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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.
I see, this is a question of semantics. You call eating a (more expensive, btw) Ding Dong or Big Mac instead of an apple, banana, or bunch of carrots "Food Insecurity". I call it "Foolishness". And what is the cause of foolishness? Typically, lack of education (or laziness). And what is the cause of lack of education? In this society and age, it's either laziness, or mental illness (or mental inadequacy). I don't personally lose sleep worrying about the lazy, sorry. And yes, mental inadequacy and mental illness are significant problems, but not the subject of the thread.
For the most part, the elderly are at risk of malnutrition primarily due to decreased mobility and cognitive function. If they are not in poverty, they can afford to have food and/or groceries delivered. If they are so impaired they cannot do the simplest tasks of food preparation (like making oatmeal, spaghetti, or boiled eggs), they shouldn't be living alone to begin with, they need to be in a long term care facility, which Medicare will pay for once their assets are depleted.
For those elderly who are living in poverty conditions, then family, neighbors, and charity need to step up to help them. If they have been such bastards in life that their families and neighbors don't want anything to do with them, they're pretty much farked. So I guess the lesson is, to be a better person while you're young, so people will give a rat's behind about you when you get old, especially if you're poor as well.
On a personal level, I've been living an "experiment" of intermittent fasting for the past several months, where I eat nothing (save for a couple of gummy vitamins) on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. On the other four days, because I'm a glutton who has historically overeaten (and was approximately forty pounds overweight for the last two decades of my working life), I typically eat one large meal a day now, with a much smaller "snack" later in the evening. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I try to concentrate eating only vegetables and fruit, eschewing meat products. On weekends, I can pretty much eat anything I want, within reason. The goal is to keep weekly caloric intake below 14,000 (2000 per day). The idea that everyone has to have three (or more) full meals a day appears to be a load of poppycock which has turned us into a nation of morbidly obese diabetics with high blood pressure. But according to the popular definition, I'm "food insecure", because I'm often hungry (there's a reason why "Gluttony" was listed among the Deadly Seven).
So far, I'm down to 205 lbs. (still about 15 lbs. heavier than desired), but am slowly "getting there". Time will tell, but I think I've found "the answer" (at least for myself). At 62 years of age, I'm in fairly decent health with good resting pulse, blood glucose and blood pressure measurements (except for joint degradation, which is what will probably eventually take me out). I do NOT expect the Gub'mint to send someone to my home five days a week to make sure I'm washed, fed, and tucked in at night. When I can no longer do those things for myself (and having no children to support me), it will be time to go. With no whining necessary, please. The idea that we can all live trouble-free to age 90 is complete fantasy, and will NEVER happen, at least not with the choices most of us make on a daily basis (for example, to watch a re-run of Gilligan's Island after dinner instead of walking a mile). Again, make bad choices in life, get bad results. Can one make good choices, and still get bad results? Absolutely, bad luck (and genetics) can always turn the dice up snake-eyes. but for the most part, for most people, that's not how it works.
A NYC charity I support regularly is City Harvest.
This wouldn't work as well in rural areas, but I think it's one of the best ideas out there. City Harvest "rescues" food from restaurants and grocery stores and distributes to the needy throughout the city. The donations go to paying for the trucks and drivers, which also provides work for people. Some of the chains throughout the city, like Pret A Manger, donate all their unused food at the end of the day (Pret sells upscalish sandwiches, salads, soups, etc., and is popular with the working crowds.)
Quote (,paraphrase) " the idea that everyone needs 3 meals a day is poppycock"...
Once upon a time men worked from sunup to sundown plowing, planting, weeding, harvesting the farm.
Once upon a time women worked from sunup to sundown cooking. Canning, baking. Sewing by hand, washing etc, then sewed/crocheted/knitted til bedtime after dark, and when need be, helped to harvest the farms stores or cooked all day for the men doing the harvesting.
Point being that a LOT of PHYSICAL activity was required just to survive and live and 3 meals, plus probably snacks were REQUIRED.
We are a more sedentary society now, where we can run in and out in 10 minutes and come out with a ready to eat meal to eat after quick heating in a "miracle-wave" "oven".
We are also lazy. Most of us would starve if we had to grow all our own food. And butcher the likes of chickens and pigs and cattle. Compare: Think of wringing the chickens neck ( or chopping it off with a hatchet), plucking feathers for probably an hour ( saved to put into pillow ticking for " feather pillows" ugh...(they are heavy hard things compared to goose down, ask me how i know), then gutting it,( save the liver, heart and gizzard for gravy), then roasting it by the fire for 3 or 4 hours just to have dinner, instead of buying a ready to eat rotisserie chicken for $5 at Wally world, costco or other super store.
Need to sleep warm? Sew together scraps of good parts of worn out clothes for multiple interior layers, then buy dear costing good fabric for the top and back, and invite the friends over for a good old quilting bee to quilt it for a (heavy) warm quilt instead of a $19.99 Wally world blanket, made in china, Bangladesh or somewhere where labor is cheap.
The men folk are busy mucking the stalls and such so the animals remain clean and healthy.
Yeah, 3 squares a day were needed to keep up and sustain ones body for yet another hard days work tomorrow starting before sunup.
I see, this is a question of semantics. You call eating a (more expensive, btw) Ding Dong or Big Mac instead of an apple, banana, or bunch of carrots "Food Insecurity". I call it "Foolishness". And what is the cause of foolishness? Typically, lack of education (or laziness). And what is the cause of lack of education? In this society and age, it's either laziness, or mental illness (or mental inadequacy). I don't personally lose sleep worrying about the lazy, sorry. And yes, mental inadequacy and mental illness are significant problems, but not the subject of the thread.
For the most part, the elderly are at risk of malnutrition primarily due to decreased mobility and cognitive function. If they are not in poverty, they can afford to have food and/or groceries delivered. If they are so impaired they cannot do the simplest tasks of food preparation (like making oatmeal, spaghetti, or boiled eggs), they shouldn't be living alone to begin with, they need to be in a long term care facility, which Medicare will pay for once their assets are depleted.
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.
I'll admit that there are few fast foods that I like more than a McChicken with ketchup and onions. You can get two of those for $3. They're delicious and an average person may get full on one.
I was in Knoxville this morning, and went shopping at Costco near Turkey Creek. You can get the bulk meat cheaply there, but the membership is $60 annually. For a very poor person, that may be a barrier. They might cut a whole pork loin up for you - I don't know - but many places charge for that. Slicing a big chunk of meat can be a challenge.
People often suggest sandwiches, but decent quality lunch meat is much more than boneless, skinless chicken breast or pork loin. Boar's Head bologna is $7/lb here - beef bologna is $8/lb. Virtually any good cut of ham, roast turkey, roast chicken, etc., is $9+/lb.
Sure, you can eat the $2/lb budget meats until you're blue in the face. It can be and is done. I bought another quart of local blueberries for $6 today raised on Unaka Mountain. A dozen ears of local corn for $5. I have several dozen bags of frozen local corn to last me into the next season. We still have cucumbers, various peppers, crookneck and zucchinis, and half-runner beans all still coming in.
It's still a lot cheaper to buy the junk produce at Walmart.
So, your point is that Scrooge was actually the "Hero" in Dickens' tale? That even before the visits of the Christmas Ghosts, that without his ingenuity and frugal manner, Bob Cratchet would not have had a job and his entire family would have been on the streets, likely to starve?
People hate the wealthy and powerful. But they without a doubt, are dependent upon them, and that is likely the source of their hatred. Not that I'm one of them, LOL. I just understand the benefits of someone having perseverance, vision, discipline, innovation, an extremely strong work ethic, self-control and diligence. Versus sitting at the bar all day for years and years, and then expecting to have the same standard of living of someone who didn't do that after retirement. And that's my direct experience with someone I grew up with, it ain't dorm room musings.
Last edited by Curly Q. Bobalink; 08-30-2019 at 10:37 PM..
It's still a lot cheaper to buy the junk produce at Walmart.
Forget Walmart! Their produce is crap: underripe, flavorless, and overpriced. (Except bananas; those are mostly OK.) The best and cheapest produce is sold at ethnic supermarkets: Italian, Polish, or Asian. It's at least half the price of mainstream supermarkets, and the flavor is so much better. Not to mention, you can find produce that mainstream supermarkets usually don't carry, like currants or parsnips.
For an even better value, overripe produce, packed in plastic on styrofoam trays, is sometimes as little as $1 for 2 lb or more. I buy it all the time. It tastes amazing, but spoils in just a few days. But you can cut them into chunks and sprinkle sugar all over them if it's fruits, or pickle them if it's vegetables. That'll make them last for at least a week. Heck, it's how we Americans used to preserve produce before refrigerators were invented.
Last edited by MillennialUrbanist; 08-30-2019 at 10:29 PM..
Curly Q bobalink:
Quote (,paraphrase) " the idea that everyone needs 3 meals a day is poppycock"...
Once upon a time men worked from sunup to sundown plowing, planting, weeding, harvesting the farm.
Once upon a time women worked from sunup to sundown cooking. Canning, baking. Sewing by hand, washing etc, then sewed/crocheted/knitted til bedtime after dark, and when need be, helped to harvest the farms stores or cooked all day for the men doing the harvesting.
Point being that a LOT of PHYSICAL activity was required just to survive and live and 3 meals, plus probably snacks were REQUIRED.
We are a more sedentary society now, where we can run in and out in 10 minutes and come out with a ready to eat meal to eat after quick heating in a "miracle-wave" "oven".
We are also lazy. Most of us would starve if we had to grow all our own food. And butcher the likes of chickens and pigs and cattle. Compare: Think of wringing the chickens neck ( or chopping it off with a hatchet), plucking feathers for probably an hour ( saved to put into pillow ticking for " feather pillows" ugh...(they are heavy hard things compared to goose down, ask me how i know), then gutting it,( save the liver, heart and gizzard for gravy), then roasting it by the fire for 3 or 4 hours just to have dinner, instead of buying a ready to eat rotisserie chicken for $5 at Wally world, costco or other super store.
Need to sleep warm? Sew together scraps of good parts of worn out clothes for multiple interior layers, then buy dear costing good fabric for the top and back, and invite the friends over for a good old quilting bee to quilt it for a (heavy) warm quilt instead of a $19.99 Wally world blanket, made in china, Bangladesh or somewhere where labor is cheap.
The men folk are busy mucking the stalls and such so the animals remain clean and healthy.
Yeah, 3 squares a day were needed to keep up and sustain ones body for yet another hard days work tomorrow starting before sunup.
Can't argue with a thing you stated. In fact, that's still how a lot of folks who still farm live today. But for 99.8% of us, we eat too much, eat too much of the wrong foods, smoke too much, imbibe too much, drug too much, and move way too little. And that is well within the ability of most people to change. Why don't we? Poor learned habits? Laziness? Lack of self-discipline?
You can cook on a tabletop hot plate sitting in a wheelchair. People actually cooked meals before the internet existed. In my zip code, I can get groceries delivered. I have Peapod from Stop & Shop which is kind of expensive. Aldi is now delivering and that's inexpensive with a $5.99 delivery fee.
To YOU $5.99 is inexpensive. To people on food stamps, that's a whole day's worth of food. I just posted that the whole amount of food stamps a person can get only equals a little under $6.50 a day.
Wheelchairs are expensive, too. And no, if the counters are too high, it's difficult to cook sitting in a wheelchair. Try it sometime.
Quote:
Originally Posted by matisse12
If you have Shipt.com covering Target (the Targets which contain a grocery store) and it also covers some other grocery stores in your area, it's only $8.25 per month which covers unlimited number of deliveries per month.
No other charges. It's cheaper than Instacart.com.
Go to https://www.shipt.com and see what grocery stores are covered by Shipt.com in your area.
Also go to https://grocery.walmart.com and see if there is a Walmart in your area which delivers groceries from the Walmarts which contain a grocery store. It's $7.99 per delivery. (while Shipt.com is $8.25 per month for unlimited number of deliveries)
For nonperishables including canned goods and lots of other food items, one can have free delivery by UPS and FedEx at Walmart.com and Target.com with a $35 purchase (and Target might be $25 purchase) which are entirely different services that the ones I listed above.
How are people ordering this food to deliver? Online? You think that people who have problems affording food are going to pay $60 or more a month for internet access?
Quote:
Originally Posted by cdelena
Hunger is only for those that chose it.
Boy oh boy oh boy. Are you in for a wake up call when you get old.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AZDesertBrat
Well, you know that people who have SNAP are not supposed to ever have anything that might be the least bit enjoyable. I've seen people have a hissy fit because someone bought their little kid a birthday cake. Personally I'd buy a mix and do it myself but maybe that person doesn't have the time, etc.. It's food so they are allowed to have it but it's for something fun so....
And God forbid if they smile at anything if they're on welfare or food stamps. Doesn't everyone know "those" people are supposed to go around like they wear a hairshirt all the time? People on food stamps are also not supposed to enjoy eating, either. That's according to all those upright citizens who want them to eat only oatmeal and ramen.
I've read news stories about customers who complained about not being helped in a store because the employees were helping someone who had a heart attack. I used to wonder where customers like that came from. After reading some of the comments here, now I know. There's a lot of people walking around who have ice for blood and a stone instead of a heart.
Quote:
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. 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.
Dude, in most stores a boxed cake mix is maybe $1. And you still have to add the eggs. Don't be so petty.
By the way, processed foods include things like pancake mix where you just add water. Let me guess, you'd prefer someone buy oil, milk, eggs, baking soda, and flour to make their morning pancakes?
You can make your own butter, too, by buying heavy whipping cream. I've done it and a quart of whipping cream ($3.99) makes maybe half a pound of butter. But God forbid someone spend $3.99 on a whole pound of butter, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Curly Q. Bobalink
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?
*sigh* Those on food stamps just can't win. People complain when they buy expensive healthy food and say they expect them to eat just ramen and macaroni and cheese, but then those same people complain when those on food stamps buy the cheap food and gain weight on it instead of buying expensive healthy food.
WhenI read what augiedogie said about food insecurity, my impulse was not kind at all. How dare you say such a thing. I am DEEPLY offended and angry as that is ME. My income is below the Fed Poverty Level, I worked hard my whole life, but I was never wealthy. Circumstances beyond my control put me here.
Do you have any idea at all of the standard your state has for SNAP? That’s Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program that used to be food stamps. A senior in this state has a max of $192 a month, that is $6.40 PER DAY ALL INCLUSIVE for food. They take your income and apply a formula for rent, medical and heat, then give you the difference between that resulting # and $192. So if you have OTHER BILLS YOU”RE SCREWED!!!!!
There is no food pantry or Senior center in this rural part of the state. I live 26 miles from town, no car I rely on a ride once a month. My daughter lives 1800mi away, what do you expect her to do? All my other family is DEAD!!!!!
I dare you augiedogie to feed yourself as a diabetic on that amount each month. Pride??? HA HA HA I would walk 5mi over broken glass to get free food if there was any to get.
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