence and power. They are not embarrassed, not shy, not with any guilty feeling for their dirty luxury. They are confident with their control of mass-psyche, with their manipulation power with information, and manipulation of awareness at the level of ordinary mass of consumers, with their capacity of scaling down of mass hatred to improper and unjust luxury of the rich, with the ideologies marketed that ignore or blur the question of inequality, that doesn’t vigorously and consistently raise the issue of inequality, that doesn’t question source of inequality.

A barbaric character of the inequality surfaces if one compares the market of luxury commodities the rich consume and the market of the food the poor are to survive on. Prices of villas, ranches, yachts, perfumes and diamonds the world rich class owns is now a known fact. Even the rich don’t feel ashamed with their scandalous properties. Now, the rich use drone for getting delivery of champagne. The poor can’t get hold of a drone for getting delivery of food essential for their survival, not even they can imagine or dream it. The time in the life of the poor seems immobile and ever-hungry. Isn’t this a part of inequality? Isn’t inequality bright as daylight?

So, only weighing food consumed and only looking at quality of food being consumed will not provide a full reality of food inequality. It should be related and compared with other parts of economy, with the way and amount/quantity the rich consume, indulge with, waste, destroy and pilfer. The comparison leads the inequality issue to the issue of deprivation of the masses of the poor.

Inequality in the food market turns cruel if a comparison is made between the amount/quantity the poor, the toilers produce and the amount/quantity they are handed over, the labor-power appropriated from them and the food thrown out to them. A look into profit and monopoly superprofit in the food industry helps understand the amount the toilers produce as profit is a converted form of surplus value. “[I]n its assumed capacity of offspring of the aggregate advanced capital,” Marx writes, “surplus-value takes the converted form of profit.” (Capital, vol. III) And, monopoly superprofit grows out of monopolies concentrating money capital, minerals and natural resources, means of transportation/communication, discoveries and inventions, marketing, decisive quantity of the means of production. “[M]onopoly”, writes Lenin, “yields superprofits, i.e., a surplus of profits over and above the capitalist profits that are normal and customary all over the world.” (“Imperialism and the split in socialism”)

Today’s world food market is controlled by monopolies making superprofits, and, the monopolies, borrowing from Lenin’s above mentioned essay, “‘ride on the backs’ of hundreds and hundreds of millions of people in other countries.” The food market thus bears the contradictions: superprofits/monopolies versus billions of people, monopolies versus countries ravaged by monopolies, monopolies versus local producers.

A butchers’ market

The food market is used as a weapon of war against societies trying to live with honor, trying to get out of the chain of the world capitalist system. Even, energy market is manipulated to manipulate the global food market. These turn the food market a butchers’ market. Imposed economic sanction/embargo/blockade by the world imperialism is the example; Cuba, Iraq under Saddam-rule are the examples. Dumping of food commodities including sugar is the example. These steps not only increase inequality, but also bring deaths, even “award” deaths of children although the children have no role in geopolitics. A glimpse doesn’t miss this “beauty” of the food market, a creation of imperialism, although mainstream prefers not to consider it while discussing inequality.

Inequality: Capitalism’s Inefficiency With Food

Robbing better food is enough to deprive a people of its life and intellect. The arrangement of inequality that capitalism imposes deprives the majority, the members of “low-status households”. They are not allowed, the arrangement is so made, to afford better food.

With this arrangement, capitalism, on the one hand, is depriving humanity of food and health, and, on the other, is increasing its profit. More than one aspect is there in the business of food and health inequality capitalism engages with.

Aspect 1: Capitalism increases its profit by marketing “attractive” food, which is harmful for health. Capital finds there are cheaper foods that are not helpful to the health of labor, but helpful to profit. Reports on marketing expenditures and profit from food and health industries support the assertion. “[T]here is strong marketing from certain food companies which encourage less nutritious food.” (The Guardian, Guardian Professional, “Public health dialogue on policy: food and inequality”, February 20, 2013)

Aspect 2: Capital compels labor to resort to cheaper food as labor’s first priority is payment of, already cited studies have found, rent, interest, utilities, etc. By marketing cheaper food capital ensures payment of interest, etc. by labor. By paying interest, rent, etc. labor gives away a part of money it was paid as necessary for reproduction of capital. “Why are people eating less healthily? Large portions of the country can’t afford to eat well. Income is not rising fast enough to keep up with other costs (e.g. rent, electric bills, etc). There is less time available to prepare food. Time constraints force people to go for ready meals.” (ibid.) Capital, thus, doesn’t turn a loser immediately.

Aspect 3: Capitalism can resort to food harmful for labor as there is a large reserve army of labor. Disease, disability and death are asked by capital to prefer the poor. Capital can hire one worker at cheaper rate if its one fat worker can’t move its muscles and brain with speed, if its one worker falls sick. It’s a show of capital’s brutal face. Capitalist crisis booms the business of increasing the reserve army of labor and exploiting the situation. With wide health inequalities the poor are more likely to develop serious illnesses, they increasingly encounter psychological problems, and die earlier than the rich. Suicide rate among the poor also increases as they face crisis. Reports from advanced capitalist countries present evidences.

Aspect 4: The capitalist food inequality and health crisis sends some money to the health industry. A portion of the poor has to resort, within capacity, and sometimes, reaching the last limit of capacity like selling away whatever the poor have, to the “mercifully” costly health industry: costly medicine, prescription made with manipulated/bribed hands, costly, and in a number of societies, more medical tests are conducted than required, costly hospital fees. It’s the poor that pay with their unfortunate life.
Capital thus, the aspects mentioned above show, weakens labor but doesn’t weaken itself immediately. But, there is an opposite aspect that shows in the long-term capital gets hurt.

Aspect 5: Labor’s consumption of food is essential for capital. “[T]he individual consumption of the working-class is,” Marx writes, “therefore, the reconversion of the means of subsistence given by capital in exchange for labour-power, into fresh labour-power at the disposal of capital for exploitation. It is the production and reproduction of that means of production so indispensable to the capitalist: the labourer himself. The individual consumption of the labourer, whether it proceed within the workshop or outside it, whether it be part of the process of production or not, forms therefore a factor of the production and reproduction of capital; just as cleaning machinery does, whether it be done while the machinery is working or while it is standing. The fact that the labourer consumes his means of subsistence for his own purposes, and not to please the capitalist, has no bearing on the matter. … The maintenance and reproduction of the working-class is, and must ever be, a necessary condition to the reproduction of capital.” (Capital, vol. I) Capitalism, thus, hurts its interest by hurting health of people as the system requires labor able to drive its machine. But the food it provides doesn’t help body to drive the system’s machines.

Moreover, there are sickness related to workplace that harm the working people, not the property-owning class as the property owners don’t have to stay daily in harmful working condition through a long period of time. In the US, there are estimates that “50,000 people die and another 400,000 are sickened each year because of illnesses contracted in the workplace.” (The US Department of Labor, (Work in Progress), the official blog of the US Department of Labor, “The Journey to Safety Excellence Starts With You”, Deborah Hersman, October 27, 2014)] Can an economy ignore the cited figure even if the following figure is ignored: In the US, “in recent years, nearly 11 workers died on the job each day, and 5 million were injured annually.” (ibid.) “Food” related death in societies/countries in the periphery mainly is unaccounted. Data on deaths from hunger are available. It’s impossible even to imagine hunger related death from the propertied class. Hunger related death puts its “loving” touch only on the poor. Isn’t it an evidence of inequality?

There is claim: “People are an employer’s most important asset.” (ibid.) Moreover, none disagrees: Better food contributes to national economy.

But a large portion of population in countries can’t afford better food, and they suffer with ill health. These harm economy, which is not helpful to capital. Capitalism is carrying on its curse in the area of food and health although it requires healthy subjects to ensure running of its machine of profit. Capital requires health “to encourage workers to stay in the labor force and boost their skills, and to make them more attractive for companies to hire.” Measures to “stay in the workforce”, “boost skills” and making labor “attractive” to companies are required for reproduction of capital. But, it’s failing in its goal, which is an inefficiency of the system. Thus, it can be said by copying Marx, the depriver is deprived.

The entire capitalist food and health inequality business with contradictory aspects shows the system’s inefficiency in (1) allocation of resources; (2) use of labor; (3) balancing economic activity; (4) ensuring self-interest; (5) proper handling of contradictions within the system. It, thus, nullifies its logic for its existence although its proponents stand for it.

And, the inefficiency/failure is being found in the advanced, matured capitalist economies, which are overflowing with resources, and are equipped with knowledge and experience of management. Moreover, these countries have the so-called free press, an essential tool, as at least one renowned economist claimed, for fighting out hunger. Now, there is, once again being found, famine of thought in mainstream.

A single approach doesn’t lead to the entire story

A single approach of looking only at “who gets what food” limits and narrows down the inequality question in the area of food and health. The approach doesn’t present the full scene of inequality in the area as these are connected to distribution/allocation, market, profit, class interests that show ownership and control over food and health. The monster-like inequality-reality gets a better appearance with a look into market and profit.

Market is created for food and health industries. The grammar behind the market is loud: profit with people’s struggle for a good health. The struggle is waged everyday, in every sphere of life, at household, community, production place and market place levels, while accessing food and health related areas, and accessing other social and political facilities/arrangements/institutions related to food and health. The issue is not only limited with food, drug, and health care facilities. It, rather, is connected to related commodities with their connections, international trade regimes, politics and legislation in countries. In all the areas, related class interests define the related issues and people’s lives. These bear signs of inequality.

Worldwide power: In the present global system, societies/countries tied to the system can’t stay free from the curse of food and health inequality simply because of the system’s worldwide power.

The power is exerted with full force, with finance and trade, in markets and future markets of related commodities that includes raw materials produced in forests, mines, farms, and machines, and that are transported. In the markets, “all the necessary factors”, to quote Marx, “of the labour-process” are present. There are, again quoting Marx, “its objective factors, the means of production, as well as its subjective factor, labour-power.” (Capital, vol. I) So the factors can’t be ignored while looking into the issue.

Political actions: Legislations, political acts, in countries are framed to ensure the related interests, which are ultimately dominant class interests. Political programs that manifest economic interests of dominant strata of society are there. The political programs ensure maximization of profiteering with food and health. These get manifested in food and health inequality only in the life of commoners, people.

Neo-liberalism/austerity: Imposition of neo-liberal measures, and austerity measures increase food and health inequality and increases power and profit of capital. Countries that were/are being imposed with neo-liberal/austerity measures provide ample evidence. Europe, a continent rich with resources plundered from colonies and with appropriated surplus value, is a burning example. The banking/public debt crisis in Europe compelled all Europeans to pay. “However … it is Europe’s poorest that are bearing the greatest costs, in an echo of the structural adjustment programmes imposed on countries in Latin America, South-East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s and 1990s.” (Oxfam, A True Cautionary Tale, the true cost of austerity and inequality in Europe, briefing paper, September 2013) The cost is ultimately paid by cutting down food and health.

A few facts, cited below, from the rich continent help comprehend the reality.

The European Commission approved €4.5 trillion in aid to the financial sector (equivalent to 36.7 per cent of EU GDP) during 2008-2011. (EC, “Tackling the financial crisis – Banks”, 2012) In 2010, countries including Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain imposed austerity measures on the people. The measures included deep and wide spending cuts, regressive taxes that “entrench inequality – from the loss of decent public services to the erosion of social security and the weakening of collective bargaining through deregulation of the labour market. These measures … are having a severe impact upon European societies …. As the richest in many European countries affected by austerity have seen their share of income rise, the very poorest have seen their income share fall.” (ibid.)

Referring to “Introduction: Crisis, policy responses and widening inequalities in the EU” by J Leschke and M Jespen (International Labour Review, 151, 2012) the briefing paper cited total public spending cuts in countries in 2010-2014: 40 per cent of GDP in Ireland, approximately 20 per cent in the Baltic States, 12 per cent in Spain, and 11.5 per cent in the UK. The immediate affects of the cuts include loss of millions of public sector jobs. In the UK, 1.1 million public sector jobs are planned to be cut during the period 2010-2018. There are public sector wage cuts/frozen in Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, the UK. Countries have made social security budget cuts. In 2011 budgets, Greece, Latvia, Portugal, Romania made decreases of over five per cent. In 2010, health-spending recorded its first drop in decades. Ireland and Greece made more than six per cent cut. “In Lisbon, about 20 per cent of clients of pharmacies, mainly women, unemployed and elderly people, did not complete their whole prescriptions due to rising costs.” (ibid.) Countries privatized health care institutions. “[T]he gains are not being equitably distributed, as the poorest continue to suffer, while the richest remain comparatively unaffected.” (ibid.)

The rich continent found the bitter fact from Lorna, a 33 years old citizen: “It’s such a struggle. The wages don’t go up but yet all the prices for food, fares, they all do. By the time I’ve paid out all of my gas and electric, child-minding fees, shopping, fares to work, I’m maybe, if I’m lucky, left with about 10 pounds. Sometimes I will go without a dinner, or anything to eat that day, so that there’s money there for other stuff.” (N Cooper & S Dumbleton Walking The Breadline: The Scandal Of Food Poverty In 21st Century Britain, Church Action on Poverty & Oxfam, 2013, in Oxfam, September 2013, op. cit.) State of people comprising millions of Lorna is not confusing after the statement Lorna made.

No evidence from any country showing the rich die or suffer from lack of food and health care can be found. But Lorna in millions are there in countries irrespective of rich and poor to provide evidence of food and health inequality in the world system. “The long-term social cost of the economic crisis has been underestimated. More people are being evicted from their homes. More people are trapped in over indebtedness, as they face increased living costs with reduced income. Child poverty is growing and young people are being deprived from the possibility to imagine a future.” (European Anti-Poverty Network, August 2013)

A reality with contradictions: A reality with contradictions emerges: “[W]hen taxes and social security payments are taken into account, the richest have seen their share of total income grow, whilst the poorest have seen theirs fall. Other stark indications of continuing prosperity for the richest include the growth of Europe’s luxury goods market.” (Bain and Company, Bain projects global luxury goods market will grow overall by 10% in 2012, though major structural shifts in market emerge, 2012, in Oxfam, September 2013, op. cit.) Food and health care for the poor are not available in the luxury goods market for the rich, a contradiction with limits of the market.

Environment-ecology: With the destruction of environment and ecology that goes with seemingly mindless, but actually only with profit motive the poor people’s access to food decreases, even, at times, it completely gets out of their reach. The global capital’s transfer of environment-hostile technology to the poor part of the world negatively impact people’s food and health that increases inequality in the area.

Energy thirst: Similarly, capital’s endless energy thirst decreases people’s access to food, negatively impacts their income, and thus increases food and health-inequality.

Famine: Famines, capitalist system-made, increase inequality in food and health care. The Bangladesh 1974 famine, made as part of imperialist intervention, and countries in Africa are evidences. The rich don’t starve during famines, and iterate deprivation of the poor.

Imperialism: Imperialist intervention and war, multinational corporations fomenting civil disturbance, sectarian strife and civil war not only increase food and health inequality; a large part of population, often an entire population, is denied minimum food and health. Sometimes, the denial is total. Agriculture, industries, trade, infrastructure, institutions, market places are demolished, minimum conditions for carrying on production are destroyed, a large part of population is dislodged, it is displaced internally or turns refugees crossing national border. Vietnam, and countries in west Asia and Africa are stark examples.

Inequality in the area of food and health are with connections related capital and commodities make that turn the issue into political and class question, are part of the over all deprivation capital makes, and, thus, the issue is part of political struggle, and is an area for waging and intensifying class struggle.

Inequality: Food Follows Class-line

Class doesn't allow anyone and anything to get out of its clutch. Food and health are not class-neutral areas. These, rather, have to faithfully follow class-line. Inequality is one of its outcomes. It's a fact not only from one or two countries like the UK and the US , but from scores of advanced capitalist countries, and the fact has emerged over a period of decades.

It's not a single country-story

Inequality in food isn't a trend found only in a country. The pattern is wide. Nicole Darmon and Adam Drewnowski in their “Does social class predict diet quality?” ( The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , vol. 87, no. 5, May 2008) find diet quality follows class stratification. The fact stands as: the poor have only the bad while the rich consume only the best.

Their study was based on a large body of epidemiologic data from scores of cross-sectional studies conducted in at least 15 countries in Europe, North America and Australia . The countries covered in the studies included Australia , Canada , Denmark , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , the Netherlands , New Zealand , Norway , Portugal , Spain , the UK , the US . In their study Darmon and Drewnowski covered about 200 studies published in medical journals during the period 1982-2007.

Citing 22 studies Darmon and Drewnowski write in the “Introduction” section of the study report:

“Morbidity and mortality rates in industrialized societies follow a socioeconomic gradient. The more disadvantaged groups suffer from higher rates of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, dental caries, and some forms of cancer. All of these diseases have a direct link to nutrition and diet. It has been suggested, more than once, that dietary factors may help explain some of the observed social inequities in health. The more affluent population subgroups are not only healthier and thinner, but they also consume higher-quality diets than do the poor. Diet quality is affected not only by age and sex, but also by occupation, education, and income levels — the conventional indexes of socioeconomic status (SES) or social class.” As SES, they consider education, income, and/or occupation.

Their conclusion includes:

1. “[H]igher-quality diets are, in general, consumed by better educated and more affluent people. Conversely, lower quality diets tended to be consumed by groups of lower SES and more limited economic means.”

2. “Increases in food availability and ongoing marketing incentives to consume large quantities of low-cost energy-dense foods may be particularly damaging to the health of lower SES groups, for whom such foods represent a source of affordable calories.”

In the section “Evidence of a social gradient in diet quality” the researchers refer to scores of studies and write:

1. “Higher values of the Healthy Eating Index, Diet Quality Index, dietary variety and diversity scores, and other diet-quality measures have all been associated with higher SES. The same positive relation with SES was observed for dietary patterns.”

2. “[T]he consumption of whole grains was associated with higher SES, whereas the consumption of refined cereals (white bread), pasta, and rice was associated with lower SES.”

3. “Lower SES groups also consumed significantly more potatoes.”

4. “Higher SES groups were more likely to consume vegetables and fruit, particularly fresh, not only in higher quantities but also in greater variety.”

Citing a meta-analysis of studies from 7 European countries they write: “[F]ruit and vegetable consumption was consistently higher in the highest than in the lowest SES group …”

They add: “In Australia , a 3-fold difference was found between bottom and top quintiles of income for not consuming fruit on the previous day. In the Netherlands , women with a basic education level were almost 3 times as likely to be low consumers of fruit than were the most educated groups. In a recent Canadian analysis of food budget surveys, the strongest positive relation between income and the quantities of food purchased was found for fruit and vegetables. … Studies from the United Kingdom and the United States suggest that SES disparities in fruit and vegetables consumption have increased over time. … The consumption of lean meats, fish, and other seafood was associated with higher SES in a large number of studies. Lower SES groups tended to consume larger quantities of fatty meats instead of the recommended lean meat items. Fried, breaded, and canned fish were all consumed in greater quantities by lower SES groups, who also consumed more stews and fried foods. Diets of lower SES groups were also characterized by more added fats …”

Children are not spared

Children of workers and the poor are not spared by inequality.

Referring to a study in France Darmon and Drewnowski write: “[C]hildren of semiskilled and unskilled workers consumed significantly more sweets, bread, potatoes, cereals, and deli meats than did children from the upper SES group.”

In the US , the researchers write, “children and adolescents from low SES households consumed less fruit and vegetables and a more limited variety of produce. Children from families with lower education levels had the lowest fruit intakes and the highest consumption of sweetened beverages.”

Referring a number of European studies they add: “[L]ow fruit and vegetable intakes and a high frequency of soft drink consumption among low-SES children and adolescents.” On the opposite, the researchers write, “higher SES groups had consistently higher intakes of most vitamins and minerals and fiber than did lower SES groups.”

“Low-SES groups”, Darmon and Drewnowski write, “had the lowest consumption of vitamin C, ß-carotene, and folate, vitamin E, and plant-based polyphenols. Low iron intakes among low-SES populations were found in most studies and so were lower intakes of calcium and potassium.”

The rich can pay

Other evidences found by the researchers include:

1. “[H]ealthier foods are associated with increased monetary and time costs.”

2. “The observed SES gradient in diet quality may be mediated by food prices and diet costs. It follows from economic theory that food price is an important determinant of food choice. Not surprisingly, the lowest-cost diets are also the least healthy. In general, high-energy-density diets are associated with lower costs, whereas nutrient-dense diets are associated with higher costs per megajoule.”

3. “Diets composed of low-energy-density nutrient-rich foods are more expensive than are diets composed of refined grains, added sugars, and added fats.”

4. “Food costs are a barrier to the adoption of nutrient-dense diets, especially by the lower income groups.”

5. “One recent study, based on the US Department of Agriculture Thrifty Food Plan, reported that the cost of substituting healthier foods can cost up to 35–40% of an American low-income family's food budget.”

6. “Other studies have shown that food costs are an obstacle to reducing fat intakes or to increasing the consumption of fish, whole-grain products, or vegetables and fruit.”

7. “In a recent US study, women who considered food price very important were likely to live in low-income households and to have energy-dense diets.”

8. “Several studies have emphasized that food budgets of the poor are insufficient to obtain a balanced diet. Even when low-income groups develop efficient purchasing strategies, the food budget may not be adequate to procure the recommended diet.”

9. “Poverty may lead to the selection of low-cost diets that are both energy rich and shelf stable. … The emphasis on maximum calories and least waste and spoilage is another characteristic of poverty. Because trying a new food represents a risk of waste, diets of low-income households are often monotonous. Poverty is often accompanied by isolation, boredom, and depression — behaviors that may encourage snacking, simplifying or skipping meals, and sedentary behavior.”

The rich-poor inequality, as the references show, in the area of food is stark.

A lot and a nothing

The world system owns a lot for a few, and has nothing for many. An arrangement has thus been made. “Access to foods”, Darmon and Drewnowski said, “can also be a function of the physical environment. Whereas supermarkets and grocery stores may cluster in the more affluent neighborhoods, some lower-income neighborhoods have been characterized as ‘food deserts'.”

The areas the poor live bear signs of the poor and poverty. The researchers write: “Living in lower-income neighborhoods has been associated with lower consumption of fruit, vegetables, and fish. The quality of food choices was directly influenced by the ease of access to a supermarket as well as to the availability and variety of healthy foods in neighborhood stores. For example, foods recommended for the self management of diabetes are less likely to be stocked in East Harlem than on the Upper East Side .” It's not a New York-reality.

Dhaka is no exception: Jurain, Tallabag, Mugda, Basabo, Jatrabari, Madartek in the capital city are completely different from Gulshan and Baridhara in the same city. The shops with their appearance, the commodities sold in shops in the two groups of areas in the city, the names, type and quality of food the people purchase, and the cookies children in the two groups of areas in the city are happy with, the amount of money consumers spend in the shops, even the sound and noise, the smells and odors, are completely different: one, for the “unpolished” low-income persons, and the other, for the “sophisticated” well-off, and rich. Socioeconomic differences in dietary patterns are stark. In Luanda , Kolkata, Delhi , Mumbai and Manila , the same divide, the same line of demarcation dominate. It's, the line between the rich and the poor, difficult, but not impossible, to cross.

The poor can only afford low-cost foods that satisfy their hunger, and those “nice” foods are available in low-income areas. The rich don't even know names and tastes of those foods as foods of the poor are “nasty”. A slum dwelling woman in Dhaka , found a study, collects discarded rotten vegetables from a wholesale market. A portion of the collected rotten vegetables is consumed by the woman's family while the rest is sold to petty traders, and the traders sell those to the poor. (Farooque Chowdhury, “Urban poor: Neverending quest for energy”, People's Report 2002-2003, Bangladesh Environment ) In areas in the city of Dhaka , lower part of chicken legs, chicken intestines and chicken skin are sold. These are purchased in 250-300 grams by the low-income families. Sometimes, these are sold in smaller “shares”, pieces kept together. Smaller meat pieces from cattle heads are cheaper. These are purchased by the low-income families. The fish sold at around 10:00-11:00 PM at Malibag crossing, near Shantinagar Bazaar, Nandipara in the capital city are cheaper. These are purchased by the poor. These, most of the time, reach to the state of rotting down. But, these, the near-rotten fish, the chicken skin, are the only opportunity to taste “a better food” for large section of the society living at the lower strata. Darmon and Drewnowski add: “[F]or low-SES groups, the ability to adopt a healthier diet may have less to do with motivation than with economic means.” (op. cit.)

Travel to health & kitchen

None will question the connection between food, health and transportation. “Low-income families”, write Darmon and Drewnowski, “are less likely to own a car and may find it more difficult to reach out-of-town supermarkets, in urban as well as in rural areas. Deprived neighborhoods may limit not only food access but also opportunities for physical activity, because of the lack of facilities or because of security issues. Physical activity levels are lower among low-SES groups…” A visit to the Ramna Park in Dhaka in the morning will describe the same fact in a periphery-country. Sometimes, members of Dhaka-neo-elites drive to Mawa, kilometers away from the city, on the Padda, the lower part of the Ganga , to buy fresh Hilsha fish. The Dhaka-poor don't even have the time to dream it. The poor neither have the time and money required to travel there, nor the money to buy the fish while the rich have all.

Inequality is widespread. Darmon and Drewnowski write: “In very poor families, the lack of cooking equipment will in itself discourage cooking.” Kitchens, if those are considered kitchens, of the poor, of the low-income Dhaka families bear the same signs of inequality if compared with the kitchens the Dhaka rich use, the appliances they own.

It's not only lack of cooking equipment in advanced capitalist economy, but lack of kitchen in the periphery is also a problem the poor face in an unequal reality. In many Dhaka slums, one oven is shared by a number of slum-poor families. Even, many lower middle class families share a single oven. In many Dhaka slums, there are long single room with 5, 7, 10 ovens, each of which are used by a number of poor households. Sometimes, poor households rent in oven in a lower middle class household near to their place of residence. Doesn't the reality hurt food quality of the poor? It's an economy of the kitchen-poor, and an economy of inequality.

Economy determines access to food, nutrients, health. “A nutrient density standard for vegetables and fruits: nutrients per calorie and nutrients per unit cost” (Darmon N, Darmon M, Maillot M & Drewnowski A., J Am Diet Asso , 2005, 105) and “Nutrient-dense food groups have high energy costs: an econometric approach to nutrient profiling” (Maillot M, Darmon N, Darmon M, Lafay L, Drewnowski A, J Nutr , 2007, 137) discuss the issue. “Diet quality is influenced by socioeconomic position and may well be limited by financial access to nutrient-dense foods.” (Adam Drewnowski & Nicole Darmon, “The economics of obesity: dietary energy density and energy cost”, The Am J Cli Nutri , vol. 82, no. 1, July 2005) They mention the broader problem of increasing disparities in incomes and wealth, declining real wage, etc. while discussing obesity and its links to the low-income persons.

Another study said: “[T]he low-income group derived fewer financial and nutritional benefits than the medium-income group from both price manipulations.” (Nicole Darmon, Anne Lacroix, Laurent Muller & Bernard Ruffieux, “Food price policies improve diet quality while increasing socioeconomic inequalities in nutrition”, Int J Behavioral Nutri and Physi Activity , 2014, 11:66, doi:10.1186/1479-5868-11-66)

Citing “Widening socioeconomic inequalities in mortality in six Western European countries” (Mackenbach JP, Bos V, Andersen O, Cardano M, Costa G, Harding S, Reid A, Hemström Ö, Valkonen T, Kunst AE, Int J Epidemiol 2003, 32(5)) and “Socioeconomic inequalities in premature mortality in France: have they widened in recent decades?” (Leclerc A, Chastang J-F, Menvielle G, Luce D,Soc Sci Med , 2006, 62(8)) the researchers mentioned “the widening gap in socio-economic inequalities in health in Europe , including in France …” (op. cit.)

The link is being discussed for long although a group tries to deny the link. Nicole Darmon and Adam Drewnowski write: “The links between food, diets, and incomes have indeed been remarked on by a diversity of authors, ranging from Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825 to John Boyd Orr in 1936.” (“Reply to RJ Karp”, Am J Clin Nutr , vol. 88, no. 4, October 2008)

They also cite Margaret Chan, the Director General of the WHO: “Food choices are highly sensitive to price. The first items to drop out of the diet are usually healthy foods — fruits, vegetables and high quality sources of protein….Nutrient-poor staples are often the cheapest way to fill hungry stomachs.” (WHO, Statement at the high-level Conference on World Food Security in Rome , June 3, 2008).

Referring to “Nutrient-dense food groups have high energy costs: an econometric approach to nutrient profiling” (op. cit.) they write in the “Reply to RJ Karp”: “Energy-dense foods that are nutrient-poor are the cheapest option for the low-income consumer.” Referring to “A cost constraint alone has adverse effects on food selection and nutrient density: an analysis of human diets by linear programming” (Darmon N, Ferguson EL, Briend A, J Nutr , 2002, 132) they write in the “Reply …” : “ Computer optimization programs, driven by cost constraints only, consistently create diets with compositions that resemble those that are consumed by disadvantaged groups. In contrast, higher-quality diets not only cost more but are more likely to be consumed by the more affluent.”

Referring to P Monsivais & A Drewnowski's “The rising cost of low-energy-density foods” ( J Am Diet Assoc , 2007, 107) Nicole Darmon, Adam Drewnowski write: “The recent rise in food prices that has begun to affect the middle class has helped put our earlier work in a new and much sharper perspective.” (“Reply to RJ Karp”, op. cit.)

The researchers add: “The dual burden of disease, undernutrition and overweight, now faced by developing nations is an economic issue that is directly linked to poverty and food costs. … The major policy and political challenge for global nutrition is to ensure a supply of affordable healthy foods to all.” (ibid. )

Existing glaring food inequalities, as evidenced above, raise a few “simple” questions: (1) Shall the world system eliminate the inequality? (2) Does the system posses the capacity? (3) Shall it feed all those failing to afford food? (4) What's the reason of the failure to arrange food, to get out of inequality? (5) Is there any reason/interest that stands as obstacle in formulating appropriate policies and effectively implementing those to ensure equality in accessing better food?