Food Stamps Restriction

CSARdiver wrote: »

Chef_Barbell wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.

As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):

Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics

Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.

Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.

This sounds remarkably similar to finding time to work out. Do you have statistics to support your point? What percentage of people on assistance are working and how many hours do they work?

This website doesn't show hours worked but it's pretty informative...
https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-introduction-to-the-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap

janejellyroll wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

I guess I don't see such a pure distinction between "soda" and "food."

I do. It's the way I was raised. If you were hungry you were allowed "food" but food was certainly not soda, candy, cookies or anything of sort.

We've clearly moved away from that sort of thinking as a society but perhaps that's where part of the disconnect is coming from? Snack food deprivation and you-deserve-a-treat are a fairly recent concepts I think.

I can understand individual parents making that distinction. I mean, when I was a kid we were not allowed to snack on chips because it's really easy to eat the whole bag.

I just don't think that makes chips non-food. It's just a kind of food that's for many people to overeat.

lol See, there really is a difference. If we reached for the cookie jar we were scolded and told to get food instead - everything edible was not food.

It seems like your family was using a definition of "food" that excluded a lot of edible items that are . . . well, food.

Yes. Having that clear distinction between nourishing food vs. treats is part of why we were effortlessly thinner. I'm sure as a society we'll figure out new, healthful patterns of eating that work to keep people relatively thin and healthy again but I seriously doubt the idea of soda and junk food as necessities will stand the test of time.

By calling them "food," I'm not attempting to establish them as necessities. I'm just describing what they are.

Nourishing food can also be calorie-dense, it's not just treats that lead to excess weight.

My point was that some people do make that distinction between food and treats. When you look at it from that perspective it's pretty easy to see why some people would be fine with limits on what can be purchased with supplemental nutrition assistance benefits.

CSARdiver wrote: »

Chef_Barbell wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

Chef_Barbell wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.

As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):

Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics

Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.

Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.

Alatariel75 wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

DamieBird wrote: »

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

VintageFeline wrote: »

Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.

I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.

I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."

It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.

We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.

I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .

There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?

This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"

Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?

But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.

Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.

BLS stats:

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm

Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.

And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.

There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.

And how do you suggest the root is addressed?

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

I guess I don't see such a pure distinction between "soda" and "food."

I do. It's the way I was raised. If you were hungry you were allowed "food" but food was certainly not soda, candy, cookies or anything of sort.

We've clearly moved away from that sort of thinking as a society but perhaps that's where part of the disconnect is coming from? Snack food deprivation and you-deserve-a-treat are a fairly recent concepts I think.

I can understand individual parents making that distinction. I mean, when I was a kid we were not allowed to snack on chips because it's really easy to eat the whole bag.

I just don't think that makes chips non-food. It's just a kind of food that's for many people to overeat.

lol See, there really is a difference. If we reached for the cookie jar we were scolded and told to get food instead - everything edible was not food.

It seems like your family was using a definition of "food" that excluded a lot of edible items that are . . . well, food.

Yes. Having that clear distinction between nourishing food vs. treats is part of why we were effortlessly thinner. I'm sure as a society we'll figure out new, healthful patterns of eating that work to keep people relatively thin and healthy again but I seriously doubt the idea of soda and junk food as necessities will stand the test of time.

If we are talking about personal usages of words or how we think of it, I admit I don't really think of soda as food (with drinks only those that have protein or vitamins seem to fit my definition, soda and alcohol and coffee and tea do not -- although if one goes back enough, obviously beer was thought of as such). I will note that SNAP can be used to purchase coffee grounds -- at least if google is accurate -- and I see no one complaining about this, and I am not meaning to suggest that I am either.

I do think of cookies and so on as food, although not food one would have at a meal. It is eaten, has calories, has some minor degree of nutrition (oatmeal cookies with walnuts and raisins, peanut butter cookies with peanuts, for example). It clearly fits the definition of food. It's also a treat, a snack or dessert, an extra, not part of a meal.

I suspect that I was not fat as a kid and rarely drank soda (although I did drink koolaid when younger, which I also would not have thought of as "food," but as an alternative to water) has a lot more to do with how my family ate overall and the fact I was reasonably active like most kids those days, and not what we did and did not call food.

A hard and fast distinction between "junk food" and nutritious food seems to me not always easy.

Is a meal of potato chips, a skinless, boneless chicken breast cooked in a sauce made from a bit of olive oil, with broccoli and mushrooms going to be more or less nutritious, more or less likely to cause weight loss than a meal of home fried chicken legs (or even roasted chicken thighs and legs with the skin on) plus whole roasted potatoes (roasted with the chicken, say), and then broccoli in a cheese sauce? The first contains junk food, the second does not, but they are at least equally healthy.

jhildebrandt73 wrote: »

Chef_Barbell wrote: »

jhildebrandt73 wrote: »

Have you actually ever used WIC?

I have, and what it does, for those who use it as an exclusive source for food income, is forces you to use the items it endorses. I am not particularly fond of peanut butter, but I sure ate it when WIC said it was something I was allowed to get. While that opens up a potential nightmare for government to try and satisfy the food related lobbyists and invites corruption, it at least does something to make people think about what is suitable nutrition.

What happens when one can't eat the foods provided? Starve?

By no means. WIC itself is not the answer. Food subsidies would have to expand it's available products to include foods that take into consideration special diets, nationalities, cultures, etc. But no culture requires food staples that include chips, cookies, snack cakes, soda or candy. But that is where the government needs to stop taking money from the lobbyists and put their foot down.

So you would rather have all of this complication added to a system that doesn't need change in the first place?

French_Peasant wrote: »

OliveGirl128 wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

LJGettinSexy wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

LJGettinSexy wrote: »

OliveGirl128 wrote: »

LJGettinSexy wrote: »

OliveGirl128 wrote: »

LJGettinSexy wrote: »

GlassAngyl wrote: »

Totally for it. And they should add all junk food items as well. Leave baking items and they can make junk from scratch...

Then you'd complain they were spending the money on steaks and shrimp, I here it all the time. Food is expensive for the working poor ( not making a living wage and not poor enough for aid) and soda is cheap. Natural and healthier choices are twice as much as junk food, or haven't you noticed

This is thrown out all the time, but many times it's just not true. I eat a very 'healthy' diet and I fit it in, along with the rest of my family's groceries, on a pretty small grocery budget. Beans, whole grains, frozen veggies, frozen chicken etc are all pretty inexpensive.

1. Have you ever been on food stamps?
2. Have you ever been poor in your life?
3. Are you still poor?
Answer those and maybe we can have a deeper discussion

I actually grew up dumpster diving sometimes, alongside my parents and sisters, so if you'd like to have a deeper discussion about poverty I'd be more than willing to have one with you. You probably won't like what I have to say though

And I stand by what I said-I feed a family of 5 on a very tight grocery budget, and I eat a very 'healthy' diet (I follow the DASH protocol), and my family eats a fairly balanced diet as well. Nutrient dense foods are not automatically more expensive, and I've found that they're actually cheaper than convenience foods. This idea that that 'healthy' is more expensive is just not true many times.

eta: actually, no I'm not going to go there, because my past is a pretty dark place and I have no interest in revisiting it, especially on a public forum. Needless to say, yes I know what it's like to be truly poor, probably more than most posters in this thread. But that has absolutely nothing to do with my pp, which is that I feed myself and my family a well balanced, 'healthy' diet and do so on a very tight grocery budget, ($100 a week for 5 people/2 cats, and it also includes non-food items). Beans, whole grains, frozen veggies, bagged frozen chicken etc are usually inexpensive options and are staples in my house. The idea that 'healthy' automatically means more expensive is false.

We all have dark places that we don't want to visit and that's why it's absurd to try to think for someone else. You don't know another person's circumstance so they shouldn't be judged simply by what they buy in a grocery store. We all have to learn that, you of all people since you were a dumpster diver. When I go to buy groceries, I've noticed that food is expensive and getting higher by the day. Organic food is outrageously priced and that's supposed to be the healthiest. Fresh fruit is ridiculously high and fresh squeezed juice, no way. You can't buy a single piece of fruit for less than a dollar unless it's a banana. Now imagine feeding a family of 4. Yeah you can buy only grains and wheat, but what do you do with that? You need a balanced diet to eat healthy and trying to buy all four food groups for a growing family is expensive. BTW, chicken is not inexpensive, who eats beans and what is whole grains and how do you just eat them?

This is where nutrition counseling could be helpful. Organic or fresh foods are necessarily the healthiest. Frozen or canned vegetables provide plenty of nutrients. Dried beans and grains are very healthy. A ribeye at $15 per lb is not more nutrition than round steak at $4 per lb. Thinking that a balanced diet only comes from expensive foods shows a lack of nutrition knowledge.

I didn't say a balanced diet only comes from expensive foods, I said the healthier foods are more expensive. You can get family size bags of potato chips 2/$4 or bogo but 2lbs of grapes $7.98. I shop every week for groceries and I am not making this up for the sake of argument, I've been shopping for decades and have seen the rising prices of food. Parkay Butter spray is $3 for 8oz bottle but you can get Blue Bonnet margarine 4 stick pkg at 2/$1, and these are staples, so there is no nutritional counseling for me, maybe you need counseling for the real world.

You don't need to choose between grapes and potato chips. Things like beans, rice, frozen vegetables, onions, carrots, cabbage, oats, potatoes . . . . all very affordable (at least where I live). Yeah, anyone wanting a lot of fresh fruit is going to pay more, but that's not required for a healthy diet.

But people don't actually eat beans and whole grains like oats, according to pp.

It's regrettable, because beans + rice + lard + chicken gizzards, hearts, pieces and parts = magic.

Or at least one of the foundation dishes of Cajun and Creole cookery, admired around the world.

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/baked-louisiana-dirty-rice-beans

ETA: the first recipe is overly gentrified and not dirty enough. Here is one using a lard-based roux, gizzards and livers. I would also increase the amount of the "Trinity and the Pope" (vegetables and garlic) and add in black beans for a more complete dish nutrition-wise.

https://dricksramblingcafe.blogspot.com/2009/11/cajun-dirty-rice.html

Yeah, lots of low cost, filling foods are available, and they don't require fresh fruit out of season, expensive fresh veg out of season, and certainly not Parkay spray, which I would never buy or call especially healthy (vs. generic store brand butter without the mark up for pretend health and being able to spray it or just cooking with the fat from a slightly lower cost cut of meat). I am so much in favor of these dishes being cooked, preserved, taught, celebrated.

One of the problems with these kinds of dishes is, of course, that they are more time consuming, and that's a real issue, and of course knowledge -- which community classes can help with if people have the time to take them.

Also, if you don't know what you are doing and have to shift there's often a higher cost to changing -- someone relying on convenience foods who loses a job or decides to change her eating won't necessarily know how to switch to relying on beans and grains and greens and the like, or even potatoes and chicken thighs and frozen veg or in season fresh veg (although the veg are easier).

There was a good article I linked a while back about one issue for poorer families with eating veg is fear of waste. This isn't that tough a problem to figure out, but the barriers in the short term can be high.