Michelle Goes Grocery Shopping With Tim Geithner And Tom Vilsack (PHOTOS, POLL)

Shoppers at a Fresh Grocer in North Philadelphia were greeted Friday afternoon by some surprise visitors -- First Lady Michelle Obama, along with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The first lady was in Philadelphia to highlight her childhood obesity awareness campaign, called "Let's Move," and to praise steps that Philadelphia has taken to bring healthy, inexpensive food to its neighborhoods. The $15 million Fresh Grocer opened last December in a high-poverty neighborhood in North Philadelphia with help from the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, which seeks to increase supermarket access to lower-income communities across Pennsylvania through public-private partnerships. Eighty grocery stores have been built since 2004 as part of the initiative, and the president has allotted $400 million from the 2011 federal budget for a national initiative based on the Pennsylvania model.

Angelee Harvey from North Philadelphia was in awe: "It's amazing. You never know what you're going to wake up to. I went into here to buy some juice, and met the First Lady."

See photos of the first lady's visit:

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Michelle picks up a package of orange slices at the Fresh Grocer supermarket in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Michelle picks up a package of orange slices at the Fresh Grocer supermarket in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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JohnSawyer said on 19 Friday 2010 pm28 8:53 pm: Is Geithner disliked by so many people, that he needs Mrs. Obama to protect him when he goes grocery shopping? :)

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Comments

[tom90069]

04:37 PM on 04/12/2010

love these pictures, she looks so at home in that store. tim looks lost.
i wonder if laura bush knows where the grocery store is in dallas or the last time she shopped for food.

[kojoman]

04:27 PM on 02/23/2010

Inconclusion to the above:

THE POOR TOO MUST CHOP. "chop=eat"

But, what amaze me even more, is how any struggling American could agree or support a politician that's against changes,,, that would enable the food and shelter that he/they are in need of?

PS: I remind them, those very politician, are not in the same need... Thanks to our tax-dollars.

Ten to one, they're millionaires.. If not now, check back in a couple years.

[maggie10]

12:13 AM on 02/23/2010

THIS, ois the most scary article I have read so far.

[afgail]

06:09 PM on 02/22/2010

What's not to like about Michelle? Barack not so much.
Just a disenchanted liberal feeling really betrayed:
No support for public option
War crime torture memos equals "poor judgement"
No regulation of Wall Street
Gitmo still open
No trial for 9/11 terroritst in New York
Appeasement of the Republicans
Letting the Republicans frame every issue
Cutting deals with HC insurance
Cutting deals with big Pharma

Elections have consequences? Not in his case apprarently.

[maggie10]

12:15 AM on 02/23/2010

What's not to like about Michelle? She is shopping with Tim. That's what.

[afgail]

05:55 PM on 02/22/2010

I hope Michelle was sipping a fruit smoothie of fruit, ice and skim milk and not a 1,000 calorie ice cream milk shake.

[maggie10]

12:16 AM on 02/23/2010

Yeah, me too. I'd hate to see her get fat.

[Political Conservative]

02:26 PM on 02/22/2010

I'm curious... did they frisk Tim as he left the store. Cheating on taxes is stealing, so it's not too far fetched to think he shoplifts....

[Soule23]

05:12 PM on 02/22/2010

He didn't cheat on his taxes, he just failed to pay them. There's a difference, albeit small.

[MyTake]

11:50 PM on 02/21/2010

Congratulations HuffPo. You are certainly doing your part in rehabilitating Geithner's highly unfavorable public opinion.

The WH was taking big time hits on the Summers/Geithner tandem for several weeks. They trotted out the elderly Volcker to take the press heat off Summers and Geithner.

So how does the Treas. Secretary show up for a photo op with the First Lady like this. I am guessing her polling numbers exceed that of the Prez and Gueithner. So lets pair them up and let the controlled media flash the pictures across the nation solely for the purpose of doing a media make-over on Geithner.

This is about as cheap as politics can get.

I would rather these three showed up at a corporate controlled food processing plant and taste test all those doctored sugar, glucose fructose, aspertame molecules that are dosed into the entire processed food supply. Then and only then should she be able to address the obesity issue.

And as for Vilsack, just send him back to the Monsanto GMO plant from which he came.

[blaharumph]

10:25 AM on 02/21/2010

love the first lady, carrying on like a normal decent person!
no one seems excited about shaking geithner's hand though.
he looks surreal in a real human setting.

[jsarets]

09:07 AM on 02/21/2010

Geithner was blown away by how cheap everything is, and how pathetic Americans must be to find themselves unable to afford food. Less than $3 for a gallon of milk, $2.50 for a loaf of bread, $2-3 a pound for chicken breast... I don't understand what people are complaining about!

[suzc]

09:38 AM on 02/22/2010

Where IS that store? In our local supermarkets OUR milk is more than that, OUR bread is more than that, OUR chicken is more than that.

[maggie10]

11:44 PM on 02/22/2010

I don't think that was the point

[rougebaisers]

08:28 AM on 02/21/2010

How nice. Shopping with one of the reasons tens of millions of americans do not have money to shop for groceries.

[rf-hawaii]

08:15 AM on 02/21/2010

Lose the captions next time, please.

[blaharumph]

10:23 AM on 02/21/2010

i agree.
unwrapping the straw...

[suzc]

09:38 AM on 02/22/2010

yeah, "gag me with a spoon" for heaven's sake!

[OMG1]

02:53 AM on 02/21/2010

The First Lady needs to promote organic foods and meats free of hormones and antibiotics. We are poisoning our children and nobody seems to care.

[bazooka]

03:57 PM on 02/21/2010

Second.

[blueskybigstar]

04:26 PM on 02/21/2010

look below

[deepintheheartoftejas]

11:31 PM on 02/20/2010

What's with the picture of her picking up a package of pre-sliced orange slices? I've never seen such a thing. What a waste of packaging. Is it too difficult to peel an orange and pull the wedges apart, or get a sharp knife and cut out the slices yourself?

The amount of fresh vegetables in the produce section that now come in sealed plastic bags is worrisome.

[hypnotoad72]

10:20 AM on 02/21/2010

Why is it worrisome?

[bazooka]

04:00 PM on 02/21/2010

Because packaging is phenomenally wasteful. Often little more than a secondary market for petroleum products. And indicative of a society of lazy spoiled people.

[PunKinPai]

05:46 PM on 02/22/2010

Google the great Pacific garbage patch. That's one reason.

[Rayme]

10:59 PM on 02/20/2010

I don't get this PR stunt. Our food policy is raising the price of food each year with a real threat of a collapse sometime soon. The only good thing that the O administration has done is to plant an organic garden on the white house lawn.

[rf-hawaii]

08:15 AM on 02/21/2010

Read the damn article.

[maggie10]

11:49 PM on 02/22/2010

I read it. What have I missed. Please tell me. What is this article about.

[Choicelady]

08:15 PM on 02/20/2010

The usurpation of health food, especially organic, by the elite is just another factor in the creation of an unhealthy population. Farmers' markets, once the "meet in the middle" way of lowering consumer prices while raising farmers' income, now are too often more expensive than supermarkets. While this PA example of public-private reintroduction of supermarkets might help, there is no guarantee they will be any more successful than the chains that abandoned those neighborhoods. We need alternative forms of ownership such as increased use of cooperatives, worker-owned stores, and more subsidies for SMALL stores to carry healthy food options. Behind this move to get federal dollars is PolicyLink that means well but in CA systematically refused to examine different kinds of funding and ownership. They made an alliance with the grocers who said, point blank, don't replace like with like. If one store failed, this new one will as well. NON profit options must be part of the equation. Every business needs surplus for its own stability and growth, but you don't need proft on top of that. We need to be innovative, not duplicative, and I fear PolicyLink has sold the feds a bill of goods rather than a real alternative. Who loses? Those whose needs we are trying to address. If PolicyLink becomes the voice of retaining profit, then who really speaks for those abandoned so swiftly by the market?