Posted on 08/20/2010 4:43:29 AM PDT by tobyhill
Yup!
They don’t buy it because they want fully prepared frozen meals, etc. Or just palin junk food.
One thing you have to say about the US: Our food supply is absolutely awesome! Cheap, fresh, wholesome, great selection. What more could you ask for.
My wife an I sometimes show at the West Side Market in Cleveland. If you’ve never been, it’s a must try. Many different vendors competing on price quality selection.
We love our veggies. If you were a vegetarian you could probably buy a weeks worth of food for $10.
Hold on now.
With all due respect, that is incorrect.
I completed my OSU Master Gardener training in Ohio. My “project” to get my certification took me into the housing projects of Cleveland. I spent a summer working there.
Are some of the sterotypes true? yes. But not all of them.
The truth is, much of the processed (but not frozen) food IS cheaper. For a mom stretching her food stamps, this matters. There are many reasons why this is, but the #1 reason is that fresh groceries cost more because of the waste factor. Why do you think fresh vegetables in the grocery store aren’t as good as those from your garden? They are bred for flavor, not transport. It’s why a store bought cucumber has a bullet-proof skin, and the one you grow at home is not.
Processed food operates much like dollar cost averaging, which is why it costs less. Seasonal products cost more because they are....seasonal. And that means perishable. Spoilage, damage, shipping delays all have to be included in the pricing.
My experience in the ‘hood’ changed my life, and changed how I thought of things. Some prejudices were reinforced; but others were blown out of the water.
For me, the bottom line is this:
MO is right, there ARE food deserts. But people like BO are much of the reason why. She could change this, but her ideology probably prevents her from doing so.
1. The trial lawyers need to be reigned in. First, to allow companies to put stores into high crime areas without massive legal exposure.
2. Rules about small businesses and union labor need to be relaxed to allow both small user-friendly local farmers markets and also Walmart-type stores in.
3. Instead of blowing her time on some of the frivolous parts of her initiative, she should encourage community gardening and allow people to profit from them. Yes, that dirty word Profit.
When this lifetime suburban gal rolled into the CMHA projects, I knew all the answers. By the time I left at the end of that summer, I didn’t.
But it is humbling indeed when you learn the following:
Little kids are amazed to see where food comes from. They really do think it comes from cans, boxes, and bags. The joy on their face when they realized they were able to grow their own green bean, or tomato, or carrot (with your help) is humbling. And it makes you think.
Mayor Dave Bing in Detroit is taking a lot of heat, over his idea to bulldoze vacant city housing stock. I think it’s positively brilliant, especially if he bulldozes every other house, giving each home a double lot. Semi-dwarf fruit trees can go in, vegetable gardens, herb gardens and all the rest. This will do more good than any gov’t program to subsidize fresh fruits and vegetables. Each and every county in this country has a Cooperative Extension Service which includes Master Gardener volunteers to help get these things off the ground. We work for free and it’s our way to repay the state universities for our advanced training.
I was introduced to Okra a couple of years ago by acciedent. We were buying green beans at the market and the lady accidentally got a few okra in there (they wree right next to the beans).
When we got home and noticed, I said, “hey, let’s try them”. And we lived happily ever after!
” Growing food is so good for the people because its free.. “
Having made my first-ever attempt at a veggie garden, this summer, I can attest to the fact that it’s anything BUT ‘free’ — between seeds and fertilizer and weeks of back-breaking work, I figure that the few veggies that the bugs and critters left me (which were, granted, delicious) cost me about 100 times what I coulda paid for ‘em at the store...
YMMV, of course....
Yep, same experience here, too. Been gardening for years and it is a LOT of work. Adding insult to injury, our cold northern Cal summer this year (10 - 15 deg below normal) is preventing much from ripening.
The article kind of obfucates the issue a bit. At one point they mention “fresh vegetables”, but then later they said the 30% discount if for “vegetables (frozen? canned?).
You mention “processed” food. If you mean frozen or canned, what’s wrong with that? I know fresh may have more vitamins in some cases, but either one beats fried chicken and pork rinds.
Huh-uh!
The entirety of modern civilization grew out of the desire to avoid having everyone scrape at the ground and hunt in the woods for food, shelter, etc.
Money developed in order to trade food, shelter, etc. without having to do it all oneself.
The notion that "food is free" is one of the most ignorant ideas I've heard in a very, very long time.
Sounds like a really nice market! I doubt the ebt card is used much there.
I see people loading carts with crab legs, premium meat, baked goods all the time.
And at the checkout I know why they were able to do this.
They pull out the ebt card. Some have ebt food and cash allowances.
Do the average hard working people have any idea how much per card is given out for food? I know a single person with one child that gets over $600 per month for food.
BTW, If you’re familiar w/ Cleveland, I notice they have about an acre or so of garden now behind that one housing project on W25th. Right behind the West Side market.
It looks awfully uniform, so I dont’ know if it’s separate people gardening littel plots or some sort of group thing.
Yup.
Gardneing is mainly “pay to play:”. It’s hard to beat the economies of scale of mass farming.
We mainly mess with the things that give you the most beneift for the buck, taste wise. Tomatoes and cukes, for instance.
Surpisingly, there are a lot of people using their welfare cards there.
I applaud them, relatively speaking. :)
Slice them, saute them with peppers and onions, put them in a pyrex dish, cover with grated Parmesan, bake until the sliminess goes away.
“If the government is so worried about what they eat, they would put limitations on the kind of food that could be purchased with food stamps.”
When the stamps were first introduced it was that way. One could not purchase soft drinks, prepackaged foods, snack foods. You could get dried beans, peanut butter, dairy, sugar, meats, produce, things to cook meals. There were also classes to show you how to stretch the purchases you made with the stamps. A few years in and all that became ‘discriminatory’.
When I read “fresh vegetables” I am forced to conclude they mean to fresh produce department in the store.
Let me explain it in this way. Of course, it’s better than fried chicken* and pork rinds. But most poor children never stumble across a fresh vegetable or fruit, unless it’s as part of the school lunch program. They are used to canned vegetables which are cheaper to buy, and are available via food bank donations.
Frozen food is fine, but often too expensive.
It is a prejudice that I held myself, for decades, that “these people” just wanted to piss away their food stamps. For about 30% of them, it’s true. But there are genuine concerned parents among the rest of them who are trying to do the right thing. That is the reason my “project” was selected: they were moms who were trying to do the right thing and afford healthy food for their kids. They couldn’t afford to buy it, so they wanted to learn how to grow it! BTW, here is something 99% of the public does not know (it’s not publicized by the gov’t):
Food stamps will cover vegetable seeds and edible plants.
*There is a reason why we associate fried chicken and watermelon with black Americans. It is because when they were slaves, fried chicken was something that could be prepared ahead of time and safely packed as part of a packed lunch. Same with a small watermelon that could be carved up at lunchtime.
Btw, this same mentality is what led to the popularity of pizza in the US. It was something that was safely prepared ahead of time by my ancestors, to put in their lunchbox.
If you wanna learn the culture and changes in a nation, study food history. It’s amazing. :)
That is great news! I’m going back home in 2 1/2 weeks, I’d love to go see it. Thanks for letting me know.
Mr. Hero
Tribe baseball (last place)
Browns Preseason
Archie’s Bakery (in Euclid, former Hough Bakery employee)
Guido’s in Chesterland
Alfredo’s in Mayfield Village
Orlando Bread and Kahn’s All Beef Hot Dogs to bring back
It’s gonna be joyous, I tell ya. Probably a ten pound trip, too, if you know what I mean.
LOL
"...But if French fries are cheaper than potatoes..."Stop right there. At my uber-supermarket a 5 lb. bag of spuds is about $1. However, it takes a little effort to prep them and cook them up into something tasty.
That's what is repulsing the poor: Their lazy and shiftless ways prevent them from making any kind of effort to better themselves.
I myself was raised in austere surroundings. My mom raised four kids by herself; we never went hungry, but if I never see Hot Dog Soup ever again, it will be too soon. I ate it about twice a week for years while growing up. And don't get me started on Camper Stew, either (it was can of Campbell's Beef Barley Soup with hamburger meat added and maybe some other stuff. Done correctly it could be stretched to feed 4 people).
The Irish immigrants used to take baked potatoes to eat at lunch but they’d cook them only half way. Raw potato wouldn’t digest as fast so they could make it through the afternoon before getting hungry again.
We have fruit trees ummmmm because that is where ummmmm vegetables come from.
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