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| 2009/2/24-3/3 [Recreation/Food] UID:52629 Activity:high |
2/23 Libertarian proves you don't have to eat lots of junk carbs to live
within food stamp budget. http://www.freecolorado.com
Anecdotally, my friend's family went on food stamps a while back. They
were amazed at how much fancy stuff they were able to afford on
food stamps that they were never able to have before.
\_ Yes, food in america is cheap cheap cheap. However it's a lot
easier to eat good food for cheap when you have a decent kitchen,
time to shop, time to cook, and the will and nutritional
knowledge needed to eat well. The guy did this for 7 days to
prove a point. That's a lot different from doing it every day.
As to your friend on food stamps isn't that the whole point?
\_ Well, he was responding the arguments that people on food stamps
cannot afford to eat heathily, so the allotments must be
increased.
Certainly it's true that it's easier to eat well if you know how,
how exactly does that relate to food stamps in this case? Is
your argument that food stamps don't just need to finance eating
well, but eating convinently as well?
Finally, when I say they were never able to have such good food
before, I mean, even when he had a decent paying job. I don't
think the point of food stamps is to keep people in caviar.
More details on his diet: (Includes why I think it is quite
sustainable for more than 7 days.)
http://csua.org/u/nmf
\_ From http://www.dss.cahwnet.gov/foodstamps/PG846.htm
"The average amount of food stamp benefits received per
household is about $200 per month."
Note. Per household. $200 a month for multiple people.
\_ Well yeah, most people have other income as well and
don't qualify for the full benefits.
\_ I'm so glad you've brought the pressing problem of food stamps
to our attention! Why worry about our melting economy or those
insolvent banks - the real trouble is a few million bucks we're
giving to poor people!
\_ Right! Let's just go over the same topics over and over again!
Only the important stuff! Where's masturbation guy?
\_ I don't know about this guy, b
\_ those assholes. EATING things.
\_ I'll bet that sounded really funny in your head.
\_ Let me tell you, growing up on food stamps, they were plenty
when the kids were little, but once there was a bunch of teenage
boys in the house, there was never enough food. Any mom was good
boys in the house, there was never enough food. And mom was good
at buying cheap things like rice and beans and stretching the
food dollar. We even grew and raised some of our own. This was
a long time ago though, things might be different now, but I
doubt it.
\_ Hello brother. You and I both benefited from social programs
and we both ended up ok. Without it, I'd be malnutritioned.
I'm a product of social programs and I strongly believe in
social programs for the poor. Fuck all these "low taxes for
me, every man for himself" self reliant fuck tards. Fuck
y'all
\_ No kidding. I got free lunch and during high school free
breakfast as well and I worked every summer after I turned
14 in a restaurant and pretty much half-time after I turned
16 and I *still* barely got enough to eat.
\_ Ok but why were your parents having "a bunch" of kids that they
cannot provide for? I'm sure you enjoy existing, but surely
you can see the problem there. Society should not be obligated
to provide for everybody's kids.
\_ Food insecurity is what makes governments fall. Even if you
like the idea of kids starving because it fits your
ideological purity, I don't think you will like the rioting
that will occur in response.
\_ There are responses to rioters that are not all that
pleasant to said rioters. It's not a one way street.
\_ It's still not a pleasant place to live for anyone.
I, for one, have no interest in living under martial
law.
\_ Hmm, I surprised they don't account for that. It's pretty well
known that teenagers eat 1.5-2x as much as adults.
\_ look, $4.74 per person per day for food is bare minimum
subsistence, however you look at it.
\_ I thought it was pretty obvious it wasn't. I mean, it's
a lot less than most of us use, but that doesn't make it
'bare-minumum.' I largely find this kind of thing
interesting because it shows how far from bare-minimum
most of us are living.
So, according to the straight dope, one can get all the
nutrients one needs from a diet consisting entirely of
potatos, milk, and oatmeal. Which is the diet most of
Ireland was eating prior to the potato famine. That
sounds more like bare-minimum, and it's a whole heck of a
lot less than $4.74 a day. Not that I think that we should
force food stamp recipients to live on dairy and potatos.
I'm just defining bare-minimum.
\_ Please. The Straight Dope article has you eating
8 pounds of potatoes and drinking two gallons of milk
a day. No sane person would consider that a reasonable
diet.
By the way: The US RDA has an interesting history,
and it has only a tenuous connection to health. -tom
and only a tenuous connection to health. -tom
\_ Awesome.
\_ so you agree that Big Government failed in this case?
\_ In what case, defining RDA? The problem with
RDA is not how it was created, it's in how
people think about it. -tom
\_ Two gallons of milk a day is going to cost more than
$4.74 all by itself.
\_ This guy has a lot of advantages that most poor people
do not: he can walk to a good grocery store with a wide
selection of food at reasonable prices, for example.
Most poor neighborhoods are underserved by grocery
stores and if you live in rural areas, you have to drive,
which can get really expensive, or you can take the bus,
which pretty much takes up all your time.
stores and if you live in rural areas, you have to
drive, which can get really expensive, or you can take
the bus, which pretty much takes up all your time.
\_ And has a decent kitchen. With stuff like
a pot that can hold a whole turkey carcass to
make stock. But that's not important to
Mr. I've Got It Good So Fuck the Poor. |
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| www.freecolorado.com In the text version of the story, Shawn Patrick, the reporter, makes the potentially confusing claim that "even Armstrong admits it was an extreme low-carbohydrate diet." I estimate I was eating between 100 and 150 grams of carbs per day, whereas the USDA recommends around 300. To counter the claim that those on a tight budget can only afford carbs, starch, and bad fat, I spent the weak eating a diet totally free of grains, potatoes, hydrogenated fat, and vegetable oils. Obviously, a low-carb diet must make up calories through increased proteins or fats. Part of the argument behind (at least some) low-carb diets is that eating a little more fat is not a problem, health-wise. However, some argue that vegetable fats -- canola oil, especially hydrogenated fats, etc. So I ate fat only from olive oil, meat, dairy, eggs, and nuts (and trace amounts in produce and chocolate). Obviously things like soda, sugary cereal, and frozen pizzas can cost a lot more and dramatically increase carb loads. If I were on a true emergency budget, I'd pick a diet combining elements of the 2007 diet and the low-carb one. I'd buy healthy but low-cost fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, eggs, and olive oil along with low-cost grains like brown rice and oats. I think that would be the best balance between good nutrition and low cost, and it's close to the diet I eat normally. Carolyn Ross was somewhat complimentary of the diet, yet she worried that I wasn't meeting my calorie loads. But I estimated my daily calorie intake, and it was within USDA guidelines. Even though I cut carbs, I still got carbs especially in my fruit, and I made up calories in protein and fat. We can continue to debate the optimal calorie split, but, according to the low-carb assumptions, I did very well. Perhaps viewers will be interested in what I made out of that. I made enough of it for several meals for both my wife and me, demonstrating that cooking need not consume a great deal of time per meal. article published today by the Washington, DC, Examiner: ... The concept of a health czar follows naturally from the welfare statists' premise that government should guarantee health care to all Americans. Whenever the government attempts to guarantee universal medical care, it must also control its costs. Hence, someone must determine how health care dollars may be spent. The Obama administration would control costs by creating a new Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research to determine which treatments are deemed most effective and thus eligible to be paid for by government. These decisions would be based on statistical averages that cannot take into account specific facts of individual patients. The fundamental problem with universal health care is the faulty premise that health care is a right. Rights are freedoms of action (such as the right to free speech), not automatic claims on goods or services that must be produced by others. In socialized medical systems, health care is never truly a right, but just another privilege dispensed at the discretion of bureaucrats. reports, "Thousands more people applying for food stamps mean wait times in 10 Colorado counties have pushed beyond 30 days, in violation of federal law." True, on a free market, in which individuals voluntarily funded food banks and other programs and personal efforts to feed the poor, a recession would stress the system as needs rose. However, people cooperating voluntarily would tend to be faster and more caring in addressing such needs. If you're old enough to fight wars and vote, you're certainly old enough to drink a beer. Such a move would also move at least some drinking from party houses to bars, which would improve safety. Of course, as one who was no stranger to binge drinking in my younger days, I realize that there is a deeper cultural problem here, but that problem is not being addressed by the discriminatory drinking age. keep responding (though I doubt I'll need to say anything more about it). As I've pointed out, the same leftist organization blaming the rally's organizers for an unknown person's sign calling Obama a Nazi itself features comments on its web page calling Bush a Nazi. It turns out -- and this will surprise no one who has lived through the past eight years -- that ProgressNow Colorado has a Web site whose blogs and reader comments have included a number of Nazi and fascist references to former President George W Bush and other conservatives -- which Armstrong has listed on his own blog. The group can't be held responsible for every nutty leftist who comments on the site? Maybe not, but it exerts more control over them than the organizers of an open-air political rally have over their crowd. writes about a rally in Overland Park: The protest was held outside of the office of Representative Dennis Moore, who voted for the so-called "stimulus" bill. I almost didn't go to the protest out of concern that it would be more of an anti-Democrat, pro-Republican protest, but it wasn't that way. There were some people who were obvious Republicans, but most of those that I saw and talked to where people who were against the massive spending that the government is pushing. Though the temperature was 10 degrees with the wind chill, I think probably 300-400 people showed up, and there was a LOT of great response from drivers who saw us. com, posted "by: Colorado Pols" -- I don't know the poster's identity -- misstates some facts and offers even more distortions. At issue is a February 17 rally organized by Jon Caldarda in protest of the so-called "stimulus" package. At that rally, a person unknown to Caldara and every other speaker showed up with a sign calling Obama a Nazi by putting a swastika with Obama's name. com lied about me and distorted my views, so I request a correction and a public apology. com is a completely independent entity that I have run for more than a decade. com is simply lying, unless it is operating on George Costanza's theory that "it's not a lie if you believe it." com is playing fast and loose with the facts, and that's just bad reporting. media release pointing out that Progress Now Action, the organization of Michael Huttner attacking the rally's organizers, itself features numerous comments calling George W Bush and other conservatives Nazis or fascists. I said, "Obama is obviously not a Nazi, so tagging him with a swastika is wrong." post I wrote that "the Nazis were particular sorts of fascists with a genocidal racist bent. com to selectively quote my media release, ignore my condemnation of the sign within that media release, and then claim that I'm not "upset" over the sign. com claims that "the examples cited by Armstrong consist of a bunch of anonymous comments and community blog posts from the general public." Some, but not all, of the examples are anonymous reader comments. first example, a "Post from Richard Myers's Blog" links Bush to Hitler. This is a primary post, not a reader's comment, and certainly not anonymous. The fact that it is a "community blog post" does not alter the fact of what it says or where it appears. The post quotes Westword's Melanie Asmar, who wrote that the guy carrying the sign "stood right at the top of the steps during the protest. He was one of the first people I noticed as a reporter covering the event." Well, that says more about Asmar than it does about the rally. As such, the event's organizers had absolutely no control over who attended. proclaimed, any effort to remove any participant would have been a violation of free-speech rights. com endorse the policy of forcibly removing peaceful ralliers at a public venue? As is obvious to anyone who has seen the state capitol, the west steps are quite broad. The guy with the sign stood at the side of the stairs -- not that Caldara had any control over where the guy stood. com can pretend that the guy was somehow the center of what was going on, but that's obviously nonsense. com reproduces a photo with Malkin smiling for a photo-op with the guy and his sign. I grant that Malkin ought not have suggested the guy is some sort of "plant" without evidence. Again, it would b... |
| csua.org/u/nmf -> www.freecolorado.com/2009/02/low-carb-diet-food-stamp-budget.html Tuesday, February 3, 2009 Low-Carb Diet, Food Stamp Budget See links to updates below. MEDIA RELEASE ACTIVIST PLANS LOW-CARB DIET ON FOOD STAMP BUDGET New Diet Protests Food Stamp Increases A healthy diet is achievable on a food stamp budget, and Ari Armstrong plans to prove it, again. com/c35e8q -- will spend February 4-10 eating a highly nutritious, low-carb diet for less than food stamps provide. I oppose any increases to the food stamp budget, and call for the program to be replaced with voluntarily funded food banks, which offer more nutritious food at lower cost." Armstrong's new diet, unlike his previous one, will be low-carb, roughly following the advice of such writers as Gary Taubes and similar to "paleo" or "cave-man" diets. The diet will consist of meat, dairy, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts, olive oil, chocolate, and spices. It will not contain any grains, vegetable oils, hydrogenated fat, potatoes, or processed sugar. "With the previous diet, my goal was to minimize daily expenses. With the new diet my goal is to show that a very healthy diet is possible on a limited budget. The cost of my diet will actually be inflated, not only because I'll be eating no free food, but because a week's diet is not able to take advantage of bulk purchases of sales items," Armstrong pointed out. "I've been known to purchase 40 pounds of bananas, a dozen squash, or twenty pounds of meat when they're on sale; com/d2lb5g -- in which a woman on food stamps complains, "We get like the mac and cheese, which is dehydrated cheese -- basically food that's no good for you health wise... There's not enough assistance to eat healthy and maintain a healthy weight." Armstrong replied, "That's nonsense, and I'm prepared to prove it. I'm frankly irritated that some food stamp recipients waste our tax dollars on overpriced junk food, then complain about their grocery budget. For anybody on food stamps who complains that they can't afford good food, I'll be more than happy to evaluate your entire monthly budget, including your grocery budget, and recommend judicious cuts, limited to the first five people who reply." html I've blogged extensively on the issue of farm subsidies and price support (which have opposite effects for the prices of foods -- subsidization lowers prices while price support and tariffs increase prices). h tml Essentially, the price of sugar, raisins and milk are raised through price supports, government seizure of products, and/or import tariffs. Meanwhile grains, high fructose corn syrup, and possibly meat are artifically lower than they would be due to subsidies -- even with the ethanol industry, I think. Honestly, I think that even absent an ethanol industry or subsidies, corn products would still be more highly priced than they are today based on pre-subsidy prevalence of these items. The current subsidies not only lower the price, they spur more production than there would be, which further lowers the price. Current land use practices are a complete anomaly in farming history, which have resulted in the USDA's CRP program to pull marginal land out of production. Ethanol does raise the price of corn for foods, but I think it's difficult to make the case that in a free market with no subsidies and no ethanol support that corn would even be this cheap -- despite the ethanol prop-up. One only comes to the conclusion that ethanol makes food more expensive within the context of the subsidy programs of the past 40 years. Without those, I'm not even confident that corn would be around to the extent that it is. I'll be writing an article on farm policy, with some treatment of results in food prices, for an article in The Objective Standard. I hope you succeed in your quest, though I think it would be more fair to do the experiment for a whole month. I am a mother who recieves food stamps, and I refuse to feed my children junk of any kind, so I never buy processed foods, I buy organic as much as possible, and lean more towards meat than grain. I know it is possible to make healthy choices on food stamps, however, I also have to supplement our food allotment for a family of four. Perhaps I could get by on less if I didn't buy organic, but I will not feed my children poison, so I'm just not going to stop buying organic. I'm waiting with bated breath to find out about these mythical voluntarily funded food banks that actually have healthy food to offer. Because they can't store perishable food long-term, that's why. But hey, if you think they exist, let's hear about them. I'm so sorry you have issues with helping low-income people survive well. I hope you have as many issues with funding stupid wars that do nothing but secure an oil supply we shouldn't even need by now, get a bunch of our young men and women killed and foment ill will toward us all over the globe. On the other hand, thanks for proving that LC is possible on a food stamp budget. Too bad your average poor person believes the government when it tells them what a healthy diet is. Good luck convincing them otherwise when you've already made it clear you have no respect for them. I really get upset when I hear people who are receiving benefits complain. My husband works 2 jobs to support us and he makes decent money- enough for us to never be considered for anykind of gov't. I've successfully fed my family of 4 a decent healthy diet while maintaining a stockpile of food in the cupboards and in the fridge and freezer for approx. I work every week at scanning the sales and circulars and matching up coupons etc. just so we can eat well and eat the foods we like to eat and still maintain this budget. I could feed us like kings daily on 500 or other amounts monthly that are being referenced. |
| www.dss.cahwnet.gov/foodstamps/PG846.htm Quarterly Reporting Right Column Frequently Asked Questions What can food stamp benefits be used to purchase? Food Stamp benefits can be used to purchase: * Foods for human consumption. Food Stamp benefits cannot be used to purchase: * Any non-food item such as pet food, soaps, paper products, and household supplies; You may be eligible to receive food stamp benefits, whether or not you work, if you have a low income. What is the amount of food stamp benefits I will receive? The amount of food stamp benefits a low-income person or family can receive is based on the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Thrifty Food Plan. The plan estimates how much it costs to provide a household with nutritious, low-cost meals. The estimates are revised every year to keep pace with changes in food prices. The average amount of food stamp benefits received per household is about $200 per month. CFAP is a state-funded food stamp program for legal permanent non-citizens residing in the US, and determined ineligible for federal food stamp benefits solely due to their immigration status. There are over 240 food stamp offices in California operated by local county welfare departments. Low-income people may apply for food stamps at any office located in the county where they live. Also, there may be other locations were you can apply for food stamps. If I am receiving SSI/SSP, can I also receive food stamp benefits? If you are receiving SSI/SSP, you cannot receive food stamp benefits in California. However, your family may be eligible to receive Food Stamp benefits. |