Posted on 06/19/2013 1:14:38 PM PDT by Rusty0604
A Republican hill staffer participated in a publicity stunt designed to bring awareness to the plight of food stamp recipients by spending only as much money on food in a week as the federal food stamp program provides. “I didn’t plan ahead or buy strategically, I just saw the publicity stunt and made a snap decision to drive down the street and try it myself,” Ferguson said. “I put my money where my mouth is, and the proposed food stamp cuts are still quite filling.”Ferguson says Democrats are playing up the difficulties of the challenge in order to boost the political case for increasing food stamp benefits. “Not only did I buy a week’s worth of food on what Democrats claim is too little, I have money left over,” Ferguson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
This is good. But doubtful it will be aired much beyond FR.
The Democrats have been tweeting pics of them eating peanut butter, soup out of a can, counted slices of peaches, all soooo sad./s
If you are willing to cook from scratch with staple ingredients, you could actually live pretty well on that.
I do! And I pay with my own money!
It sounds like most college students.
That’s unrepresentative of most foo stams consumers...
no lobster, shrimp, or steak.
Agree. Nourishing veggie stews with beans and rice and noodles, very little meat, One egg per day, milk every day, a piece of fruit every day. Some yogurt, perhaps homemade. Bake your own wholegrain bread and muffins. Sounds like a challenge worth taking, and keeping processed foods out of the mix saves tons of money and makes you healthier.
Nice if the FDA gave out recipes, cuz many if not most food stamp recipients have ZERO clue about nutrition. They buy expensive processed junk.
I believe the Agriculture Department publishes such recipes. But they go out to rural farm wives who already know how to cook that way. Typical Gubbermint.
Ferguson would probably get fat if he lived on the maximum food stamp allotment.
For “breakfast” every workday, I have a packet of peanut butter crackers. I buy these in boxes of 8 packets for $2 for the box, on sale.
Eating eggs, less expensive bread, oatmeal, etc. would also allow for economical breakfasts.
We would go over the $4.50 per day with dinner, but not always, and could easily keep it at that level with a little more effort in our shopping and cooking choices. In the past, I have certainly lived that way, and did not suffer.
If we HAD to live on $4.50 per person per day in the household, I guarantee we would eat better, because I would work harder at the food and cooking choices, meal planning.
Yet try and make this case to a Liberal and watch their hysterical outrage.
True.
Most recipients refuse / don’t know how to shop this way.
They want the fast / easy and far more expensive way...
A whole bag of carrots is much less costly than the cute little baggy of peeled cut and washed carrots.
I have been meaning to pin down my food budget, but I am sure that it is less than that.
If you eat soup from a can you are eating high on the hog. Soup is really expensive today.
Below is the list of what the guy bought.
He could have done better if he put more thought into it and skipped the soda, cookies, drink mix and popcycles, and bought some fresh veggies or a bit of meat. But he certainly did prove that you can live off of $31.50 a week
Ferguson purchased his food at the Dollar Tree and Shopper’s Food Warehouse located in the 6100 block of Little River Turnpike in Alexandria. It is served by Metrobus and within bike and walking distance of public housing.
For $21.55 Ferguson purchased at Dollar Tree:
Two boxes of Honeycomb cereal
Three cans of red beans and rice
Jar of peanut butter
Bottle of grape jelly
Loaf of whole wheat bread
Two cans of refried beans
Box of spaghetti
Large can of pasta sauce
Two liters of root beer
Large box of popsicles
24 servings of Wyler’s fruit drink mix
Eight cups of applesauce
Bag of pinto beans
Bag of rice
Bag of cookies
For $6.03 at the Shoppers Food Warehouse next door Ferguson bought a gallon of milk and a box of maple and brown sugar oatmeal.
Agreed. If you’ve never learned how to cook, you have to buy pre-processed food and meals.
We are still the stupid party.
Focusing on cutting food stamps like this will cost us elections.
The way to cut food stamps is to get people jobs. And our trade policy continues to incent companies to produce overseas. Having taxes on domestic producers 10 times greater than the average tariff on foreign producers doesn’t help either.
You can also focus on enforcement for fraud. That’s not nearly as damaging politically as just arbitraily cutting the benefit. But that takes an executive willing to do so. Perhaps Congress could hire that video sting guy to run stings on food stamp operations and law enforcement unwilling to address known problems.
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