Healthy Eating and the Poor

Food writer Nina Planck gets real about healthy eating and the poor. With an increase in heart disease, diabetes and obesity affecting the poor in higher rates, is it possible to eat healthy on a limited budget? Nina tackles the issue by shopping at the edges of the supermarket for eggs, dairy, meat, fish, poultry and produce -- not in the middle, where all the low-nutritional-value and high-cost foods sit. Her rule of thumb is that the higher up the food chain you eat, the more it matters how the food was produced. Nina advocates banning trans fats, getting corn syrup out of schools and milk in, removing poor quality and industrial foods from government food programs and replacing them with fresh fruits and vegetables, canned fish, whole milk and yogurt and meats. Her other suggestions include buying locally and in season and taking advantage of special deals.

Nina, who managed Manhattan's Greenmarket (the largest network of farmers' markets in the country), is the author of Real Food and writes about food issues.

Music Break -- Raunchy - Ernie Freeman