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When I was younger, I went through a period of being in poverty. Never got food stamps or other benefits, but definitely would have qualified for everything.
We lived in a low-rent, tiny apartment in a relatively bad part of town -- the type that all poor people live in. It had a college dorm sized fridge, one electric burner, and touchy plumbing. It usually had ants coming in and sometimes mice, though we kept everything clean and set traps. Landlord wouldn't do anything. He knew we had no options.
The closest "food store" was 2 miles away through that bad part of town and it was a 7-11, a convenience store. The closest supermarket would require a 20-minute bus ride after a 3 block walk to get to the bus stop... and back again with groceries... and paying for the bus ticket.
Does that make things impossible? For some, yeah, pretty much. Was I going to walk 3 blocks and ride a bus filled with, to me, scary people with multiple bags of groceries after work... getting home late at night? Nope. Could I head on down to the local (ha - there was none local) shop and buy a pressure cooker? With what money?
Dramatic example, right? It was my life for about a year. Of course, some people on food stamps have more access to good food, live in non-dangerous areas, and make bad choices (many times, I think, out of sheer ignorance). But the general idea some people have that it is actually JUST a choice is ignorant in itself I think.
If the government wants to improve people's health, they'd do something about the food industry as a whole and incentivize ending food deserts with markets that actually carry real food. To think that the problem is just "poor people are dumb scammers who love junk food" is ridiculous.
People keep bringing up the fact that healthy food is cheaper. Someone said you can get a head of lettuce for less than a bag of chips. True - in some places - but that head of lettuce has 50 calories and a bag of chips has 2400. You can't live on 50 calories a day...
I agree and I home cook 90% of what we eat, but it's not that easy for many poor people. I spent several years with group whose goal it was to help young women with children become financially independent and find stable housing and for many of them just finding a stove to cook on was a major problem. Many lived in weekly motels or monthly SRO's and they weren't allowed to even use a hotplate. Or they sofa surfed or rented a garage usually without kitchen privileges.
The cash TANF grant for 3 people was $383 so just paying rent was a challenge, buying an instapot wasn't even a consideration. Many of the places they lived were subject to rodent infestation so it was very difficult to adequately protect bulk food from mice and rats, and for most of them a trip to a real grocery store was $4 + $4 for children over 5. I went through some tough times for a few years a single mom, but I never had to deal with what these women do every day of their lives.
I don't disagree. I do LIKE the concept, but the devil is in the details.
Maybe double dollars for healthy (whole) foods? Something like that?
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If they are going down this road, they should ban juice purchases too.
"That needs to change, pediatricians say. The Academy’s position statement, released Monday, boils it down succinctly: “Fruit juice offers no nutritional advantage over whole fruit.”"
There's a reason orange juice is recommended for diabetics in a hypoglycemic emergency; the sugar is super fast to absorb. I adore orange juice, but it's too sugary for me, and I can drink a lot of it very fast, so I just buy oranges.
I don't know why politicians think they can fix welfare by signing something into law to make peoples lives more difficult.They don't know that nothing can be worse than being poor. People on welfare who don't work should have to show up for at least ten hours a week for day or evening classes in; cooking, nutrition, home economics, drug abuse,and parenting and anything else the causes poverty. And this should be their job every week day until they are off welfare.
Forbidding them to buy chips and pop is playing right into their hands. Once the bill is signed into law it will empower them to know they are eating chips, cookies and pop that the government paid for.
I suspect this is more about grandstanding and legal precedent setting with an eye on other things down the road than genuine concern for health of poor kids.
People receiving social services are not your children. You don't get to dictate their diets.
People who have no knowledge of nutrition need to learn one eats for reasons other than hunger.
What good is it to give people money to buy stuff and not enable them to get the most bang for their buck nutrition wise? Handing a person money to buy food is only half the problem solved.
Remember that old saying about give me a fish and I'll eat for today. Teach me to fish and I'll eat for a lifetime.
Do you care what your family consumes? Do you think children should be fed food that will help their minds and bodies.
IMO, schools have been serving crap for years. And yes, I discussed it with the superintendent, principal and the district dietitians. My kids took their lunches. I would not have them eating the garbage served by schools.
Perhaps when a person applies for SNAP, they can be given a class in what little bodies need to grow.
And yes, put some rich idiot grandmas in there, too. My MIL used to put coke in the babies bottle, then wonder why they never slept.
Yep. We used to have Chicken Fried Steak, which we so fondly used to refer to it as Chicken Fried Fat. Also Pig in a Blanket, and I was the kid that would suck on a few mustard packets, instead of eating that terrible thing, to tied me over until dinner cause I absolutely hated hot dogs as a kid and still do as an adult. Big difference between then and now is, then....we used to bike or skateboard from home to school and back every day of the week. We also were very physically involved in various activities throughout the entire day. Now kids just sit around on computers and cell phones and get rides wherever they need to go. Yes we used to eat border line bad junk food in school, but we'd have it burned completely off and out of our systems by dinner time at home, which consisted of a good home cooked meal with quality healthy ingredients. Big difference between then and now.
I don't disagree. I do LIKE the concept, but the devil is in the details.
Maybe double dollars for healthy (whole) foods? Something like that?
Not a bad idea but I'd like to see all consumers given some kind of incentive to buy healthier food because SNAP recipients are definitely not the only ones who make bad food choices.
People who have no knowledge of nutrition need to learn one eats for reasons other than hunger.
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And you can't assume that everyone who is poor has no understanding of nutrition.
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