Lamenting the Slow Pace of NY Gentrification

Kerry Howley | November 29, 2006

Nurse Bloomberg knows what's ailing New York: vile, addictive, family-destroying whole milk:

"There are too many New Yorkers without the ability to select healthy foods, because those foods are not on their store shelves," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week, announcing the formation of the Food Policy Task Force.

The mayor also announced an expansion of the Healthy Bodegas Initiative, which encourages bodegas in low income neighborhoods to stock low fat milk in addition to whole milk.

There's only one type of person who walks into a bodega and wonders where the watered-down milk is, and his presence pretty much guarantees that Whole Foods will soon have the entire neighborhood awash in soy yogurt and quorn dogs.

Via KipEsquire.

Comments

|11.29.06 @ 11:12AM|#

"Healthy Bodegas Initiative"

I suppose this is a natural, if unanticipated, consequence of a declining crime rate.

|11.29.06 @ 11:16AM|#

This has to be a joke. No mayor could be this moronic. A joke, right? Really, it's gotta be a joke.

Brian|11.29.06 @ 11:16AM|#

My parents did the skim milk thing and I never could figure out why anyone would drink that stuff. I wouldn't go near it.

They I went to college and they had whole milk in the cafeteria and I put it on some Rice Krispies and it was a revelation.

|11.29.06 @ 11:19AM|#

Call me a wishy washy fence straddler, I go with 2% milk.

|11.29.06 @ 11:23AM|#

I'd be happy to be treated as enough of an adult to buy raw milk and unpasteurized cheese.

|11.29.06 @ 11:23AM|#

I heard somewhere that the difference between whole milk and 2% is roughly 1 more percentage point.
Would more people buy whole milk if they labelled it 3% milk? I bet they would.

mjs|11.29.06 @ 11:24AM|#

I was raised on milk-water (non-fat milk). I grew used it. Now, I prefer it over 1%, 2%, and whole milk. And yes, I also get made fun of because of it. So...mock away!

|11.29.06 @ 11:25AM|#

I'm kind of a milk pervert. I buy skim, but I'm up for any kind of milk.

|11.29.06 @ 11:25AM|#

1. A glass of whole milk has about as much fat as three glasses of 1% milk. Maybe it's not incredibly healthy, but it's not like people are chugging heavy cream or eating slabs of raw butter.

2. If his major complaint is lack of selection in small inner-city stores, the obvious solution would be to loosen the regulations that make it almost impossible to open a large grocery store in the city.

3. I think the Whole Foods crowd is pretty evenly split between drinking skim milk because it's fat-free, drinking unhomogenized whole milk because it's more natural, and drinking soy milk because milking cows is sexual abuse.

Franklin Harris|11.29.06 @ 11:29AM|#

I think the Whole Foods crowd is pretty evenly split between drinking skim milk because it's fat-free, drinking unhomogenized whole milk because it's more natural, and drinking soy milk because milking cows is sexual abuse.

It's a wonder sectarian fighting isn't breaking out in the refrigerator aisle.

|11.29.06 @ 11:29AM|#

I used to drink 2% milk for breakfast, but have since switched to 17% wine. Going to work is getting harder.

|11.29.06 @ 11:39AM|#

So when the "Food Policy Task Force" comes back in a year and tells Dr. Bloomberg and Fuhrer Freiden that they can't change the way people are buying milk in the ghetto, how much do you want to bet the dynamic duo try to outlaw whole milk. Which will go along with their revival of outlawing Foie Grois (parden the spelling).
Speculation from a 1% man.

Timothy|11.29.06 @ 11:40AM|#

but it's not like people are chugging heavy cream or eating slabs of raw butter.

Speak for yourself.

|11.29.06 @ 11:44AM|#

I'm a big guy (6'5"), and a pound of butter is all the calories I need for a day. Nutritious, efficient, and delicious.

|11.29.06 @ 11:48AM|#

I was raised on milk-water (non-fat milk). I grew used it. Now, I prefer it over 1%, 2%, and whole milk. And yes, I also get made fun of because of it. So...mock away!

I will not mock.

I was a 2%-er growing up (although I suspect the reason for that was because 2% was usually lower-priced than whole milk) but in college I became a skim milker and I prefer it over any other kind.

Milk needs to be cold...very cold....and skim milk just gets colder than whole milk. (but Ill drink any milk available if my preffered one isn't)

|11.29.06 @ 11:50AM|#

Mmmmmmmm. Heavy creammmmmm.

|11.29.06 @ 11:50AM|#

"I think the Whole Foods crowd is pretty evenly split between drinking skim milk because it's fat-free, drinking unhomogenized whole milk because it's more natural, and drinking soy milk because milking cows is sexual abuse."

I guess I qualify as "the Whole Foods crowd," and I by the 2% Organic Cow milk. The stores also offer the 1%, skim, and whole milk varieties. I don't think you know the people you look down on as much as you like to pretend, Bergamot.

And since when is noticing that the availability of options effects people's choices a controversial notion?

|11.29.06 @ 11:52AM|#

Would more people buy whole milk if they labelled it 3% milk? I bet they would.

I wonder if Blookmberg thinks there's more milkfat in "whole milk" than in half-and-half?

Seems like the dairy industry will respond by simply re-branding "whole milk" as "3% milk" and get another way to segment the market, along with another shelf facing. And the health-nazi uproar will be free advertising.

Since we're all confessing our milk habits, I drink skim milk partly because of personal taste and mostly because its cheaper.

thoreau|11.29.06 @ 11:52AM|#

I drink skim. Once I got used to it everything else just tasted funny.

The skim milk at Whole Foods costs the same as the skim milk at Safeway, but Whole Foods has yummier cheeses, produce, snacks, and seafood.

|11.29.06 @ 11:58AM|#

Well at least someone will stand to defend the victims of America's last acceptable prejudice: Whole Foods shoppers.

|11.29.06 @ 11:59AM|#

J sub D

"No mayor could be this moronic."

I suggest you check your premise.

|11.29.06 @ 12:00PM|#

So when does whole foods become the next walmart? I just want to know when it becomes hated enough so I can start shopping there.

|11.29.06 @ 12:02PM|#

ALthough I must say, the whole lobster thing is just stupid.

thoreau|11.29.06 @ 12:06PM|#

So when does whole foods become the next walmart? I just want to know when it becomes hated enough so I can start shopping there.

Well, it has its share of critics on this forum, or at least its customers get criticized here.

So there you go. Enjoy the baklava!

|11.29.06 @ 12:12PM|#

Whole Foods charges way too much for Weihenstephaner Hefeweizen. If they were my only source, I'd be sorely pissed. It is truly an injustice.

|11.29.06 @ 12:15PM|#

My grandfather (who died of pneumonia just a couple of months short of his 90th birthday) introduced me to the joys of the all-American breakfast: Fresh half-n-half and strawberries on Kellogs Corn Flakes.

Wonderful.

|11.29.06 @ 12:21PM|#

I belong into the skim milk crowd. Used to drink whole milk, later switched to 2% milk, but at my consumption rate of ~2 gallons per week even that was too much. My doctor insisted I switch to skim milk, and after a few months I got used to it.

|11.29.06 @ 12:31PM|#

Does nobody in the USA drink buttermilk?

|11.29.06 @ 12:36PM|#

First of all, if you do your grocery shopping at a bodega, you apparently have too much cash to waste. Even in the uglier parts of town there are supermarkets. NYC is distinct from many urban areas in this regard. Second, whole milk is like liquid steak, a porterhouse in a glass. Who wants that watered down crap?

|11.29.06 @ 12:40PM|#

"And since when is noticing that the availability of options effects people's choices a controversial notion?"

As a person who suffered for years for every bite of cheese pizza, every spoonful of ice cream, every bowl of cereal in the morning due to milk (skim, 2% or whole), I was appreciative of the greater choices at the grocery store that enabled me to finally get relief. A little education went a long way too. I envy those of you who can chug cream and eat butter, spoon yogurt on granola and enjoy ice cream. I would not ban whole milk altogether just "because" but I can definitely say that there are health benefits to be had from having more choice - whether it be to avoid the fat or to to solve other discomforts that cows milk can bring to a body.

|11.29.06 @ 12:41PM|#

"My doctor insisted I switch to skim milk...."

Another in a long list of reasons to never talk to doctors.

________

"...they had whole milk in the cafeteria and I put it on some Rice Krispies and it was a revelation.

Brian-
Try your Rice Krispies (or Rice Chex) with halfandhalf; mmmmmmm, creeeamy goodnesss!

|11.29.06 @ 12:48PM|#

Bovril is liquid steak.

|11.29.06 @ 12:54PM|#

I also am a skim milk drinker, but I use 2% or whole milk in my coffee. Skim just doesn't work as well for that.

Whole milk seems rather thick now, when I drink it.

It's kind of like how regular soda feels, since I switched to mostly drinking diet Pepsi.

|11.29.06 @ 1:06PM|#

milk = fat + water; skim milk = milk - some fat = milk + water; i.e., skim milk is just the equivalent of adding water to your milk. How they get people to pay for that is beyond me. if you don't like the fat, drink less milk, more water, or just add water to your milk.

|11.29.06 @ 1:17PM|#

I enjoy eating yogurt and cheese, but drinking milk of any kind seems to aggravate my asthma.
Strangely, I can tolerate milk with breakfast cereal. Either whole or 2% is OK, but skim is nothing but sickly pale blue water.

Mike|11.29.06 @ 1:23PM|#

Preach it, JP. And if you like cottage cheese, just drink milk and vineger and jump up and down. These people are crazy, always buying their pre-mixed dairy products and shit. Damn.

|11.29.06 @ 1:25PM|#

JP writes: "milk = fat + water; skim milk = milk - some fat = milk + water; i.e., skim milk is just the equivalent of adding water to your milk."

That'd be true if the amount of protein per serving were likewise diluted. It isn't.

|11.29.06 @ 1:26PM|#

Why is it considered sexual to suck straight from the cow teat?

|11.29.06 @ 1:54PM|#

Jon H: good point. But you could still just add some protein powder.

Mike: cottage cheese = yuck. You can mix milk & water with a spoon.

I just prefer the real thing, homogenized, please.

Keith|11.29.06 @ 2:25PM|#

I can't believe you people drink milk. Don't you remember that PeTA taught us milk causes cancer?

|11.29.06 @ 2:40PM|#

PETA= People Eating Tasty Animals. Yum.

Memberships available.

Rhywun|11.29.06 @ 3:09PM|#

There's only one type of person who walks into a bodega and wonders where the watered-down milk is

So low-fat milk is only for yuppies? Only in Reason-land...

NB. Maybe people drink low-fat milk because it's cheaper. Or because whole milk tastes disgusting to them. Or because they want to reduce the amount of fat in their diet. (Yes, even poor people who rely on delis/bodegas!)

Sloppy post.

|11.29.06 @ 3:23PM|#

To many, whole milk is like a thick disgusting goo of oil. It's like natural Sunny Delight.

|11.29.06 @ 3:46PM|#

mmmm, Sunny D.

|11.29.06 @ 4:47PM|#

I tried soy milk once. I almost spewed it across the room. Foul, foul stuff. That's some ginormous balls calling that drek milk.

And for the record, I can drink any milk of any fat content. Coffee demands whole or half-n-half, tho'. The fat free h-n-h isn't all that bad.

And also for the record, Bloomberg needs to be lobotomized again, if for no other reason the protection of everyone else. It's obvious the first did not take all the way and he's still causing trouble.

Lazlo|11.29.06 @ 4:48PM|#

I used to drink 2% milk for breakfast, but have since switched to 17% wine. Going to work is getting harder.

Sometime in the late '80s/early '90s I was at a party where people were eating bowls of Nerds cereal with wine coolers poured over them. Still have videotape of that party.

|11.29.06 @ 4:50PM|#

Skim milk is awful tasting; chalky water! Blech! Now strawberries and half & half, that's culinary high art...

|11.29.06 @ 5:25PM|#

"bowls of Nerds cereal with wine coolers poured over them"

My grandmother was born in the 1800's. She was raised on a farm. After the cows were milked, they separated the milk from the cream. The milk was fed to the pigs. The cream was used on cereal. This is how she ate her entire life and she lived to be 90. It's a shame she's not around any more. I think she'd have fun running Milly's Heavy Cream Health Bodega.

|11.29.06 @ 8:46PM|#

When I was a child we got our milk from a neighbour who grazed her cow on our property.

Every second night one of us would have to walk the quarter-mile or so to her house with our "billy-can" to collect the couple of gallons (that was our share, land rent, you know) from the evening's milking.

The milk thus gotten was possibly as "organic" as it goes (although my father may have dumped a ton or so of superphospate and lime on the paddock to get the grass good and green. But for the most part the grass was fertilized by the excretia of Betsy and our own horses) and it was certainly unpasteurised.

When it was home my mother would let it settle after which she would skim off the cream to make ice cream or whipped cream or she would just put it in her coffee. And the rest of the milk was drunk by three healthy growing (boy, how they grew) boys.

Ah, life was good. But I hardly ever drink milk now.

|11.30.06 @ 12:23AM|#

> Does nobody in the USA drink buttermilk?

Yes we do, but it's usually low-fat (less fat than whole milk) around here.

|11.30.06 @ 12:30AM|#

joe, joe, joe. Yes, the availability of groceries does affect people's purchases in the short term: if the grocery store doesn't have kumquats this afternoon, you can't buy kumquats there this afternoon. But in the long run, groceries respond to customer demand, too. I'm guessing there is a reason you can find Inka Kola or cashew fruit juice at some bodegas, but you cannot find them at the D'Agostino's in the whiter-than-white parts of town, you know? Skim milk is not exactly exotic, rare, or pricy; thus I suspect that if people in the low-income neighborhoods really wanted to be buying it at the bodegas, it would be there. Yeah, I know, you probably think supply and demand is mumbo-jumbo too.

Rhywun|11.30.06 @ 9:00AM|#

thus I suspect that if people in the low-income neighborhoods really wanted to be buying it at the bodegas, it would be there.

Yes, one would suspect that. But it's not true. You have to understand that the milk selection at bodegas is singularly weird. There's usually one shelf in the cooler, about 75% full of whole milk that no one has touched and an empty spot next to that where once might have been 2% or skim, always sold out. It's like this in EVERY bodega, everywhere.