Picture a restaurant chain that charges different prices, depending on the neighborhood. It may seem like a scam, but in reality, it’s how former Wall Street guru Sam Polk is feeding the hungry and democratizing healthy food.

Polk was once a hedge fund trader who admits to having been addicted to making money — millions of it every year. At age 27 he had already been on Wall Street for six years, but, as he admitted to PBS, he “basically felt empty.”

He decided to leave Wall Street and turned to tables, particularly to local tables, after having a wakeup call in front of a particularly poignant food documentary. While watching “A Place at the Table,” Polk became horrified by the notion that his city of Los Angeles was so segregated with regard to the haves and have-nots.

“It was easy to forget that just a few miles away people were starving,” he writes, especially because, as he notes, “Hunger in America looks strange.”

While we would expect those who are facing hunger every day to be rail-thin, the fact is that in America, many people who are food insecure are obese.

A 2010 study of more than 6,000 adults showed that wages and BMI were inversely related, meaning that poorer people were far more likely to suffer from obesity. A 2009 study showed that many of these sufferers are children; the study, which surveyed more than 12,000 children between the ages of two and 19, showed that rates of severe obesity were approximately 1.7 times higher among poorer children.

People with lower incomes tend to rely on cheaper foods; fast food is cheap and easy to come by, and in food deserts, many of which are in less affluent communities, fresh produce can be scarce and expensive.

“In the span of a day, a kid can go from being hungry, missing lunch, to eating KFC for dinner,” says Polk. “That fact—that many kids are both starving and obese—was what got to me.”

Upping the Learning Curve and Feeding the Hungry with Groceryships

Polk recently overhauled his own diet to include more plant-based recipes and fewer processed foods. Even from a place of means, it was a difficult battle to fight. He knew, then, that feeding the hungry wouldn’t be as simple as making healthy food available — he had to teach people how to use it.

Polk decided to found Groceryships in 2013, a program dedicated to feeding the hungry that revolutionizes more traditional programs. With a philosophy of teaching a man to fish, the program seeks not only to ensure that LA families have healthy food, but also that they know how to use it.

“Groceryships is working on a macro issue in a micro way,” reads Groceryships’ mission statement. “We work with small groups of families for long periods of time, providing education, temporary financial support, resources, and a sacred space for each person to share about their struggles and triumphs. We believe true change comes not from the top down, but from the inside out, and that changes in one person can have a ripple effect through a family, a community, a city, a nation, and eventually a world.”

The program gives each family a weekly food budget but also invites them to weekly two-hour meetings over the course of several months, where they learn the cooking, nutrition, and shopping skills needed to cook healthy plant-based meals and get support to help overcome challenges.

A New Challenge: Feeding the Hungry with Healthy Fast Food

In Pacific Palisades, where the per capita income is $95,000, childhood obesity is at 11 percent and life expectancy is 85. In South Los Angeles, where the per capita income is $13,000, childhood obesity is 30 percent, and life expectancy decreases to 75.

This discrepancy has nothing to do with geography and everything to do with means, and it’s something that Polk is still striving to change every day.

“The ability to eat healthy foods and maintain a healthy weight shouldn’t be luxury items for the upper classes, but rather human rights shared by all,” writes Polk. “We’re committed to turning this belief into a reality.”

Polk has set his sights on a new project, a logical continuation, in his mind, of Groceryships.

Along with fellow former finance professional David Foster, Polk created Everytable, a new healthy food chain with prices on a sliding scale. Both of the Everytable locations offer the same menu of healthy, prepared meals, like kale chicken Caesar salad, pozole rojo, and Jamaican jerk chicken, but at very different prices: in south Los Angeles, where the per capita income is $13,000 a year, the meals cost about $4; in hip, downtown LA, they cost $8.

“Four bucks is a great price here compared to fast food, which is the predominant option,” Foster says. And even the downtown branch offers competitive prices when compared to $10-$12 meals at chains like Whole Foods and Sweet Green.

“It’s basically making sure that everyone can afford healthy food,” Polk says. “In a world where inequality is clearly growing and becoming seen as structural, we think that this is the time for a new business that questions that fundamental assumption that prices should be the same for everyone.”

It’s a concept that, just ten years ago, might have floundered. But with an increasingly activist generation, the philosophy behind a company is just as important — if not more so — than the product they peddle. Everytable is hitting all of its targets: donating day-old food to local food banks, creating menus that include healthy, whole foods, and allowing patrons to feel good about every dollar they spend.

But the cheaper outpost of the chain isn’t bleeding money, either; these financial gurus have created centralized kitchen that seriously diminishes the need for staff and allows even the $4 meals to contribute to an — admittedly meager — profit margin.

“At $4 per meal in South LA, we’re not making much money from each meal sold,” Foster explains to NPR. “But if we get enough people to come out — and we’re already seeing great traction — it will actually be profitable. The location downtown will also be profitable. So together they’re part of this company that’s working to improve access. The higher-priced location will help fund the growth of new locations in both markets.”

And of course, that’s the next step.

Polk and Foster are both looking toward the future of the company, hoping to open tens of thousands of Everytable outposts, feeding the hungry all across America. This new concept of a healthy chain food store may help bring the knowledge and accessibility required to disintegrate food deserts everywhere.

Related on Eco Salon
Are Healthy Foods Good for Us or Just Big Business? Foodie Underground
Do You Have to Be Well Off to Eat Well? Foodie Underground
Improving the Food System and Fighting Obesity, Creatively: Foodie Underground

Healthy food image via Shutterstock

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ColumnA new web series hilariously mocks the foodie movement.

When the Portlandia trailer hit and all my Portland-based friends had it posted to their Facebook profiles within minutes of each other, I had no idea that four weeks down the line people outside of my bubble would be asking me, “So is Portland really like Portlandia?”

Some find Portlandia hilarious (me) and others cock their heads and raise their eyebrows, because why would anyone find the reality of Portland funny? But that’s the thing about going viral: the message has to strike a chord. And so when Portlandia makes fun of book shop owners ogling the zine section, or restaurant goers overly concerned about where their chicken came from, it’s hilarious because there’s an element of truth. It’s a lesson in not taking yourself – or where you live or what you eat – too seriously.

In Foodie Underground, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about organic food, DIY markets, and underground trends, which I am sure that many of you are very interested in. But when was the last time you brought all three of those topics up at a dinner party and didn’t get a look of disapproval? When we take ourselves too seriously, it gets much more difficult to get our message across.

Which is why Foodies, a new web comedy series, premiering March 9th, should get a good laugh.

Mockumenting “a group of L.A. culinary enthusiasts whose passion for food spills off the table and into their personal lives,” the series is all devoted to poking fun at the smugness that so many love to point out comes along with loving good food. That assumed pretension some people think is inherent in the foodie movement may or may not be a valid argument, but in poking fun at it, Foodies is actually giving the movement more street cred.

“She’s still into me, cheese puffs prove it.” This is good humor for anyone who has a food obsession.

Click to view: Foodies

Even the recipes have a certain tongue-in-cheekiness that’s easy to appreciate.

Example: Moose’s Classic Gougères

The fun thing about gougères is that they sound really impressive for a little work. You can say things like, “Oh, these gougères? They’re nothing. I just whipped up a pâte à choux, threw in a little gruyere and called it a day” and still have time to enjoy wine with friends. Because really, it’s just a cheese puff with a fancy name.

So, put the DSLR down and stop uploading last weekend’s food photos to Flickr. Take some time to find the humor in the movement that we’ve created. Because, after all, food should be fun.

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, taking a conscious look at what’s bubbling in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

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Everyone’s dishing about how the concept of food trucks has been overhauled. They’re not just parked at job sites to feed hungry laborers anymore, but are taking the high road and giving restaurants a run for their money.

I got a taste of the trend at the posh 50th birthday party of a friend in San Francisco where a taco mobile was stationed at the entrance to the upscale house, titillating guests who lined up to order bean burritos and cheese quesadillas while nursing lemon drop martinis.

“Is the meat organic?” I asked my hostess, surveying the two men cooking frenetically behind the sliding window. “Of course it is,” she said. “We keep kosher!”

Guess it’s getting way kosher to peddle all kinds of culinary delights from a truck as the recession drags on. A surge in the mobile restaurant biz is being sighted across the country, fueled by inflated commercial leases and hungry epicureans watching their diets and budgets.

From Korean BBQ to gourmet cupcakes and Vietnamese-style sandwiches, the cafes on wheels are gearing up for success in an age of time crunches, lay-offs and convenience. Sure, most are cookin’ with gas and motoring with it, but a growing number are eco wise in terms of fuel alternatives, kitchen appliances and healthy ingredients.

Green Truck on the Go caters to an organic food crowd, working from a solar-powered commissary and delivering in two trucks powered by vegetable oil and bio-diesel.

“At Green Truck, serving healthy, gourmet organic food in a fast and efficient way is not enough,” says the company. “We believe that a healthy environment is tantamount to living a healthy life.” This business furthers its commitment by using locally-grown ingredients whenever possible and opting for biodegradable containers and utensils.

Even the classic hot dog from a stand is getting in the act. Let’s Be Frank offers weenies made from grass-fed organic beef from its trailers in hip L.A. hoods, including one right outside Silver Lake Wine where diners gather to taste the grape and down a dog; and the Franken Stand sells to L.A. vegans who gobble up its 100% plant-based vegan franks. No mystery meat Dodger dogs for these discerning customers.

L.A. blazed the trail in the roadside food trend, as described in a round-up in the L.A. Times. Yet, the convoys are making their way to a city near you.   USA Today highlighted the greatest places to flag down a feast in a recent food watch spread.

O the map: The upscale Chef Shark trailer found Saturday mornings at Minneapolis’ Mill City Farmers Market; Flip Happy Crepes in Austin, Texas (below), which serves hand-made savory crepes and fresh French-pressed coffee from its parking space on Josephine Street; and Moxie RX in Portland, Oregon, known for great brunch fare on wheels such as buckwheat waffles, grapefruit juice with basil and soda and healthy smoothies blended with bananas, dates and almond butter.

The good news is this is no sideshow where anything goes, like carny refreshment booths. Food trucks must meet health inspection restaurant standards.

One blogger fan of the trailer grub, who works in the Public Health environmental health division, commented that it’s even easier for the informed public to judge a mobile cafe than to know what truly goes on in the kitchen of a restaurant. “You can see for yourself if somebody is handling your ready-to-eat food with bare hands or committing other cruddy violations,” he says.

I wondered about that at my friend’s birthday party when I was handed the plate of steaming tacos. The operation looked pretty clean to me. Was it really organic? Guess I’ll have to take their word for it. At least it beat the ubiquitous party buffet in terms of the temptation towards gluttony. Nobody wanted to wait in the long truck line again for seconds.

Images: Jason Lam, L.A. Times, Let’s Be Frank, Flip Happy Crepes

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