Posted on 09/22/2011 7:36:30 AM PDT by Abathar
(CNN) -- That is the reality for the more than 40 million Americans who rely on food stamps. According to the Food Research and Action Center the average food stamp allotment is just $30 per week.
I began thinking about taking a food stamp challenge earlier this month when I met several women who we profiled on hunger for two CNN stories airing this week. These women had to make tough choices between paying bills and buying food. Often they skipped meals so their children could eat. Often the amount of food stamps they received was not enough.
Living on a food stamp budget for just one week won't begin to put me in these women's shoes or come close to the struggles that millions of low-income families face every day; week in and week out, month after month. But I do expect to gain a new perspective and a better understanding.
(Excerpt) Read more at theindychannel.com ...
No problem.
Beans, rice, potatos, chicken, eggs and veggies.
Shop at 99 cent store and you can find quite a bit of food that is just as good as Major Supermarkets.
Dry corn meal. Cook it...let it set and then take it out of the pan and slice it like meatloaf. Place it in a fry pan with some PAM or whatever you like and fry it until it has a nice golden color with a little crisp to it. You can serve it with an egg, you can put ketchup on it if you like, you can even make a sandwich if you wanted.
Serve it placed on top of some rice. Serve it with a salad. lettuce, tomatoes, onion, garlic and olive oil and vinegar. That’s just one suggestion for Corn Meal.
That’s all fattening gross food. No I could not feed my family on 30.00 a week. Does this include wine?
When eating less the important thing to include is fruits and veggies to maintain health. The problem is that both are rising in cost and there are seldom any coupons to be found for fruits or veg.
[ In the cartoon “Futurama” (set 1000 years in the future), there is a food called “Bachelor Chow” that comes in dog food size and style bags (it even advertises “Now with flavor!” on the bag). Your kibble post made me think of that and now people are wondering what was funny. ]
You could also make it so that it makes it’s own gravy too.
Plus this sort of “food” would be excellent for times of Weather/Earthquake/Financial Emergencies.
Setup a national network of warehouses that rotate out the stock and keep a years supply of it for every man woman and child in the USA. And feed the stuff near expiry date to the poor or use it as animal/pet feed if you have excess left over. You could use it for emergency foreign aid to counties in disaster too. I bet it could be formulated to last many many years as well.
This alone would be far less expensive than FEMA and make FAR more sense.
Only if you spell it with an “h”... :)
>>So there<<
Well then you know that ALL the animal can be used for protein. If you want prime cuts, you pay for it yourself.
If the government supports your eating, it might be scrapple and mush.
[ Yes you can, if you actually cook your meals and are careful in what you buy. Bologna sandwiches and ramen noodles, baked potatoes, hot dogs, it can easily be done if you wanted to. ]
You can buy a packet of instant potatoes for one dollar which can feed you for a meal or two.
The other day I was in a Kroger and they were selling canned spaghetti and meatballs (the name brand stuff) for a dollar a can and the store brand was even cheaper.
If you are poor and only had 30 bucks to work with you could easily live on that and even build an emergency food supply as well if you were motivated enough.
a Mom who actually liked and served Spam
They have head cheese, scrapple, and all sorts of interesting meat products at the local upscale grocery store. It is actually on the pricey side.
Personally, I'm tired of trying to make excuses for the poor. We tend to idolize the poor while the rich, who are the engine of this economic system, are demonized. Enough! Make two columns labeled "Rich" and "Poor". Under the "Rich" column, write in "supports the freeloaders of this country", "create jobs", "invests", "innovates", "give scholarships", "produces goods and services", "supports the arts", plus a bunch of other things you might think of. Under the "Poor" column, write: "consumes"...that's all I've got.
If it were me, we'd do away with food stamps, welfare, etc. and place it back on charity and the church, like it used to be pre-1930 and if you can fog a mirror but check public assistance, you need to show up each morning for a public job doing whatever needs to be done, from sweeping the streets with a toothbrush to cleaning toilets. Perhaps then you'd realize you're better off to get a real job than sit home on your fat a$$ sucking the life out of productive members of society.
...and my kids still ask me to make my mother’s pasta fagiole. They love it.
YUMMMM... we used to have that and a salad but we also HAD to have a crunchy loaf of Italian bread along with it to DIP into the juice.
We also had peas and macaroni some nights. The thing was to have some food that was “stick to the ribs” as they said and off we would go. We weren’t hungry and... we ran it off as well with walking to school, school athletic activities, walking to the store for our mom, helping with the chores of the house which meant running up and down stairs. Hanging clothes on the line and taking them off before they freeze :)
I know there is a lot of joy in having so many things today in our homes but the real joy was in making do with what you had on hand. You ate what you had and you knew there wasn’t more. You would trust your mom would have something even better at the next meal because she had to use her head and get clever with whatever she had on hand and guess what???/ She DID it. But...the BEST PART is remembering those days as we are doing right now. I guess we too were poor but...we never knew it. We wore hand me downs and had holes in the soles of our shoes...and only had school shoes and then some other old ones to play...most likely hand me downs as well.
I do not like to see or even think of anyone going hungry. Especially children. I know my mother worked two jobs in the summer and so did my dad. Waht they made went onto the table and into us kids.
If I start cooking I eat even better.
7 pounds of meat = 21 bucks [good hamburger]
Beans and rice = under a buck a pound
Bottle of vitamins = couple bucks a week.
Ya got that right.
And combining animals makes for better sausage. Hellsbells, my Dad ate lard sandwiches for two years of his life.
Now, not to say that he didn’t have bypass surgery when he was 50, but when you’re hungry, you eat anything.
Did you ever hear Rush’s Dirt Soup story? My daughters and I laughed so hard at this..
http://dailyrushbo.com/rush-serving-dirt-soup-in-obamaville/
My wife and I probably come close to eating for less than $50 / week combined and we do not eat cold cut sandwiches. I have a brown bag special for lunch every day. The people I work with go spend $4 - $6 per day for lunch.
zing ——————————————>
Buy the chicken with the skin and the bone. Cut them up when you get home... put the skins and the bones in a pot of water with some onion, carrots and celery, salt and pepper.
Now you have two meals ... however you want to fix the skinned and boned chicken PLUS you have chicken soup!!!!
I had seen that before, but this idea is something friends of mine and I had kicked around nearly 20 years ago. I got a kick out of "bachelor chow" too, because of those discussions.
By a little googling, I am seeing that in many places, the food stamp amount per person per month is $200 or more. So I would want to see some statistics as to the $30/week figure.
And I would like to see the allotment reduced for all those households whose children, for whom they maybe be getting $200 per child per month, are eating 2 or 3 meals at school, every day, that we also pay for.
In looking at the article, some of the “rules” are bogus, such as, not being able to eat previously purchased food. All smart shoppers know that you stock up on things on sale. Only a poor shopper would start from zero food every week, and buy only for the current week. Chicken for $.88/lb is not uncommon around here, so a person can buy 10 lbs of quality meat/protein for $9. Buy the canned veggies on sale when they are $.50/can or less. Can buy 10 lbs of potatoes at times for $3, which can be peeled and frozen or made into mashed and frozen. ETC. But, as many posters have indicated, this all would require a good deal of both planning and cooking. Seemingly unrealistic, apparently.
Buy the chicken with the skin and the bone. Cut them up when you get home... put the skins and the bones in a pot of water with some onion, carrots and celery, salt and pepper.
Now you have two meals ... however you want to fix the skinned and boned chicken PLUS you have chicken soup!!!!
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