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 ...
Looks like he wasted about five bucks of that on useless sugar.
Where are the vegetables? there are no green vegetables. Just pinto beans and spagetti sauce.
You could live on this for a while, but would be malnourished.
No Red meat? In fact, no meat at all? Peanut butter and beans and rice for protein.
They did this deliberately to create the impression that “those poor people can only shop at Dollar Tree”.
Lose us elections? The real constituency for this program is not the poor on the receiving end. It’s Kroger, A&P, Ralphs, Winn-Dixie, Piggly Wiggly, Meijers, Giant Eagle, Walmart, Safeway......
So you're saying you can cut these programs and poor don't get hurt only the big grocery stores? Is that what you are claming?
Perhaps the poor should just die and decrease the surplus population? /s
Yea, but forgot the booze, cigarettes. lottery tickets
and all the other things “poor” people want to spend
our money on.
Local Supermarket (SHopRite) running special on pasta
$.88 per pound, Sauce $.99 a jar could eat for month
at 4.50
I’m saying the poor do not have the kind of juice to get this stuff through Congress every year. Big Food does.
Well, I'm saying cutting food stamps to the poor when unemployment is 23% (shadowstats.com) is guaranteed to cost us elections.
I think Ryan's focus on cutting entitlements instead of fixing the economy, cost us senate seats in the last election.
Exactly. The max amount is $ 50 a week. You can eat damn well on that. I spend considerably less per week, not even taking the garden or hunting into consideration.
During the depression and WWII, most families only ate meat (of any kind) once a week. Sunday dinner after Church.
The entire Indian subcontinent is meat free.
Moreover, eggs are great sources of complete protein and cheap to boot. Add in a dozen eggs/wk for a couple bucks per week.
If you think the welfare mamas are buying green veggies NOW you really need to visit a grocery store more often. Those buggies are even less healthy than pinto beans and spaghetti sauce.
I’ve been poor. Very poor. Even now my family eats very well for less than $1.50/person/meal. We just don’t eat ANY processed food. Everything is from scratch.
Meanwhile the ‘buffet’ of bbq, fried foods and oily garlic bread at the local Texaco station just put out an ‘EBT Accepted!’ sign last week. Yeah. That’s healthy stuff. And pricey too. Individual plates are $6.99. Trust me when I tell you that the cardholders who partake of this ‘feast’ are not starving.
One thing of note. The OLDER poor people all have greens growing in their yards somewhere in the winter. And okra and tomatoes and squash in the summer. The under 60’s? Not so much with growing the veg in the yard.
Buying fruits and veggies at produce outlets instead of the supermarket allows big savings as well.
It is very expensive these days. Sometime I make my own and freeze some of it since there’s just me to eat it.
And JP Morgan Chase is making money on the cards.
$4.50 per day is well more than I spend, and I eat rather well IMO. Processed crap is not food.
Here’s my idea.
Instead of giving the “needy” a means of procuring their own food, which may be spent unwisely or traded for non essential items, let’s give them real food. Heck, even bring it to their door once, twice a month.
Some items:
5lb bag of potatoes
5lb bag of rice
4 lb of assorted beans/lentils
2 gals milk
1 gal orange juice (b vitamins, importnat for kids and pregnant women)
2 lb carrots
2lb onions
2 lb cabbage and/or collard greens
5 lb apples or oranges
1 big jar peanut butter
1 lb sugar
2 lb oatmeal
2 loaves of bread
5 lb frozen chicken legs & thighs
2 lb ground beef
Then add in any surplus produce in season, maybe even a big old block of government cheese
Question: how many of the “needy” would reject this idea because they would actually have to work to prepare and cook their meals. No booze, no smokes, no selling your benefits for drugs, and no prepared foods. Just good, healthy basics. Heck, give them a frying pan, a stock pot, and a sauce pan when the sign up if they claim they can’t afford cookware. Throw in a basic cookbook too
My point is, the “needy” aren’t rally that needy. If you’re really hungry, you would gratefully accept basic food items and learn to cook.
Oops, add 2 dozen eggs to the list.
When my wife and I first married we made beef stew and ate it for a week. We subsisted on it. Things were tough back then. I was making $1.35 an hour.
I just read his shopping list. I wouldn’t want to eat the way he did. The libs will be screaming about his food choices. I’d have gone for eggs, frozen veggies, tuna, mayo, celery, peanut butter, a loaf of bread, butter, and oatmeal. Maybe a bag of apples too. Some of these items always have at least one brand on sale and if you stick to the smallest quantities getting all that food for 30 bucks shouldn’t be a problem.
It does read like a college kid’s menu. But a healthy diet can be done with frozen veggies. Meat can be purchased on the average food stamp budget, but it’d be tough, particularly if you only had one person to buy for. Probably the easiest way is to get protein other than beans and peanuts is out of a can, like tuna. Maybe if the canned chicken was on sale. Otherwise if you want meat, I think you’re looking at hot dogs. Three or four people in the family allows for cheaper per pound peanut butter, mayo, etc., and fresh chicken gets easier in that scenario.
I'll agree with this. However, I just went online to a local supermarket and went through a couple of different scenarios where I was able to eat quite well on $31.50 per week. Also, I don't know what the rules are, (like can I use the cinnamon I've got in my house? I assumed I'd have to buy it). Anyway, each week, as I developed a bit of a food store, my meal selections would improve. For instance, the first week, I had to buy mayonnaise. I wouldn't need to buy that for at least another month. A pound of butter would last at least two weeks, etc. There are always some frozen veggies for a dollar a bag so there's no excuse not to have veggies every single day.
The first week, my protein would come only from eggs, peanut butter and tuna fish, but by week three, I'm buying fresh chicken. If I can use my currently opened jars of peanut butter, mayo, mustard and assorted spices, I'm on fresh chicken the very first week.
Here's a sample daily menu for the first week - breakfast: eggs and toast with a cup of tea. Lunch: A peanut butter sandwich and an apple or alternatively peanut butter and celery sticks. Dinner: Tuna salad and a side of green beans or broccoli. Alternative: Eggs and green beans. Dessert/Snacks: Apples, cinnamon sugar toast
It's a simple, plain diet, but each week it'd get better. I figure the next week, I'd add hot dogs and canned chicken. Here was my grocery list for that menu: 18 eggs, mayonnaise, bag of apples, 5 cans of tuna, cinnamon, sugar, tea, peanut butter, celery, butter, frozen green beans. I had 70 cents left over, which I'd push to the next week.
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