breakfast is what democracy looks like.

Yesterday I was riding the A train on my morning commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan - Park Slope to Midtown to be exact. I feel it's important to mention that, just to put my economic standing out there. Because that's at the heart of my discomfort.

I stood (leaning against the door, despite the MTA's warnings against such activity) and watched as a young woman fed her very young daughter (maybe 9 months old?) breakfast. Another woman, possibly the grandmother of the baby, sat opposite the younger woman, with a little boy (maybe 3 years old).

When the group took their seats, in the smaller section toward the rear of the car, the older woman handed the young mother half of a ham, egg and cheese sandwich (a "bacon-egg-and-slam" as my boyfriend would say). The young mother then woke her sleeping child, who didn't seem to have a full set of teeth yet, and waved the sandwich in the baby's face. The child looked utterly bewildered, but didn't cry. It took about 5-7 minutes before the mother physically made the child hold the sandwich in her own hand and guided it into her baby's mouth. I'm not sure if the kid liked the sandwich or not; she didn't smile or eat with any discernible gusto. But she did nibble on it, in that nom-nom-nom kind of way that small children do.

I stood there torn between watching and trying not to watch; alternated between thinking, "these kids don't have a chance" and "stop being such a snob." It seemed to me that this child should still be being breast fed and should be adventuring out into some pureed peas and carrots at lunch and dinner - ham & eggs!?! How is this girl NOT going to grow up obese? How can we expect her at school age to pay attention in class, with a stomach full of fat and preservatives? How will she learn the value of good nutrition if she's not exposed to a variety of healthy foods?

But then who am I to judge? My father always had a job that paid well enough to have a wife who stayed home and cook 3 times a day for two kids in a suburban house. I have no real-life perspective on what it's like to be a struggling, single, working-class mom... or the child of one. The kids don't have a chance, but neither do their mother nor their grandmother, who remained on the train with the two children after the younger woman exited - probably going to work.

I hesitated to write anything about it for those very reasons, but the scene haunted me through the night and into this morning. It's not an uncommon scene either . And in fact this morning I watched several people eat potato chips, candy and soda on the train as they headed to work... all from different ethnic and economic backgrounds.

Obviously there's a serious problem with healthy food access among poor communities, and it seems to be extending to the middle class as well. People across the spectrum are overworked - leaving little time to think about what's for breakfast/lunch/dinner. What does that do to our ability to think clearly and critically at the jobs we are all so desperately clinging to? What about our long-term health, as our leaders debate whether or not the people they represent deserve equal access to adequate care? And what does it do to the people whose jobs depend on our consuming more healthful options - farmers and smaller purveyors?

Yes, I feel like a snob for speaking about this, but I think it's a genuine problem and one that shouldn't be brushed off as a concern of the yuppie/foodie/latte/arugula class. Doesn't this somehow tie into the fact that we're falling way behind other countries in terms of productivity? In attention span? In math and science achievement?

Or how about the fact that as American corporations export our poor eating habits abroad, eating disorders from anorexia to obesity are now emerging in countries where they were unknown before?

I think its time to consider breakfast as a political act. Show me what democracy looks like!