Is eating healthy on food stamps possible?
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PER PREVIOUS COMMENT
A typical daycare bill is far more than the $5,000 that you're using as an example. I don't think that people choosing to not have children should be penalized, or should be made to share the burden of those households with children, but the cost of raising children in this day is extremely high. If both partners work, there is a huge daycare bill typically. If one stays home, the other had better be earning professional dollars to maintain a typical family of 2.5 children. Back to the working poor analogy ....
"I bet out of every 100 people getting huge tax refunds (especially low income families receiving the EITC) maybe 2-3 of them actually use the refund for anything related to daycare, child rearing, etc. From my observation the money is more often spent on tattoos and flat screens."
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I wouldn't presume to judge how others spend their money. Speaking from experience, we never had to rely on food stamps because both DH and I work, have good jobs, and manage our money adequately. However, when our kids were young and we were always pinching pennies, we used our tax returns as a guaranteed savings account for home repairs. No one should judge how we spent it; we used our hard-earned money every week to pay for our childrens' daycare, putting off repairs for tax return time.
All that being said, I work with many adults who have never learned to manage their money, do not have computers at their disposal (ready access to information, i.e., recipes, nutrition, etc.), and who come from generations of uneducated and economically challenged people. I stopped judging these people years ago when I realized that the world will always be comprised of "haves/go-getters" and "can't-get-out-of-the-ghetto have-nots", and there will always be someone there to pass judgement on those not exactly like themselves.
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I agree. When my husband & I were both in college, we had a baby & used our tax credit to pay off our student bills. Husband is now an engineer & we are paying our taxes & never get any credit back now. We're not upset since we got a huge refund one year while we were in college & had our child. I hate the stereotype that only "ghetto" people get a refund.0 -
I think it is very difficult if not down right impossible. Food stamp benefits differ by the state you live in and most states do not give people the kind of benefits you are speaking of. I am disabled and I get disability and my food stamps are 50 dollars a month. I dare any one of you to try and eat on 50 dollars a month much less eat healthy. I am offended people speak without proper knowledge of what they are talking about. If someone is telling you they are getting 700-800 dollars a month even with a lot of kids they are lying to you.
My mother's getting a little more than you, but not much, also for disability. But she had a tenant for a while who had custody of one child. For the one child alone (not for him) he was getting 360/month.
I would have to say that is probably not correct and would fall under the all states are different thing, but maby that state is the crazy out-there food stamp state. In my family of 3 we get 200 a month and that just went up from 150 and will probably drop agan. But I try very hard to shop smart and not buy crap. But I alse go to the food bank to help make ends meat.0 -
here in california the freshest and cheapest produce is sold at the local $.099 cent only stores i try and go once a week to pick up the fresh fruits and veggies and it allows me to try stuff i would have never wasted money on cz it was to expensive to know if i was gonna like it or not ...........so knowing this i always stop people who say its to expensive to live healthy ...bs ...its cz they dont want to....0
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meh...I know people won't agree with me on the tax refund thing and that's okay. I'm a super liberal person (yes even socially) but there's this ONE particular issue that I think is absolutely unacceptable and that is the huge tax credit for low income individuals with kids. Under no circumstances should (in my opinion) anyone get a $7,000 tax "refund" when they paid in less than $1,000 in income tax. Period.
Not offended and I don't mind being called bitter, mean, judgmental...I am on this one issue. I am angry about it and bitter and I think it is disgusting.
Where are all these crazy money places that so many people speak of, I have never in my low income with a child life ever had this happen(not saying it dosent cus this world is crazy) And I don't think your bitter If I new for a fact that somebody was getting a LOT more than thy put in I would be very :explode:0 -
We spent ours on paying our student bills & the rest went into savings for our down payment on our house. Now we pay during tax season.My mother qualifies for food stamps due to disability. They give her something like $40 every 2 weeks. For her at least it's not really enough to be more than supplemental. People with kids get quite a bit more.
Yep. TOTALLY do not understand this. My former client who was a man with autism in his 40's working at a special facility earning way under min. wage, got $34 per month in food stamps. I know a family of four, dad works making decent money at a factory, mom stays at home, and last I heard, they received $500+change monthly for food stamps in addition to the children getting free breakfast & lunch at school. What in the world...!?
Ah, I guess it's the same thing as tax time when people with kids get thousands back. Pisses me off to be quite honest.
Yep it's not very fair someone with a true disability is punished for not procreating. I'm taking advantage of it though. I'd be stupid not to if the government thinks popping out a kid is worth a few thousand then I'm taking it.
Yeah I can't say I blame ya.
I just think it should be less of a drastic difference. Like single person gets $100, 4 person household $400, that would work in my mind...or at tax time, I wouldn't even care if I got $0 refund (which has happened, mine's never large in a DINKS household) but I feel like two low wage workers w/ matching annual salaries, one with kids and one with no kids, the difference in their tax refund should not be *THOUSANDS*. Hundreds, sure. But like $5,000 difference...no....
A typical daycare bill is far more than the $5,000 that you're using as an example. I don't think that people choosing to not have children should be penalized, or should be made to share the burden of those households with children, but the cost of raising children in this day is extremely high. If both partners work, there is a huge daycare bill typically. If one stays home, the other had better be earning professional dollars to maintain a typical family of 2.5 children. Back to the working poor analogy ....
I bet out of every 100 people getting huge tax refunds (especially low income families receiving the EITC) maybe 2-3 of them actually use the refund for anything related to daycare, child rearing, etc. From my observation the money is more often spent on tattoos and flat screens.0 -
My family is unfortunately on food stamps since I was let go from my job for breastfeeding my son. Anyway, I coupon to the max. I get coupons from Kroger and also from the newspaper and flyers. These coupons really do add up. I am able to buy affordable and healthy food. This includes buying manager specials from Kroger. I do not buy the rotten manager special meat, only the kind that was just marked down that day and needs frozen. I have saved so much money doing this...and I've made our food stamps last. Since the government shut down, we haven't had any food stamps. I'm lucky that I coupon, because we have a little wiggle room until they fix what they've done with the food stamp system.
Anyway, yes it is very possible to live off of food stamps in a healthy way. COUPON!!!0 -
fascinating article, thank you!0
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Oh and to everyone who is bashing those who get tax credits and whatnot.... Anytime I get a tax refund back, I use it towards DEBT. I do this so that my family will not have to suffer as terribly as they may have to. Would you rather me pay back my government school loans or would you rather me go get my hair did? Just saying, I'd rather look like a train wreck and have no bills.0
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bump0
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wow where do you live??? im in California and I get 475 for a family of five!!!!!!Everyone I know on food stamps gets a large amount of money ($900 for a family of 4 and $700 for a family of 2 - two of the families I know)
I would say Heck Yes! It most certainly is possible to eat healthy with that kind of food "budget."0 -
The correlation between socioeconomic status, lack of education and obesity is common knowledge.
Is eating healthy on food stamps possible? Really the wrong question. We should be asking how health education can be more effectively targeted and how we can provide opportunities for early intervention
Artaxia- let go for breastfeeding???? I really hope you spoke to your relevant trade union.0 -
I wish I got that much money but I am on disability, no kids, only get $700/mo and I get $15 in food stamps. You tell me how I'm supposed to buy good, healthy food. I could totally do it if I didn't have any bills or have to pay rent. But they don't take any of that into consideration when you get food stamps. I do the best I can with what I can. I print alot of coupons online but I can't afford a newspaper to get the coupons from there so I'm stuck with just printing them. If internet wasn't included with where I live, I wouldn't even be able to do that! I can't have kids and I can't work. Where does that leave me? Living off the government because I have no choice right now. It really sucks!!!0
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I wish I got that much money but I am on disability, no kids, only get $700/mo and I get $15 in food stamps. You tell me how I'm supposed to buy good, healthy food. I could totally do it if I didn't have any bills or have to pay rent. But they don't take any of that into consideration when you get food stamps. I do the best I can with what I can. I print alot of coupons online but I can't afford a newspaper to get the coupons from there so I'm stuck with just printing them. If internet wasn't included with where I live, I wouldn't even be able to do that! I can't have kids and I can't work. Where does that leave me? Living off the government because I have no choice right now. It really sucks!!!
You've come to the right place for information on healthy eating and you've taken a great first step in getting healthier! While we can't necessarily help with many of your challenges, perhaps we can help with suggesting some cost-cutting strategies for healthy eating? Maybe start a thread if you think it would be helpful? I'll be happy to contribute! :flowerforyou:0 -
I bought 4 large carrots at Safeway and paid 35 cents. Whole food is not expensive. Excuses for not learning how to cook are the problem. Eating less costs less, exercise costs nothing. Being fat and poor is not the food's fault. The fault is with the shopper and cook.0
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No kidding! You can get 10 pounds of potatoes for the cost of one bag of chips.Now to get the convenience stores in poor areas to stock 10 pound bags of potatoes. Or any produce. They would if food stamps weren't a subsidy to packaged food industries.Convenience stores are not where you are supposed to be buying your groceries. Who does that, honestly? Even my folks in the rural areas will truck the long journey to Walmart for their grocery stores. Convenience stores are for convenience, and that's that.
Since a number of replies are full of anecdotes (food stamps and a new iPhone!), I'll reply with an anecdote of my own. I taught for three years in the South Bronx. My school's neighborhood had a handful of bodegas and one "grocery" store, which had little produce, little meat (almost entirely processed and/or low nutrient value), and several aisles of the worst types of packaged food you could find. Unemployed parents could spend the hours traveling to a decent grocery store and back while their kids were in school. The parents who were on food stamps and working minimum wage jobs (spoiler alert: you can't live in NYC on minimum wage), had no time to manage the shopping commute. Add in health education or lack thereof, the dangers of shopping at night far from home, childcare while you try to do the shopping, and having a clean place to store the ten pounds of potatoes where rats and roaches can't get them, and you have real obstacles to eating well.
I get that we want to simply write those off as excuses, but when I think of the number of times I ordered a pizza because I just didn't have it in me to load my small kids into the car after school and drag them to the grocery store, with none of the above added challenges, I have to consider that it's more complicated than it would appear on paper for poor families.0 -
Ummm what!! Im not on food stamps now I didnt qualify once my husband and I got married becuse we make to much money, and im here to tell u that my food budget now is about 100less then when. I was on stamps and ya we eat very heathy ...anyone who thinks being on food stamps is a excuse. Not to eat healthy dosent car care to much about lossin weight!!! U dont even have to "pay" for ur food the government dose how can u not eford it! I always see people whi have stamps buy expenseive junk food they outher wise cant efford ...not doging people on stamps wish I still had em, but HELL YA U CAN EAT HEATHY ON FOOD STAMPS its all in what u put in ur cart0
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this deserves to be repeated.I think it has less to do with having food stamps than it does to do with the availability of fresh and healthy food in their area. In some of the poorer neighborhoods there are no grocery stores; you are limited to buying foods at convenience stores that rarely carry produce or if they do it is outrageously priced.
i currently live in a poor (ie on the verge of being gentrified neighborhood :laugh: ) where the only grocery store in walking distance is whole foods (i dont know a lot of poor people who can afford cars or taxis or whole food prices) but you better believe we have tons of corners stores down here who sell every variety and flavor of potato chip, cookie and soda.
those places take food stamps, so does the mcdonald's and the burger king
i think the walgreens take EBT card as well (seriously what year are you people writing from where they still use stamps?) but the produce there is like $2 for 1 orange! $6 for a small thing of mushy strawberries!
i USED to be one of those people who would say people who use the excuse of being poor as to why they eat crap until i moved to this neighborhood. back where i'm from in the east coast, just about every corner has a bodega where you can get fresh produce for cheap. here in downtown oakland i was legitimately shocked at the lack food choices for people who live here and dont have other options besides crappy fast food and corner stores
but to answer the question of the thread yes you can, especially if you are single. i got EBT for 3 months when i was unemployed and had absolutely no income and otherwise would have been able to eat since my unemployment ran out and my savings were gone. i think i got something like $250 ! i was told by my case worker that any left over balance you dont use for a month essentially gets lost, so at the end of every month you can believe i was at whole foods buying the $20 salami, the $30 cheese and the GOOD gluten free free bread because i would always have a lot left over. oh and i didnt give a *kitten* about the dirty looks i'd be getting either :laugh:0 -
Yes it is possible, and I am a prime example! My son has autism and is still in diapers at the age of 6, so I had to quit my job as I am a single parent. I am a full time online student right now, and I have been in school for 3 years trying to complete my bachelor's degree and money is tight. I get SSI and food stamps. I live on $710 a month. So, I buy most of my groceries in bulk at the Wholesale Club, Costco's. I buy ingredients for many of my favorite foods that I cook at home, then I buy my son's stuff. Since he is autistic and non-verbal, he only eats certain foods, such as chicken nuggets, pizza, banquet tv dinners, ice cream sandwiches, graham crackers, applesauce and fruitables. Now one could make judgment on me, if they saw me at the grocery store with a cart full of these items, but like I said, they are for my autistic child, not me, as he eats something different for dinner than I do. Unfortunately, my son is just not interested in the foods that I eat.
Meanwhile, when I do go grocery shopping, I tend to stock up on stuff like diced tomatoes in the can, cases of canned tomato sauce, and cases of canned tomato paste, so if I want to make spaghetti, or chili, or any dish that is tomato based, then I have the basis for the ingredients already there. I also buy a big thing of onions to keep in the pantry, fresh garlic, sweet potatoes, bananas, green pepper, kiwi fruit, butternut squash, canned veggies and also fresh veggies that I may dice up and freeze, if I am not using them right away with a meal. I also buy a case of bottled water, a case of Quaker old fashioned oats for my oatmeal, a large bag of fresh fruit that is in season, like this month, I bought some fresh cranberries and I keep them in the freezer and take out the amount I need to put in my pancakes or in my oatmeal. I also buy big cases of cold cereal, tubs of fresh plain yogurt, which I use for smoothies, a sour cream substitute, or just to eat with granola...etc.
So, this is what I do with what I receive in food stamps, which is $215 a month, and I stockpile my food, so that my food lasts. I cut corners by freezing big meals sometimes, and if I bought meat one month, then I may buy fish, such as salmon and cod another month, if I could not afford to buy them in the previous month.
I often will cook two home-cooked meals a week, and eat leftovers of lunch and dinner. For breakfast, I will buy a big thing of pancake mix using buckwheat flour, weight watchers breakfast sausage wraps by the case, veggie oat blueberry muffins by the case, biscuits, and coconut oil etc. This way I have a variety for breakfast and some quick things to go to if I am in a hurry. Then, I have whatever I cooked for lunch and dinner with some other alternatives as well. This has worked well for me. So to answer your question, yes you can eat healthy on food stamps!0 -
23 years ago , I was divorced and a single mother of two . My ex refused to pay child support and ran off ..... I worked a part time job and was going to nursing school and received 175 a month in food stamps . which got cut when I told the truth about babysitting on the weekends for my sister so that I could have gas money to make it to and from school all week . So I then had to get a weekend job to pay for food as well as eating my parents and my families left overs .....So I have a hard time understanding or agreeing with anyone getting 700 dollars a month for groceries ? I am not a good liar nor did I ever want to be but it's all so unfair when you tell the truth you are penalized, but when you lie you get what you need or more....not a very good system I think . This is only my opinion based on my own experience .. My good friend who lied about being separated, received something like 500 a month and had all the great name brand cereals and yes filet minion in her freezer at all times . I was so upset about it all the time. she had a car ,money- and my son was always asking me why she had good food and we didn't .....a sad state I say .....but I'm a nurse now and she is still not supporting herself so I guess that worked out better for me ....
by the way to the original poster - yes it is possible- because even to this day there are many working people who have way less money to spend on food than some people receive in food stamp benefits .0 -
this deserves to be repeated.I think it has less to do with having food stamps than it does to do with the availability of fresh and healthy food in their area. In some of the poorer neighborhoods there are no grocery stores; you are limited to buying foods at convenience stores that rarely carry produce or if they do it is outrageously priced.
i currently live in a poor (ie on the verge of being gentrified neighborhood :laugh: ) where the only grocery store in walking distance is whole foods (i dont know a lot of poor people who can afford cars or taxis or whole food prices) but you better believe we have tons of corners stores down here who sell every variety and flavor of potato chip, cookie and soda.
those places take food stamps, so does the mcdonald's and the burger king i think the walgreens take EBT card as well (seriously what year are you people writing from where they still use stamps?) but the produce there is like $2 for 1 orange! $6 for a small thing of mushy strawberries!
i USED to be one of those people who would say people who use the excuse of being poor as to why they eat crap until i moved to this neighborhood. back where i'm from in the east coast, just about every corner has a bodega where you can get fresh produce for cheap. here in downtown oakland i was legitimately shocked at the lack food choices for people who live here and dont have other options besides crappy fast food and corner stores
but to answer the question of the thread yes you can, especially if you are single. i got EBT for 3 months when i was unemployed and had absolutely no income and otherwise would have been able to eat since my unemployment ran out and my savings were gone. i think i got something like $250 ! i was told by my case worker that any left over balance you dont use for a month essentially gets lost, so at the end of every month you can believe i was at whole foods buying the $20 salami, the $30 cheese and the GOOD gluten free free bread because i would always have a lot left over. oh and i didnt give a *kitten* about the dirty looks i'd be getting either :laugh:
I agree, I use to live in a food desert when I had to move back to the city to find cheaper rent, once I became pregnant with my son and could not afford the price of 2 bedroom apartments in the nicer, suburban area that I once lived in. Before moving back to the city, I just so happened to notice that there was a community of low-income townhomes across the street from where I was living at the time, that had section 8 and income-based 2,3, and 4 bedroom townhomes. So before I left for the city, I put my name on the waiting list.
In the meantime, I moved to a mediocre part of town, where I had settle for shopping at places like Aldi's, and Save-a-lot, as those were the only two stores available in that whole area.( I know Aldi's has made a come-up since then, but this happened back in 2007).Finally, after 2 years of living in the city, the leasing people called me and asked me if I was still interested in moving into a townhome. So, I moved from the city, back to the suburban, posh area that I once lived in before, only across the street to where I had originally stayed before moving.
So, one thing I can say about my situation is that even though I am poor, I am blessed to have to live on section 8 for the time-being, yet still reside in a rich, suburban part of town, with tons of grocery stores, farmer markets, and even farmers, who sell their fresh produce on the street corners. And because of this, I am able to eat healthy while having to live on food stamps.0 -
wow where do you live??? im in California and I get 475 for a family of five!!!!!!Everyone I know on food stamps gets a large amount of money ($900 for a family of 4 and $700 for a family of 2 - two of the families I know)
I would say Heck Yes! It most certainly is possible to eat healthy with that kind of food "budget."
I live in Missouri. I am a single parent in school full-time with an autistic son and we only get $215 a month.0 -
Junk food is cheaper but in the long run it costs us less to eat healthy foods.
http://slapdashmom.com/make-food-stamps-last-longer/0 -
A family of 2 is not getting $700 unless maybe California has super high guidelines like that. I was a single, non-working (homeless) mother at one point and time. I had three kids and never received over $500 for my family of 4. I was thankful for every penny I got but I'm sick of people making outrageous claims like this about food stamps.
wow where do you live??? im in California and I get 475 for a family of five!!!!!!Everyone I know on food stamps gets a large amount of money ($900 for a family of 4 and $700 for a family of 2 - two of the families I know)
I would say Heck Yes! It most certainly is possible to eat healthy with that kind of food "budget."
I live in Missouri. I am a single parent in school full-time with an autistic son and we only get $215 a month.0 -
No kidding! You can get 10 pounds of potatoes for the cost of one bag of chips.Now to get the convenience stores in poor areas to stock 10 pound bags of potatoes. Or any produce. They would if food stamps weren't a subsidy to packaged food industries.Convenience stores are not where you are supposed to be buying your groceries. Who does that, honestly? Even my folks in the rural areas will truck the long journey to Walmart for their grocery stores. Convenience stores are for convenience, and that's that.
Since a number of replies are full of anecdotes (food stamps and a new iPhone!), I'll reply with an anecdote of my own. I taught for three years in the South Bronx. My school's neighborhood had a handful of bodegas and one "grocery" store, which had little produce, little meat (almost entirely processed and/or low nutrient value), and several aisles of the worst types of packaged food you could find. Unemployed parents could spend the hours traveling to a decent grocery store and back while their kids were in school. The parents who were on food stamps and working minimum wage jobs (spoiler alert: you can't live in NYC on minimum wage), had no time to manage the shopping commute. Add in health education or lack thereof, the dangers of shopping at night far from home, childcare while you try to do the shopping, and having a clean place to store the ten pounds of potatoes where rats and roaches can't get them, and you have real obstacles to eating well.
I get that we want to simply write those off as excuses, but when I think of the number of times I ordered a pizza because I just didn't have it in me to load my small kids into the car after school and drag them to the grocery store, with none of the above added challenges, I have to consider that it's more complicated than it would appear on paper for poor families.
This.0 -
My parents were on food stamps when I was little and my dad was finishing his master's degree. They ate very healthy and even had food stamps left at the end of the month.http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2013/11/09/too-much-of-too-little/?hpid=z1
This article expands on what many of us know - the cheapest foods are usually the unhealthiest ones, but what can we do to solve it?
Anyways, I found it an interesting read without a simple solution, so figured I'd post it up for discussion!
A friend of mine used food stamps for a while to feed her family of five and she fed them EXTREMELY healthy foods and also had stamps left over at the end of the month.
You can most certainly eat well and eat healthy on food stamps if you choose to do so.0 -
There is no legitimate reason that someone receiving food stamp benefits cannot eat "healthily"aside from ignorance.
I worked retail in a grocery store and saw all kinds of bad choices of people who were on stamps. How about a mandatory food education class when people are accepted for food stamp benefits? With a refresher course with every re-evaluation? I have known people on stamps that just didn't know how to cook really. Free class a few hours on how to eat health and cook health could do wonders for a lot of people. Healthy can be good food fast, I am learning this myself.0 -
Well first off, I don't receive benefits but have in the past. And let me tell you, my food budget was WAAAAY higher on benefits. So the answer is yes, it is possible to eat healthy on food stamps. However, I would like to point out that it isn't that hard to eat healthy on a budget either.
Soooo... I don't really get the point of this discussion...0 -
Well first off, I don't receive benefits but have in the past. And let me tell you, my food budget was WAAAAY higher on benefits. So the answer is yes, it is possible to eat healthy on food stamps. However, I would like to point out that it isn't that hard to eat healthy on a budget either.
Soooo... I don't really get the point of this discussion...
I think the point is that for some people (not all - you and me for example), the problem of healthy eating is a complicated one, as we have access to places that sell healthy choices and we know what foods are better choices. That's not the case for everyone.0 -
No kidding! You can get 10 pounds of potatoes for the cost of one bag of chips.Now to get the convenience stores in poor areas to stock 10 pound bags of potatoes. Or any produce. They would if food stamps weren't a subsidy to packaged food industries.Convenience stores are not where you are supposed to be buying your groceries. Who does that, honestly? Even my folks in the rural areas will truck the long journey to Walmart for their grocery stores. Convenience stores are for convenience, and that's that.
Since a number of replies are full of anecdotes (food stamps and a new iPhone!), I'll reply with an anecdote of my own. I taught for three years in the South Bronx. My school's neighborhood had a handful of bodegas and one "grocery" store, which had little produce, little meat (almost entirely processed and/or low nutrient value), and several aisles of the worst types of packaged food you could find. Unemployed parents could spend the hours traveling to a decent grocery store and back while their kids were in school. The parents who were on food stamps and working minimum wage jobs (spoiler alert: you can't live in NYC on minimum wage), had no time to manage the shopping commute. Add in health education or lack thereof, the dangers of shopping at night far from home, childcare while you try to do the shopping, and having a clean place to store the ten pounds of potatoes where rats and roaches can't get them, and you have real obstacles to eating well.
I get that we want to simply write those off as excuses, but when I think of the number of times I ordered a pizza because I just didn't have it in me to load my small kids into the car after school and drag them to the grocery store, with none of the above added challenges, I have to consider that it's more complicated than it would appear on paper for poor families.
While I understand your point about transportation and availability of healthy food, I believe the question was "is it possible to eat healthy on food stamps?" The answer to that is yes. It is possible because it has been done.
Now if the question were "is it possible to eat healthy without reliable transportation?" then I would agree that the challenge is greater. But the welfare system provides families with more than enough money to purchase healthy food.0 -
This is true in some cases. But I grew up in a pretty small town and there weren't a lot of grocery stores. However, what grocery stores we had were in the poorer neighborhoods. I guess the companies figured more business that way since lower-income people could walk to the stores and higher-income peopel could drive to them.Well first off, I don't receive benefits but have in the past. And let me tell you, my food budget was WAAAAY higher on benefits. So the answer is yes, it is possible to eat healthy on food stamps. However, I would like to point out that it isn't that hard to eat healthy on a budget either.
Soooo... I don't really get the point of this discussion...
I think the point is that for some people (not all - you and me for example), the problem of healthy eating is a complicated one, as we have access to places that sell healthy choices and we know what foods are better choices. That's not the case for everyone.
I worked as a cashier in one of them for two years (Wegmans -- if you're not familiar with it, do a Google search -- it's KNOWN for its healthy and affordable choices). People still bought a lot of crap that probably cost more than the good stuff.
I think some of it comes down to ignorance (just not knowing any better) and some comes down to laziness -- not wanting to bother with peparing and cooking fresh and healthy foods.
This, of course, is not a problem only people on assistance have. There are plenty of rich people who eat a lot more crap than healthy food.0
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