tomato from this years crop
(Rewriting this one) This is the news story on the food stamps: food stamps Short version of this is they really want to put restrictions on the food stamps where you can't buy things such as pop and junk food. I can in a way see where they are coming from on this as we do live in a very unhealthy society and they feel like these are luxury items. On that part I do agree....However this is where I have a problem with this. Why specifically target just the food stamp users? Why not do something to change the country as a whole as far as nutritional food if that is the problem. The cost of said junk food tends to be lower than the healthy foods and actually buys more. Granted the nutritional value does not go as far but if you are trying to feed a hungry family and stretch things as far as you can then you are going to try to buy things that go farther. I have been pretty low in my own life. (Try living on $500 dollars or so a month at the time myself and 3 kids....yeah that includes house payment and utilities it was a very depressing time for me lots of spaghetti with tomato sauce and I HATE that stuff plus whatever veggies were in the sale cart the store had set off to the side. It sucked. Anyway also for example my kids are each allotted now so much a week for snacks beyond the things we keep normally. They are allotted an amount to buy their lunch meat, fruits, whatever they want to eat with it. This is partially to try to teach them more about budgeting and grocery shopping. Today when we went to the store my son quickly discovered that a bottle of sunny d was more than two bottles of pop. This does not make it easier to help them make healthier choices but I imagine that is how it is for a lot of people. Plus these are comfort items. Meat is now outrageous. Hamburger used to be the low budget go to item in the meat section...now as someone else put it...it is as expensive as a nice roast. What used to be as low as 89cents a lb soon went up and up til now the cheap hamburger (like the 75/25 stuff) is now around $2.00 a lb and that is on sale in the tubes. The hamburger we are having tonight (again not even the most costly stuff) is around $2.69 a lb. Chuck steak used to be a favorite of mine though I am not much of a beef person I still like to sear some steaks or grill them on occasion. They have gone up to a price where it just isn't economical to do. Water melons that are the size of those cheap little basketballs you find (not actual basketball size but the smaller toddler size ones) were $5.00 ...now compare that to Little Debbie snack cakes that can be as low as 50 cents a box on sale and usually we see them for like 75 cents to a dollar.....which one will go farther? Especially when you are trying to feed a bunch of hungry kids? I can see the problem with this. The watermelon would be healthier as would any fruit or veggie and nutrient wise would go a lot farther but a lot of times people are looking to fill tummies or comfort. Again this doesn't make it right but I think the prices enable this behavior. I was just talking in comments to someone about this and they bring up a good point. Healthier food is not more expensive if made from scratch... This depends on your grocery stores I think. The cost of flour and such as well. I think they could start doing nutrition classes for food stamps and while it wouldn't help everyone it might help some if it were not these short little classes that WIC has. Those can be helpful but maybe expand on those. As well as working with time constraints. Finding the time to fix healthier meals on a tight schedule between work and school. I think there can be an addiction problem in a way as well. (I.E. caffeine in pop even in diet pop, sugar, etc can all be addictive) It is relearning a life style which can be a bit trying. It isn't just the people on food stamps either that really need to learn this though at this time they are the ones being targeted. Also I think if they are going to look at that they need to look more at the people who sell their food stamps (yes they do this still even now that it is on a card) for cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. I know of people who do this. If you can sell them for that and get by you likely don't need them. As of recently my husband went to another store that I hadn't been to in awhile and found that the veggies and such there are cheaper than what we've been getting at our usual stores. So I hope to go there soon and check out what they have. I am trying to move farther away from foods with a lot of preservatives (less canned if possible more frozen or fresh) and he is kinda slowly warming up to this. He isn't a fan of veggies really any way except for a certain few. I also want to grow more of our own stuff and I have some mint plants I need to replant in our yard so that they will spread out more. My tomatoes are doing really well this year and I am constantly learning with this. I got my first decent sized zuchinni off the plant (for some reason it vastly outgrew the other zuchinni plants.) and it looks like we will have pumpkins. These came off some pumpkins we'd bought for Halloween and let the seeds do their own thing under the a/c. Pumpkin seeds grow super easy it seems. I now have some sunflowers I want to plant for my youngest. Something to add is that you can also buy seed packets with food stamps. I don't think a lot of people know this but I think with a bit of education I think they'd find the program might work better. Oh another thing you have to watch out for especially in the smaller local store here is expiration dates. I bought some chicken livers and normally I think to look and didn't this time and they had expired around the first of the month. I buy them on occasion and fix them with feta and cherry tomatoes and onions (and send over half of it over to my Mom) to help with iron levels. Mine get low really easily. The kids actually like them too. Something else that is a problem where I live is the water. We are still getting notices (always after the fact) of how the water contains bacteria and they are working to fix this matter....then the next month we get the same letter. People are suffering some pretty nasty stomach viruses around here as of late and I wonder if it is a coincidence. We had one a couple of weeks or so ago and then a couple of members of the family had it AGAIN not even a week ago. These always seem to coincide with these notices. I have a screwy immune system. I keep trying to drink tea or such which of course requires use of the water...which always seems to end badly for me. Therefor it is almost safer to drink my pop (which since I drink diet pop probably is just as bad) I really would like to buy one of the huge water containers they sell at the grocery store (or two) and get the pumps for them and then just take them when they are empty to the little ice shop for refills (if they aren't using city water which they may be...) Anyway back on the original topic the government as well as wanting to tighten the reins on food stamps are also wanting the industries to do away with super sized drinks and now this New york banning foods They want to ban buttered popcorn and milk based drinks.
So anyway they (the government etc) wants to promote healthier eating and to decrease obesity and disease associated with the junk food diets of America...Why don't they start with education? You put it out there enough it actually does stick with people. Just don't make them numb to it but you go putting out advertisements pushing things like bacon sundaes (while I am intrigued by this and STILL trying to wrap my brain about it) then yeah people push the limits of the bad food ideas to see what else they can come with. It is like a delicious sin sorta thing. Can be okay in moderation but as Americans we do nothing in moderation anymore. People want instant gratification. We stay on a rush rush rush mode in our day to day living. That is the biggest part of our problem...I'd say that is more of the problem than nutrition education by far. It is our lifestyles as a whole.
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