I don’t know the difference between the various food programs but I’ve seen grocery stores put identifiers next to each WIC approved food item. It makes sense to eliminate junk food and limit the choices to food that is budget appropriate.
unemployed or underemployed means they have the same time or more than other people have to prepare meals. Your point is best applied to someone below the poverty level working more than 40 hrs a week.
I disagree.
Chicken Soup:
1 whole roasted chicken from the reduced sale bin
2 packs of Lipton instant soup mix
water brought to a boil
a few strands of spaghetti chopped up to add bulk
2 eggs
15 minutes to boil water, pull chicken apart and add in beaten eggs.
The remaining chicken goes into sandwiches and a chicken & rice casserole.
There are an infinite number of easy recipes that are cheaper to make and more nutritious than fully prepared meals. I’m not saying this based on some academic exercise I say it because I’ve been unemployed for 2 1/2 years and I eat food that I purchased without assistance. I’m doing it by necessity.
The op’s example of a $95 junk food bill (assuming it’s WIC money) is that it represents publicly funded child abuse. The elephant in the room is that we recognize the malnutrition foisted upon poor children by their parents because we turn around and spend money AGAIN on school breakfast programs.
12 years of publicly financed education provide the skills necessary to cook nutritious meals and libraries will have cookbooks available. The tools necessary to prepare basic meals can be found at thrift stores for pennies on the dollar.
The desire to help the poor often has something of a patronizing element to it. We assume poverty equates to someone living under a bridge without the skill to tie a shoe. Yes, there are people like that but they fall into the category of those who are fed in food kitchens because they have nothing. The vast majority of people on public assistance have the ability to cook on some level. In both cases, politicians have the fiduciary responsibility to spend tax money wisely in order to feed the greatest number of people.
No, I’m not. Processed food is going to cost more than its ingredients. Because you have to account for the cost of processing.
Most poor people in the US work part-time, or not at all. Cite.
ETA, since John Mace has been known to complain when I don’t cut and paste my cites so he doesn’t have to click -
Plus this notion that poor people cannot be expected to cook for themselves or their families is a little hard to see. I managed it, even working full-time. Why can’t they?
Actually, my benefit review is scheduled for next week. I am this close to having an actual panic attack. Any interaction with the welfare office terrifies me. There’s no logical reason for this. The one bad interaction was when the post office lost my forms and paper work and my benefits were cancelled as a result.
I routinely buy ice cream and cherry soda. As others have said, in a largely joyless life (I suffer from chronic depression), they provide brief moments of happiness. I also occasionally buy extravagancies for friends and relatives- I skip a meal or two and get mom a bottle of gourmet hot sauce for Hannukah. Largely, I live on cereal and diet Mountain Dew.
I know a few other folks on disability. One has muscular distrophy. She can’t breathe on her own or raise her hands to her chin. Forcing her to buy ingredients would mean paying for her caregiver to cook. Most of the folks at the day program I attend are on disability. A few can just manage living alone but under no circumstances should use the oven, stove, or large knives unsupervised.
Finally, not everybody has access to stores that sell ingredients. Many of Philadelphia’s poor sections lack full grocery stores. If there are no supermarkets near you, then you are forced to buy from Kwik E Mart’s.
I have no clue what somebody on EBT would be doing with an actual I Phone. However, plenty of poor folks have bargain cell phones. In fact there’s a program called SafeLink that provides people on welfare with free Tracphones. I recently got one. It’s a basic phone (no camera or touchscreen, no ports for connecting to a computer) with 60 or so minutes each month.
So it’s entirely possible for somebody to be genuinely poor and have a cell phone.
If you don’t make a lot of calls and have a by-the-minute cell phone it can be a LOT cheaper than a lane line. I spend less than $20 a month out the door for cell phone service instead of $30 plus long distance I’d be spending for a land line.
My child just started kindergarten and I was pleasantly surprised that they have a “cooking” lesson once a week. It’s very basic stuff, but includes lessons in where food comes from, safe handling, nutrition, etc. It sounds like something they should do everywhere.
Not true. A human needs calories in the short term, not nutrition. Most poor people food provide calories at very good prices.
Also, if you weren’t tossing out blanket ideological truisms, you might stop to think that processed food could indeed be cheaper because of economies of scale and shipping. Compare four apples with a block or Top Ramen. The Ramen is processed, but the components are delivered on site in bulk, manufactured, packaged and then delivered (it weighs much less per calorie than an apple). The delivery can be much slower than what is necessary for apples (which of course means much cheaper). There isn’t as much loss in transit, there isn’t as much loss on the shelf of the supermarket.
Couple this with the fact that a lot of the poor aren’t as educated as you are, need to feed children who want sweets, may not live in walking distance to an actual supermarket, and it seems like the issue isn’t a cut and dried as you suggest.
They still have government cheese. I pass it out once a month at a food pantry and we run out every month, people line up pretty early to get the first crack at the almsot too ripe fruits and vegetables and day old bread (and so they don’t miss out on . There is also government canned meat (it comes in what must be gallon cans), Government peanut butter (once again, by the gallon), government canned corn and other vegetables (yep you guessed it, gallon).
My family ought to have been on food stamps for most of my childhood, except that Mom had a hard time convincing the welfare office that we qualified. When we finally did manage to get them for about a year, she was excited because it would give her an opportunity to stock up for years in advance. Then, as it turned out, we ended up hosting a family of Vietnamese refugees, and she was able to use food stamps intended for a family of three to feed eight people.
If you really know how to shop for the genuinely cheap food, you can stretch dollars (food stamp or otherwise) a lot further than you’d think.
Or before their spouse left them. A middle-aged women who has spent the last 15 years as a housewife will probably find herself on food stamps fast if her husbands decides to skip off with his favorite Hooters waittress.
Let’s say a working mother gets off work at five and has an hour bus ride home. Her kids go to sleep at eight. She’s got two solid hours with the kids each day.
What is the best use of her time? Each hour that she’s in the kitchen is an hour that she’s not helping with homework, cuddling the kids, talking to them about their day, reading to them, etc. God, I wish poor families had the resources to provide the idea everything- but they don’t. Something is going to be sacrificed. Some things are going to be less than ideal. For some families, this ends up being diet. All I can say is I’m glad I don’t have to be the one to decide what my kids have to do without.
I can’t cook, and nobody’s sadistic nannyism can change that fact. Nor will their disbelief in the idea that people can’t cook change that fact. So let’s be quite clear - if it involves gauging amounts, times, colors, consistencies, remembering to add all the ingredients, remembering which ingredients I’ve added, or remembering that I left something on the burner, then it’s extremely unwise to leave the task in my hands, and I will not attempt it unless I have no other choice, and even then I will attempt only the minimum.
So, if I were on food stamps, what would I be allowed to eat? Raw fruit and vegetables, yes, what I can eat before it rots. Do I get pre-cooked bread, or do I have to chew on dry flour?
DianaG- Hell yeah! We SHOULD mind our own business about what other people eat. I am on Food Stamp assistance, and I buy cookies. Shoot me! I also use my card to buy my daughter milk, vegetables, bread, bananas, apples- what are you gonna do? Make us eat Brussels sprouts? I like Brussels sprouts too, lol.
What, you don’t have a bakery in the back of your abode? Well then, I wouldn’t want to patronize you (having been born with a silver spoon in my mouth), so…start chewing, flour boy…
[del]Food Stamps[/del] SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) isn’t there to feed the poor.
It’s there to put money in the pockets of companies companies like Kraft Foods and Pepsico (take a good look at that site if you think they only sell soda) and of course supermarkets.
The poor getting food is just what’s required to make the transfer occur.
Think those companies might have something to say about taking away their SNAP profits?
And say it in cash to elected officials that need that cash to stay elected officials?
Think it’s just a coincidence that SNAP is administered by the Department of Agriculture?
