"If Kids Are Hungry, Parents Are To Blame"
Echoes of Marie Antoinette in Swedish food prices debate.
“Let them eat starch.”
That message to parents struggling with rising food prices has caused an intense Swedish debate in the last couple of days.
An article written by Svenska Dagbladet columnist Lena Andersson started the debate in May 20. The piece, titled “If Kids Are Hungry, Parents Are To Blame”, contains a description of the low price of starchy foods:
Hunger is remedied by satiety that comes from energy, mainly from starch and fat. They are still very cheap foods. There is not an adult in Sweden who cannot afford rice, flour, yeast, potatoes, legumes, onions, oats, couscous, and in addition an apple a day.
A five-kilo bag of rice costs SEK 170. It contains just over 17,000 calories. The daily requirement for an adult without exercise is 2,000. Potatoes, filling in all forms except as chips and French fries, cost 130 kronor for 8,000 calories. A kilo of cottage cheese for SEK 110 with 2,700 calories and 290 grams of protein provides additional satiety and taste.
Oatmeal has the almost unimaginably low price of eight kronor for 2,000 calories. A normal portion of porridge costs 0,70 kronor, the sugar for sprinkling costs 0,20 kronor. Similarly, flour, yeast and water are so cheap that they can almost be considered free.
Despite the lengthy advise on how to manage a household, many have felt the urge to respond to Andersson’s argument that parents are to blame if kids are hungry. In yesterday’s Aktuellt (Newsnight in public service SVT), she debated poverty, starch and hunger for almost ten minutes.
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