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Personally, I'd exclude all processed foods from SNAP benefits. It takes 30 to 45 minutes to prep and bake yellow sheet cake and another 10 minutes to frost/decorate it. Pineapple upside-down cake is more like an hour to get the brown sugar/pineapple caramelized. Why should my tax dollars fund someone too apathetic to bake a birthday cake?
When I was unemployed at the Great Recession, I learned how to bake.
Agreed. that is why I don't get angry when people on SNAP have the latest Apple phone or nicer watch than I have. They may need that latest Apple phone to take a picture of their kid's birthday cake or need that expensive watch to ensure that they can get to work on time. As a taxpayer, who am I to judge?
This is such a stereotype. Expensive watches? Next time you are in a crowd, look around and see how few people even wear watches. People can have things they bought when times were better for them, and then a layoff or illness came along and, boom, their income is gone. Is anyone really going to suggest they sell that Apple phone they bought 3 years ago for the little it would bring them? How will they ever find a job, then? Unless you know the details, are you really in a position to judge?
There are people who can't be trusted to simply be given money to buy their own food.
What does that even mean? And how does it apply to older adults?
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Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
And who cares if someone is getting over on the program? I doubt that most "millionaires" do such a thing, although I'm sure there are the odds ones who do.
Seriously. Millionaires, even ones with dementia or physical incapacities, will hire help. Meals On Wheels meals are not that tasty.
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We are a country that has more than enough food for everyone. It is shameful to us if anyone is going hungry.
If I were REALLY the Mighty Queen, everyone would eat, no questions asked. Crippled, criminal, crazy, or just plain poor. We are dirtbags as people if we withhold food from ANYONE.
Amen.
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Originally Posted by GeoffD
If you're physically or mentally disabled to the point where you can't handle buying and preparing food, that's not a "food security" issue.
If you're not eating, or not eating enough to maintain basic nutrition, no matter the reason, you're food insecure. Period.
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Originally Posted by GeoffD
Personally, I'd exclude all processed foods from SNAP benefits. It takes 30 to 45 minutes to prep and bake yellow sheet cake and another 10 minutes to frost/decorate it.
That's great. If you have an oven. If you have utensils. If you have baking pans. If you have mixing bowls. If you have a recipe. If you can read.
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When I was unemployed at the Great Recession, I learned how to bake.
I guess they’ll just have to starve to death rather than learn to cook. There are these miraculous things called cookbooks. Joy of Cooking and Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook cover the basics and have been around for almost a century. $5 in a used book store. Like a lot of people, I’m completely self-taught. In 2019, I use Google but I used cookbooks when I was young and living by myself.
If someone is disabled to the point where they can’t fend for themselves, sure.
I learned similarly. Long bachelor life I learned to cook simply, sometimes making a big portion so I have leftovers to being to work and microwave. The trick is, don't go "high gain open loop" - instead apply the KISS principle.
Some people seem to think that there is no middle ground between going out or eating pre-packaged food, and cooking elaborate meals entirely from scratch. News flash - there is a lot of middle ground. Browning some hamburger, then dumping a can of pre-made chili into it - one of my early tricks - is not a lot more trouble than just heating up the canned chili, but it produces a much better (IMHO) result. And it does not make a big mess. As to a new-to-cooking senior peeling potatoes - fuggetaboutit. That's got to be the first step in something that's way too elaborate, and anyway cutting the peels off potatoes IMHO ruins them anyway. If you want potatoes, microwave them skin and all. The whole "shtick" of cooking for one is to make things simple, make things that don't take more than maybe 15 minutes of actual "chef" time, using a crock pot for stuff that needs to stew a long time. Now if the person decides that they *want* to learn to make elaborate dishes, fine, with experience they can gain the necessary skills. And beyond cook books - YouTube is the tutor of choice for learning "how to" in most any field anymore.
Having a dishwasher, and using it for just about everything that needs washing up after cooking, makes the whole process more worth the effort to me. I know some people like washing dishes by hand. OK, fine, some people like to be tied up and beat with whips. Not me, OK?
Of course, most of us on here are on the right hand side of the bell curve for IQ. We can, indeed, make a cake from a mix in a box, just reading the directions on said box. There are people out there who can hardly do this, and there are a surprising number of people who are functionally illiterate. Unsurprisingly, many of these people are lower income. For them it's harder, but they can reach out to someone who can teach them if they will make that effort. For every older guy who can't cook, there is at least one older gal who can cook, but can't do "guy things" around the house. A bartering of labor and materials can be done.
Just a fyi about a dishwasher. A lot of apartments don't have a dishwasher in them. As a matter of fact, the last apartment and the one I'm currently renting are the only two I've had that have them.
Also, there are a lot of elderly people who do not have a computer and couldn't afford internet if they had one. My mother refused to learn how to use one.
Some of you must have read a different article than I read.
The man referenced in the article is blind and in a wheel chair and the whole reason he lost his place with Meals on Wheels which was delivering prepared meals to him is that he was hospitalized due to burning himself while trying to cook.
Seems like one of the professionals involved in his care would have been able to figure out a way to cut through the red tape and get him back on the Meals on Wheels list. Given that he is a vet, the threat to call a Congressman or a Veterans organization would have probably done it.
Sorry, but I dont buy the food insecurity schtick. First, there is social security and welfare food stamps meals on wheels and various free food offers from others. Many cities also have food pantries with free food. We had one in Lubbock Tx. They had so much money they were paying kids in summer to come and be paid and taught how to grow food.
If these people are shut ins (cant get out of their house on their own) family needs to take them in or be put in nursing home or some assisted living arrangement. Maybe the local govt could take over and then bill the family. I've seen situations where the children of the elderly completely shirk their duty.
I've got to agree with Augie, here, I'm just not seeing it. Around Chicago, it seems as if there is TOO MUCH food available, as most people have butts wider than a three-row corn picker. Even when I go down to my Buddy's mobile home park in central Illinois (nobody is living there because they are rich, LOL), I just don't see many (any?) people who are under-weight. And, many of the folks living in his park either smoke, drink, or go to the boat whenever they have an extra twenty bucks in their pocket (instead of Whole Foods). So, are all of these folks with "food insecurity" invisible, or are they rated as such because they don't have big pantries?
$6/day for food is doable. There are websites devoted to this. You eat a lot of eggs, beans and rice, ... and cook a lot, but plenty of people do it.
The problem for many older people is that they don't cook. They reheat. They might cook an egg, but they often aren't cooking soup, or casseroles, or boiling up a pot of beans.
They aren' chopping vegetables. They are opening cans.
Is it possible? Absolutely, but it's not easy. It takes a good bit of research and planning.
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Originally Posted by GeoffD
It is if you cook all your own food and shop intelligently.
Do you have an Aldi? The ones near me, eggs are 90 cents per dozen. A 22 serving container of steel cut oats is $3.00. Boneless chicken breast or thighs are $2.00/pound. Pork loin is even less. A quart of half & half is $1.55. Frozen vegetables are cheap. Tuna is 67 cents. You can eat pretty well on $10/day. 5 billion people on the planet spend less per day.
If someone is homeless so they can’t cook, it’s a problem. If you have a range and a refrigerator, $10/day isn’t a problem.
Yes, they've expanded a lot here over the last few years. I prefer Aldi for some things. They're generally cheaper than all the mainline grocery stores in the area, and can be a toss-up with Walmart. With that said, they aren't really a "complete" grocer, IMO.
I've got to agree with Augie, here, I'm just not seeing it. Around Chicago, it seems as if there is TOO MUCH food available, as most people have butts wider than a three-row corn picker. Even when I go down to my Buddy's mobile home park in central Illinois (nobody is living there because they are rich, LOL), I just don't see many (any?) people who are under-weight. And, many of the folks living in his park either smoke, drink, or go to the boat whenever they have an extra twenty bucks in their pocket (instead of Whole Foods). So, are all of these folks with "food insecurity" invisible, or are they rated as such because they don't have big pantries?
It’s not food insecurity. It’s care insecurity. Any anecdotal reference is someone who is disabled.
I've got to agree with Augie, here, I'm just not seeing it. Around Chicago, it seems as if there is TOO MUCH food available, as most people have butts wider than a three-row corn picker. Even when I go down to my Buddy's mobile home park in central Illinois (nobody is living there because they are rich, LOL), I just don't see many (any?) people who are under-weight. And, many of the folks living in his park either smoke, drink, or go to the boat whenever they have an extra twenty bucks in their pocket (instead of Whole Foods). So, are all of these folks with "food insecurity" invisible, or are they rated as such because they don't have big pantries?
Poor people can be overweight because they buy foods that are cheap, filling and very calorie dense. Yes, they are getting calories, but they are not eating a nutritious diet because they either cannot afford one or cannot access the foods to achieve one.....and that is food insecurity.
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