alabamagal
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Post by alabamagal on Apr 13, 2011 12:20:15 GMT -5
Definitely should be done. In my area, just go to Walmart (not picking on them, this is just an example). Look for the people with full carts full of junk food, sodas, individual Koolaid drinnks, etc. They pay with their EBT cards. Usually not one piece of fresh fruit or vegetables. These things are readily available at the store, and you are at the store so there is no excuse. WIC is much better programs, just don't get behind them in the checkout line, because it takes forever for the store to process all the vouchers. You can usually spot these people by what they purchase (milk, vegetables, etc.)
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sil
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Post by sil on Apr 13, 2011 12:24:02 GMT -5
I passed by a Carl's Jr (fast food hamburgers) yesterday with a banner saying "Now accepting EBT"
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 13, 2011 12:25:18 GMT -5
They do but it is so expensive that it almost forces people to not buy it. How many here would really spend 3 bucks for one apple when they only have 21 to spend for a whole week? Truthfull most of them are pretty nast looking too.
It's hard to stock a lot of fresh stuff in urban areas, that's part of why it's so expensive.
There are a couple of Trader Joe's in Manhattan but there was no way I was schlepping all the way down there whenever I needed to go shopping. And again, I'd have to go pretty often because you can only buy what you can carry.
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Apr 13, 2011 12:27:50 GMT -5
Kids under 2 are supposed to drink whole milk, not skim or 2%, unless the pedi recommends something else. But WIC only allows low fat. I disagree but what can you do? I have a vague thought that when my Mom was on WIC in the early 80s, they provided powdered milk, which we all thought was disgusting and refused to drink... Mom was a SAHP, Dad worked in a drop forge and got laid off. So Mom sucked it up and applied for aid. She got lots of cheese and dried peas - and the dreaded powdered milk! She filled out the paperwork with Dad as head of household and they made her fill it out again because no one could deal with either a 2 parent family or a male HoH...
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 13, 2011 12:28:54 GMT -5
Limiting the food choices that can be bought by food stamps should provide ample incentive for purchasers to make better food choices. The outstanding problem is then, how do you provide incentive to food providers to offer better food choices?
I don't have an answer for this one. It's hardest to stock fresh fruit and meat in urban areas; harder means more expensive; there's a lot of poverty in urban areas; food stamps won't stretch as far if the only items they can buy are more expensive; and so on.
It's a thorny problem.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 13, 2011 12:37:06 GMT -5
I passed by a Carl's Jr (fast food hamburgers) yesterday with a banner saying "Now accepting EBT"
See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You can go to a fast-food restaurant and feed your whole family for $10. Or you can go to the store and buy $10 worth of food which, while it might last longer than one meal if you spend it wisely and stretch it, is going to take up a huge chunk of your time. After getting to the store and back you have to cook your meal and maybe store the leftovers.
So let's think about this. If you're poor, YM says you're supposed to be working at least two jobs (and I don't disagree with that). Say you get home from your second job at three in the morning - where are you supposed to shop at that time of night, a gas station? Especially if you're on foot. Are you supposed to cook all your meals for the week on your day off? What if you don't have a day off or you have to use that day off to go to the Laundromat? And how are you supposed to carry that much food to your house from the local store if you don't have a car?
There are solutions to all of this but they all require money or time or both. So if Carl's Jr. is an option, then people are going to eat Carl's Jr. rather than doing all that work. You can't blame them. But if fast food restaurants are accepting EBT now, that's REALLY bad.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2011 12:38:38 GMT -5
But WIC only allows low fat. I disagree but what can you do? I have a vague thought that when my Mom was on WIC in the early 80s, they provided powdered milk, which we all thought was disgusting and refused to drink... Mom was a SAHP, Dad worked in a drop forge and got laid off. So Mom sucked it up and applied for aid. She got lots of cheese and dried peas - and the dreaded powdered milk! She filled out the paperwork with Dad as head of household and they made her fill it out again because no one could deal with either a 2 parent family or a male HoH... WIC milk allowed for pregnant or nursing mothers is skim or 1% (not powdered). Once the baby is one year old the mother can no longer get a food allotment, but the child can recieve whole milk.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2011 12:41:34 GMT -5
Limiting the food choices that can be bought by food stamps should provide ample incentive for purchasers to make better food choices. The outstanding problem is then, how do you provide incentive to food providers to offer better food choices? I don't have an answer for this one. It's hardest to stock fresh fruit and meat in urban areas; harder means more expensive; there's a lot of poverty in urban areas; food stamps won't stretch as far if the only items they can buy are more expensive; and so on. It's a thorny problem. The nice thing about WIC is it's not a dollar amount (with the exception of the fresh fruit/veggie allotment). You get X loaves of bread, and X gallons of milk and X cans of tuna.... If your store is expensive you're not getting less of a food package than someone shopping somewhere cheaper.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Apr 13, 2011 12:44:31 GMT -5
Firebird it is the lack of a car that kills most people on public assistance. Without a car jobs are tougher to get and really limited for which they can get to and from. The time it takes to use public trans is crazy next to driving.
Not having a local grocery store is just one thing in a long list of things that gets crazy hard fast.
There was a charity around here that used to take old beater cars and fix them up and give people the first years reg and ins paid for them. They felt it was a much more effective way of lifting people out of poverty.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 13, 2011 12:49:45 GMT -5
Firebird it is the lack of a car that kills most people on public assistance. Without a car jobs are tougher to get and really limited for which they can get to and from. The time it takes to use public trans is crazy next to driving.
Not having a local grocery store is just one thing in a long list of things that gets crazy hard fast.I know, that's one of the main points I was trying to make
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 13, 2011 12:55:06 GMT -5
There was a charity around here that used to take old beater cars and fix them up and give people the first years reg and ins paid for them. They felt it was a much more effective way of lifting people out of poverty.
Another idea could be to have people in a community volunteer to chauffeur families without cars to and from the grocery store once a week so they can actually shop. I would definitely do something like that - pick up Mom or Dad and take them to the store so they can shop, pick them up in an hour and take them home with their groceries. Pretty painless for me, and extremely helpful for families that want to shop for healthy groceries and can't due to transportation constraints.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2011 13:13:41 GMT -5
There was a charity around here that used to take old beater cars and fix them up and give people the first years reg and ins paid for them. They felt it was a much more effective way of lifting people out of poverty. Another idea could be to have people in a community volunteer to chauffeur families without cars to and from the grocery store once a week so they can actually shop. I would definitely do something like that - pick up Mom or Dad and take them to the store so they can shop, pick them up in an hour and take them home with their groceries. Pretty painless for me, and extremely helpful for families that want to shop for healthy groceries and can't due to transportation constraints. Firebird, that is an amazing idea.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 13, 2011 13:15:38 GMT -5
Thanks. I actually emailed my mom about it because she's active in volunteer work and might know who to approach to institute a program like that... I thought it was kind of good too! ;D
I love driving. I'd be glad to donate some weekend hours to this.
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Apr 13, 2011 13:26:35 GMT -5
I think this is a great idea. It's also the only way we'll solve the food desert problem in poor urban areas. If most of the customers are on food stamps, the local stores will obviously stock stuff that can be bought with food stamps. Make them more like WIC where you have to purchase real food, and the local convenience stores and small groceries will start stocking real food. It does push more government control, but in this case I'm for it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2011 13:46:14 GMT -5
I agree with the idea of banning junk food from EBT purchases, although I can see LOTS of fighting about what that means. Fruit roll-up strips? Sunny D? Baked potato chips? So many things are on the boundaries.
One point that hasn't been mentioned, though, is that many people don't know how to prepare food. This is a story I told on the old Board but I'll repeat it: I once donated a 10 lb. bag of potatoes that I'd gotten for 99 cents to the food bank. The lady who takes the food to the food bank said they didn't want them. Too many of the people who used the food bank wouldn't be interested in preparing them. I can make a darn good and filling snack out of a potato by cutting it in half, microwaving it and adding salsa. I appreciated the information- I certainly don't want to donate food that won't be used- but it was a very sad revelation. They'd rather have 99 cents to get one serving of fries at Carl Jr.'s than a bag of potatoes that could last them a couple of weeks.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2011 13:48:12 GMT -5
Well. i never thought of it, but i guess preparing food does take electricity and pots and stuff... ?? homeless would be a problem.... But then carrot sticks and apples and stuff like that doesn't require prep...
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Apr 13, 2011 13:51:04 GMT -5
I don't think most homeless people are actually on assistance programs. I could be wrong about that, but I'd always heard that homeless people are the ones who fall through the cracks in our safety net, or refuse to use it by choice.
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cael
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Post by cael on Apr 13, 2011 13:53:12 GMT -5
It's sad to realize that some people don't bother to learn how to prepare real food... I don't know if it's the lack of time if they work 2 jobs, or just pure complacency. If people don't know how to prepare real food for themselves, and don't bother to learn, the government subsidizing them continuing to buy crap food they don't need to prepare goes against the whole "teach a man to fish" thing and all... Kind of sad. Maybe food pantries could do basic cooking and food prep classes for people if that's the case.
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Apr 13, 2011 13:53:28 GMT -5
There was a charity around here that used to take old beater cars and fix them up and give people the first years reg and ins paid for them. They felt it was a much more effective way of lifting people out of poverty. Another idea could be to have people in a community volunteer to chauffeur families without cars to and from the grocery store once a week so they can actually shop. I would definitely do something like that - pick up Mom or Dad and take them to the store so they can shop, pick them up in an hour and take them home with their groceries. Pretty painless for me, and extremely helpful for families that want to shop for healthy groceries and can't due to transportation constraints. Firebird, that is an amazing idea. We have a local grocery store that used to advertize free cab rides if you spent more than X dollars in the store. I didn't pay attention to the dollar amount and I have no idea if they're still doing that. The store is kinda like the only big grocery store in the inner city here.
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qofcc
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Post by qofcc on Apr 13, 2011 13:54:39 GMT -5
Another idea would be to be able to use food stamps for a grocery delivery fee or to have a charity cover the fee for eligible people. As I mentioned before, when I lived near Boston, Peapod would deliver groceries for about $10 and you could shop online (people without internet at home could use the library) and use coupons. I would think people living in the city who stock up 2x/mo using a delivery service could save more than the $20 they would spend on the delivery fee just by paying regular grocery store prices and being able to use coupons rather than buying at more expensive convenience stores.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 13, 2011 13:56:01 GMT -5
One point that hasn't been mentioned, though, is that many people don't know how to prepare food. This is a story I told on the old Board but I'll repeat it: I once donated a 10 lb. bag of potatoes that I'd gotten for 99 cents to the food bank. The lady who takes the food to the food bank said they didn't want them. Too many of the people who used the food bank wouldn't be interested in preparing them. I can make a darn good and filling snack out of a potato by cutting it in half, microwaving it and adding salsa. I appreciated the information- I certainly don't want to donate food that won't be used- but it was a very sad revelation. They'd rather have 99 cents to get one serving of fries at Carl Jr.'s than a bag of potatoes that could last them a couple of weeks.
In my case, it was less "not knowing how" and more "not being willing." And I think that's the case for a lot of people. Okay, you just gave a great recipe for potatoes that probably takes five minutes. But a lot of meals, especially for more than one person, take longer to prepare than that. And again, most poor people are up against major time constraints that we tend to take for granted (at least, I do). It takes forever to get anything done, and you're always tired, and realistically most are just not willing to make the effort.
If they are willing to make the effort, they have to find the time. So the vicious circle goes round and round.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2011 13:56:10 GMT -5
cael... i think some people just don't have anyone to teach them...
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 13, 2011 14:00:28 GMT -5
It's sad to realize that some people don't bother to learn how to prepare real food... I don't know if it's the lack of time if they work 2 jobs, or just pure complacency. If people don't know how to prepare real food for themselves, and don't bother to learn, the government subsidizing them continuing to buy crap food they don't need to prepare goes against the whole "teach a man to fish" thing and all... Kind of sad. Maybe food pantries could do basic cooking and food prep classes for people if that's the case.
I'm guilty of this too. I hate cooking. I could have saved myself literally thousands of dollars over the years if I had just buckled down and learned some easy recipes. Never wanted to. And when I was broke, the ready-made stuff was cheaper anyway. You don't get any easier, faster, cheaper, or less healthy than a bowl of Ramen.
So it was a double whammy - a) I don't want to make the effort, and b) easier is cheaper anyway (well, that's arguable but it's definitely cheaper in terms of effort and time, if not ultimate dollar value).
That's my biggest concern about fast food joints accepting EBT.
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cael
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Post by cael on Apr 13, 2011 14:00:52 GMT -5
Maybe like the volunteer driver, food pantries could have volunteers teach people, if there was interest?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2011 14:11:08 GMT -5
I work at an Aldi in a large city. The first week of the month is a madhouse with folks spending their charged up LINK cards. It never ceases to amaze me what junk so many of these folks buy. Small but expensive boxes of prepared chicken wings and patties, lunchables, frozen anything that can go into a microwave - and this stuff is costly. We sell boxes of pancake mix for just over a dollar, but instead people will buy a frozen 2-small-pancake breakfast for 99 cents - and they might buy 24 of them! It is not uncommon for a customer to buy 30 or 40 lbs of sugar and 100 envelopes of koolaid. I really don't think most of these "poor" folks ever cook a meal. And they will put back cereal or fruit so they can keep the bags of pistachio nuts ($6.19) and chips. You don't even want to hear what happens when we sell whole lobster or crab legs. Maybe one day I'll be poor enough to eat lobster! And yes - it's not all food stamp customers, but it's certainly a lot of them.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 13, 2011 14:34:24 GMT -5
I did eat a lot of potatoes, though. Potatoes are cheap and filling. We sliced them up and fried them in a bit of oil, and ate them with ketchup. Fairly quick, though not instant.
I like your idea, cael, but I think it would only work if it was accompanied by a sheet of "5 minute recipes" - literally things you can whip up in 5-10 minutes with two or three ingredients. Maybe a little section after each recipe along the lines of "if you have a little more time and want to make it more tasty, add this..."
That's the only thing I would've gotten anything useful out of a cooking class while dirt broke. Show me how to make stuff fast with very few ingredients, stuff I can remember off the top of my head for next time, and I'm in.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2011 14:43:46 GMT -5
I did eat a lot of potatoes, though. Potatoes are cheap and filling. We sliced them up and fried them in a bit of oil, and ate them with ketchup. Fairly quick, though not instant. I like your idea, cael, but I think it would only work if it was accompanied by a sheet of "5 minute recipes" - literally things you can whip up in 5-10 minutes with two or three ingredients. Maybe a little section after each recipe along the lines of "if you have a little more time and want to make it more tasty, add this..." That's the only thing I would've gotten anything useful out of a cooking class while dirt broke. Show me how to make stuff fast with very few ingredients, stuff I can remember off the top of my head for next time, and I'm in. Firebird, I learned to cook with the Five in Ten Cookbook and it is on amazon for $4. It has a max of 5 ingredients and cooks in 10 minutes.
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cael
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Post by cael on Apr 13, 2011 14:45:20 GMT -5
GUYS - now I want potatoes! I made some yummy ones last night with dinner but we ate them all
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Apr 13, 2011 15:21:19 GMT -5
I used to volunteer at a food bank. I was the person who taught everyone how to use powdered milk. It was one of the things that we could get cheap though the USDA banks. Most people if they tried it would not want to drink it unless really desperate as it does taste pretty bad straight. I use it to bake things though and you can't taste the difference. Think along the lines of pancakes or mac and cheese for most people. Most were skeptical but once they tried it they were hooked. they still would need to buy fresh milk for their cereal but it did save a lot of money buy only needed a small amount. Strangely the USDA discontinued dry milk and went to the "parmalot" kind and people are still complaining about it. ETA for spell check purposes.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Apr 13, 2011 16:17:50 GMT -5
LOL!
I am a fresh food junkie - but that said, canned green beans are better for you than a box of twinkies, and those could fit easily into a crappy market. Frozen foods are pretty decent - like peas, strawberries, etc.
As far as grains - those shouldn't be that hard to stock. I mean, sure, we are all against white rice and pasta now - but really, wouldn't a bag of pasta and jar (or can) of meatsauce be a better meal to a family than a bag of doritos and two liters of coke. Dried pasta can sit on shelves for a while. It doesn't need to be that "fresh."
I would like to see this program go hand in hand with education - cooking classes, meal planning seminars, dealing with kids who have never learned to eat well, etc. A healthy diet is a huge leap forward for kids. It helps with physical development, behavior problems, brain development - really it touches every part of a kids life (well, except if they are being abused or neglected - then all the apples and whole grains in the world won't make a difference.) It would be quite a change for a great many people.
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