Goes to show you, most of the “homeless” are drunks.
If i lived that life i am sure i would be too.
Got a cite for that ralphy ? The way you said it sounds more like a personal excuse to despise the less fortunate than a statement of fact.
From this one ‘example’ you extrapolate that most homeless people are drunks?
I’ll chime in on this one. at one point in my life I was down and out, ‘living rough’, homeless for 7 months. I didn’t eat dog food nor was I a drunk. dog food even dry ‘no name’ cost more than a bag of rice, or dried beans and lentils. My biggest problem was going into the store looking and smelling like I just walked out of a sewer. if you want meat, meat is easily found. you can catch rat (and prolly a lot more if you eat it) or dumpster dive after closing time. I can tell you a well know company that serves billions throws out a whole lot of untouched food, and its somewhat edible. they even put it in a special bag.
so someone who claims that homeless eat dog food because they cant get anything cheaper, means they cant get anything cheaper that is ready to eat without preperation
chula thank you for the informative credible cites in answer to my question. Yes, I was quite sincere in asking the question and had even conducted a few searches prior to posing it here, but never found anything but incidental references, mostly flippant and tangential. I suspected that I might indeed be somewhat blind to certain realities being, as you put it, isolated in my comfortable existence. But I am by no means ignorant to the problem of hunger and poverty and really am simply trying to understand why the desperate choice of pet food might be made, over other sources. For example as a vegetarian I consume quite a quantity of beans – blackeye peas, red beans, black beans, etc. Especially when I buy the store brand, they really are inexpensive. As I alluded to in the OP, you don’t need meat, and, though I am aware that people in desperate situations aren’t in a position to be thinking about crafting a healthy diet, it seems like a can of refried beans would be more palatable than Pal.
Also, thanks to everyone else who responded. The assertion that “all” homeless people are drunks is untrue and I’d really like to see some info to dispel this myth. I think some homeless people have underlying problems which contribute to their situation, such as addiction or mental illness, but surely not all. Homeless children, for one example.
I plan to go read the homeless thread that was linked; I’m sure it will be very enlightening.
As noted, no cite for this claim. As opposed to the actual propaganda promulgated by Reagan himself that people on food stamps were buying an orange with a $10 food stamp and using the change to buy vodka. Too bad for him you don’t actually get cash back from a food stamp purchase (you get your change in food stamps) other than a maximum of 99 cents, which doesn’t even but a vodka miniature.
Story noted in the book “The Clothes Have no Emperor.”
Homeless people typically don’t have access to a stove and I would rather eat dogfood then uncooked blackeyed peas.
I’m leaving tommorow to live in the desert for two weeks without ANY food or water. I expect to eat maggots, grass, ants, rat, and squirrel. And I’m doing this willingly.
There is a huge difference between a few stories being bullshit and the practice itself being bullshit.
Now here is something really un-pc. IMO, there are SOME people, no ALL, SOME people who probably eat dogfood more out of a “woe is me” Saint Sebastian complex than necessity.
There’s probably even a small cadre who eat dogfood because they like the taste. Too much Disney can seriously warp your tastes in life !
Exactly. The question was whether or not poor people have been forced to eat dog food. The answer is still no. There are dozens of low cost food items that can happily sustain health and vigor. Why do some people “choose” to eat pet food? I don’t know. Dementia? Imagined desperation? Lack of imagination?
chula No, that cite is actually not credible at all. Ignoring the source and the lack of statistics, the study relies on suspect methodology:
You’ve been around the SDMB long enough to know that a few anecdotes won’t add up to proof even if it’s printed up in a nice pdf on a government website.
Kid, why? Tell us more. About your desert trip, I mean.
As for the beans, canned beans are cooked, they’re just cold. As would be dog food, I guess.
no, I didn’t have a stove but I did have access to a fire or a hot engine block, I even had a military type give me a few small blocks of hexamine once. hell you dont even have to have a pot, empty tin cans can still boil water. you dont need a stove to cook, or a kettle to boil.
I’m piqued too, Kid. No water in the desert sounds rather dangerous to me. I’ve lived in the desert for a month at a time while in the military and water is a number one concern. Hope everything works out okay for you.
Yeah, I’d highly recommend everyone read the thread I linked in post #3. Your fellow Dopers who have been there can give you the straight dope on what you can afford to eat during hard times.
I guess I’d go with what others were saying in that it may not be cheaper to buy dog food in a bag but it’s a whole lot easier to eat straight out of the bag than unprepared Ramen, rice, or beans. It’s like a big bag of chips only it’s probably much better for you and whole lot more filling. It can also feed a lot of people at one time. I’m reminded of the scene in The Road Warrior where Mel Gibson opens up a can of dog food and hungrily eats most of the contents. He then tosses the can to his dog who licks it out. Then his prisoner (the gyro captain) snatches the can and digs out what he can with his big wooden spoon.
When I was in SF I spent some time hanging around with homeless and squatters in Golden Gate Park. You could sleep outside comfortably almost year-round. I’ll vouch that they do hunt down park animals (geese, ducks, dogs, cats, and water rats) and cook them up. They told me usually the smell of cooking meat will attract a lot of other hungry people though. I found out that if you’ve got something good to eat you’d better be prepared to defend it or eat it while running and hiding. Booze may make you forget your troubles and hunger pains temporarily but you sure can’t live on it. A big shout out to Gremlin if you ever read this. I hope the shoes I gave you are still working out and that you found somebody else to buy you your favorite (Pop Tarts!) and let you have the occasional shower and clean hand-me-downs. Take care buddy.
I don’t want to hijack the thread so i’ll post a thread in MPSIMS. I’ll call it “I’m about to spend two weeks in the desert without food or water.”
I’m starting to be amazed at how some people will brand just about anything an “urban legend”. Its bad enough that there is so much crap out there, but to spend more and more of our time verifying legitimate claims ::rolleyes:
Color me skeptical. The question is whether people are forced by outside circumstances to eat dog food not whether there is hunger in America. Let’s not eat straw men here. Nobody has denied there may be hunger in America. The question is whether people are forced by circumstances to eat dog food and anecdotes do not prove that. Proof of that would be showing circumstances which would force a poor, healthy, sane person to do it. There are too many crazy and stupid people out there who do crazy and stupid things but they are not forced to do them but external circumstances.
I find it extremely difficult to believe there is any city where circumstances would make people eat dog food. Washington DC is not the cheapest place in the US and my monthly budget for groceries is just over $100. I eat cheap food because that’s what I like but I do not stop from buying anything I want and that includes wine. I also eat more than is good for me. I am pretty sure I could eat a healthy diet on $60/mo or $2 a day. If I only had $1 I could get by on that and some handouts and still get a balanced diet. Food in America is dirt cheap compared to third world countries. If you can’t make a couple of dollars a day for food then you have some other problems (drugs, sickness etc)
I challenge anyone to put together a diet which includes dogfood and that I cannot match in cost for something equally nutritious. If people are doing that it is out of ignorance (and I do know people are very ignorant out there but that does not fall under “outside circumstances”)
And yes, people do abuse the food stamps all the time. If you want to see it just go down to the fish market by the waterfront in DC and you’ll see every day, all the time, people buying crabs and other things which are way removed from being basic food to keep you alive.
The abuse is well documented (there was a TV program) and all things done to prevent it go nowhere because there is no way to get around it: if you give something of value for free people can just turn around and sell it.
Why is that the question ? You’ve set a mighty high standard of proof here. Why don’t stupid or crazy people count ? Perhaps people do eat pet food under circumstances when they might logically have a better choice; but why do you feel that their failure to be entirely rational invalidates the fact that they made the choice in the first place ? Most people are not Nietzschian Superman. Despite that, we let them vote and drive and raise kids and do other important things. All of this they do with a gay lack of respect for the rules of logic and order. If you wish to discount the decisions of irrational homeless people on grounds of irrationality, you also have to throw away most of the decisions made by most people most of the time.
My mother is a registered nurse. About a decade ago she was working in the home health care field and taking care of an elderly female client.
She discovered that her client ate dry cat food. (Meow Mix, actually.)
My mother asked the client why she was eating it.
The client replied that she liked the taste.
After hearing this, I actually tried meow mix. It has a very sour flavor to it, and I didn’t swallow the piece I sampled.
My mom could have been lying, but that would not have been typical for her.
Exactly what would constitute sufficient evidence? We have innumerable anecdotes (some from posters here), and a study by Rutgers University funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Are they all part of a vast liberal conspiracy to make Reagan look bad by fabricating evidence of poverty and hunger? Could anyone cite anything that shows that these stories were made up?
I wonder if people think that stories about people eating rotting food, food found in garbage cans, and other unpleasant items are also made up?
Though I don’t live in the US : at some point I lived on a very low food budget, close to your 2 $/day example, and indeed had a healthy diet (more healthy than during most other periods, I would guess, actually). There’s indeed very cheap and nevertheless healthy food (including meat) around.
However, this required being able to cook my food. Had I been homeless, there would have been no way I could have lived on such a budget.
>> Why is that the question ? You’ve set a mighty high standard of proof here. Why don’t stupid or crazy people count ? Perhaps people do eat pet food under circumstances when they might logically have a better choice
squink, the OP says “Have poor people been forced to eat pet food?” and not “Are some people crazy enough to eat pet food?”. I assume “forced” means by poverty and not by their own lack of intellect or by some friend playing a prank. So, yes, that is the question and many anecdotes that people did eat dogfood are not evidence that they were forced to eat dogfood by circumstances. Evidence that some people are poor and hungry is not evidence that they are forced to eat pet food. Evidence that crazy people ate dogfood is not evidence that they are forced to do it by circumstances but rather that they are crazy or at least mildly unintelligent.
Evidence would be in the form of objective data showing you can have a diet which includes dogfood for much less than a diet which does not and that goes against my perception of prices. If you want me to believe otherwise you’ll have to prove it. Not to mention there are charitable places where you can get human food for free and not pet food for free.
clairobscur, I admit if you can cook you can have a better diet cheaper but I’ll tell you I hardly ever cook. Lately not more than two or three times a month because I am too darn lazy. I open cans of soup and eat them from the can without even heating them. That’s the way I like it. And plenty of fruit and other things which do not need cooking. So, you can get by without cooking (although cooking is better). Also, a homeless person can find a place where he can make a small fire and cook over it. I have cooked (when camping) by using a large can over a fire.
My perception is that very poor people, more than handouts, need some serious help in the way they run their lives which is the root of the problem. Many are just too ignorant or stupid or lazy to get their lives organised and they need help there, not in handouts.
There was a TV news magazine a couple years ago about a poor woman with kids, on welfare, who was given a nice house in a nice, upscale neighborhood. Her complaint was that if you live in a lousy neigborhood you can’t get a job etc and that is why she was on welfare. So they give her a nice house and they check on her a year later. She is still a slob with no job, wasting her time and money ordering pizza and watching movies on TV.
At the same time they show a paralised woman who is working a job, supporting herself and raising a couple of kids without government help. (And, obviously, paying taxes which go to welfare.)
For the most part, people need a friendly kick in the pants much more than a handout.