Brittany, runs the blog “A Healthy Slice of Life“, has decided to prove the poors wrong. She is going to feed her family on 400 bucks a month, just to show that food stampers can eat healthy if they really really want to:
I’m not going to get all political, but to sum things up, I feel that government programs are wonderful when they are helping people who have come across hard times and need some assistance getting back up on their feet. However, I feel that too many people depend on them heavily as a way of life, not as assistance. Many times these people are also the ones buying soda and chips and complaining that it’s too expensive to eat healthy foods.
That’s right poors – Brittany is watching all of you, and knows you buy soda and chips instead of loganic produce and free trade brown rice! Wait, wait – why are you all so appalled by her little experiment? She totally understands it’s not cheap to buy healthy food. Seriously you guys are just taking her post the wrong way! All she meant was, she likes a “good challenge”:
[B]asically it was said that is was too difficult to eat healthy foods for every meal with the amount of money one receives through the EBT program. BAM. Consider my interest piqued. I love a good challenge. I decided that I could do it. I could feed David, Hailey and me a healthy diet for a week on only the amount of money allocated to a family of 3 via EBT.
You know what folks, if you want to lower your grocery budgets and eat on the cheap that’s fine. Commendable, even. But I really wish bloggers would stop trying to prove that all those folks on EBT sit around eating junk food and drinking 40′s, and that they all just choose to be unhealthy.
Sorry but if you are an upper middle class white lady in the suburbs of North Carolina, your attitude of ‘if I can do it, so can they’ is just beyond snotty. The inner city poor do not have a nice SUV to pack up all their cheap fresh veggies from Costco before preparing them in their nice little kitchen. Please stop acting like ‘well they should just buy vegetables and lean meats and whole grains!’ is the final answer for what is going on nutritionally with those using government assistance, and get back to stressing about the farmer’s market being out of kale.
This one is really too much. I’ve never really liked Brittany but I couldn’t really put my finger on why…I guess I generally don’t like people who are omgperfect and perky all the time, which she is. But this is really just unbelievable. Somehow, and I don’t know how, I am still surprised every single GODDAMN DAY how ignorant people are of the world around them. If she just limited it to a budget challenge…fine, but she had to go and discuss EBT and be 100% uninformed, and that is what gives me the rages.
Great, all I needed was yet another blogger to hate.
Happy to help! :D
George Orwell wrote about this in 1936: “And the peculiar evil is this, that the less
money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A
millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an
unemployed man doesn’t. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of
the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say
when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to
eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ‘tasty’. There is
always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let’s have three pennorth
of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and
we’ll all have a nice cup of tea!”
That’s a lovely quote. The like button is MIA again, but I like this.
EXACTLY! Not only are you unemployed and poor, these people expect you to keep far away from fucking comfort food.
Well, not *fucking it*. I guess.
I was on food stamps for two years. Yes, I did sometimes buy soda and chips. You know why? Because I wanted to live like a normal person and have pretentious bitches like this lady to get the fuck out of my kitchen.
And, listen, just as rich people are FREE to make their decision on what to eat, so are poor people. The rich get handsome tax benefits and corporate subsidies and the poor (and OFTEN WORKING POOR) get food stamps.
Everyone has benefits.
Didn’t you get the memo? POOR PEOPLE DON’T DESERVE NICE THINGS.
I was College Poor and lived on less than $10 a week. (I made bean soup with dried beans, ham hocks and wilted vegetables and ate it every week, every meal.)
I don’t live like that any more, because I’m not poor any more. People who actually are on EBT or SNAP or whatever it’s called this week don’t want to eat like that but they do it because they have to. Once they don’t have to, they don’t. So I don’t understand why bloggers do it. Just to have something new to blog about?
There’s a blogger I read once or twice who was doing a “food stamp challenge” last year and she was all atwitter because her husband wanted a Clif bar at work and Clif bars didn’t fit into her fake food budget, so she asked her readers for ideas. Her braindead readers came up with homemade granola bars, etc. Finally I commented “You say your husband works hard all day and you’re going to deny him a Clif bar as a snack at work because of some stupid challenge you’ve set yourself? If I were your husband I’ll tell you to get lost.”
And those dirty filthy poors eat crap because they want to… come on, doesn’t everyone have a Whole Foods around the block? At least a Trader Joe’s, amirite???
If 100 miles is around the block
When will these overprivledged first worlders realize that it isn’t just eating healthy on the EBT allotment, it’s eating healthy on the EBT allotment while dealing with lifestyle challenges (food deserts, long hours at work, multiple jobs, etc.). Give up your car, move 5 miles away from the nearest grocery store, work 15 hour days, and THEN get back to me.
Shit wits like her don’t know that being a stay at home person with a car immediately makes this “challenge” a fucking insult.
OMG I’M ON FOOD STAMPS BECAUSE I WANT TO! I WANT TO WORK 2 JOBS AND HOPE MY KIDS ARE HOME WHEN I GET BACK FROM WORKING 12 HOURS AND HOPE I DON’T MISS MY SECOND BUS TRANSFER TO GET HOME. WAIT, I FORGOT TO BUY THE CHEAP ARUGULA AT THE FARMERS MARKET, DAMN. I SHOULD HEAD BACK.
And the kicker is, she is only doing the challenge for ONE WEEK. Like, living on the 400 dollar a month budget allotted by NC for only ONE WEEK. What a challenge.
$400 a week? They must eat like kings. That’s $1200 a month..for three people! Is this what people REALLy spend on groceries?
So stupid. I must be so poor. I meant $1600/month.
I think she said it was $403 for the month, so one week would be around $100.
No, sorry I guess I’m not saying it correctly. She is going to eat on $100, because in NC you can get $400 for a month, so she divided that by 4. So for one whole week she will live on 100 dollars worth of groceries.
Fuck this bitch.
I have fed 3 people on $100 a week and done so very well. Why? Because I happen to live where amazing fresh produce is available, popular (and thus less expensive) and, most importantly, I have the time to bargain hunt, comparison shop and pick up things directly from specialty shops, farmers, fruit stands and markets.
Take away my job–and the location and leisure time it provides–and I would be struggling to eat half so well on twice as much.
Luck for her, she probably has fairly stocked cupboards and fridge already. I don’t read her blog and I don’t plan to start now.
Fuck this bitch, indeed.
$100 a week is our standard grocery bill. And we make it work with healthy foods, fresh veggies and lean meats. How? I coupon (not extreme, just normal), meal plan and keep an eye on our store’s sales.
I’m amazed that she’s managed to make my real, everyday life such a BFD. Thanks for slummin’ with us, sweetheart!
I feed two people on 120e a month ($150), not including one or two cheap meals out. And even in America where certain foods are more expensive, I’ve never spent more than $200 in a month on food for myself, including a few splurges every week. Fuck you bitch!
Agreed. My family of 2 (lol) spends $50-60/week. FUCK THIS BITCH INDEED. People like this really need to get off their soap box and STFU.
She should really try to live off of what you can get from food banks.
seconding this. JesusGod I will never voluntarily buy another can of goddamned black beans again. NEVER.
Who is buying up all the fucking canned black beans and NEVER USING THEM is what I want to know.
Heh, I always figured black beans were a good thing to donate- cheap, high in protein?
I like to donate tuna, Mac and cheese, pasta, and spaghetti sauce. Those are what I lived on when working a 70 hour a week theatre job in a town with crappy grocery stores that summer that gas was over $4 a gallon.
When I was little and we had food rives at school, I always grabbed the peas and creamed corn from the shelf at home. I was an evil snot, giving away the stuff I hated.
Best ever food challenge on a blog: Shopping Detox did the Saskatewan Food Basket Challenge last year with others in the community, and documented her struggle. It was a truly random assortment of food.
http://www.shoppingdetox.com/search/label/food%20basket%20challenge
Give diapers and lady products if the food bank will hand out non-food items. Both are expensive, very necessary, and often not handed out as part of these programs. And shit, do people ever need ‘em.
Word to what Gimlet noted above – I participated in an awareness-building challenge where I lived off of the contents of a food basket for one week.
The biggest lesson I learned was that these are meant to *complement* other groceries, not to provide actual meals.
In most places, people are only able to pick up one basket every 2 weeks, while my challenge to do so for one week was quite eye-opening. A number of the other participants bowed out before the week was up, esp. those with very busy schedules. Check out all the blogs at:
http://foodbankchallenge.com/
I kept a can of apple sauce as a reminder of the past in the cupboard, you know the one that just says “Apple Sauce” with a sketch of an apple on a plain label. If you know what that is and where it comes from, you know how it is. Every single fucking time I look at it I feel shame, anger and a load of other unpleasant feelings.
Just can’t with these fucking blogger “challenges” and how much rage it fills me that they think they can “monetize” their “creativity” and “concern”. Go fucking die in a fire you ignorant fucks.
I do not understand how that’s even a challenge. (For someone who has access to plenty of stores and a car and a place to cook with). And the other person in her family is a BABY, so it’s not like it’s a teenage boy eating them out of house and home.
We have a baby roughly the same age as hers and we spend $250 a month on groceries. We do not eat out very often and we rarely buy prepackaged foods. I don’t understand what they were spending their money on before, because $400 a month is hardly a “budget” for 2 people.
Heh, great minds – I was typing/posting my comment below at the same time you posted yours. Couldn’t agree more about the fact that they include the 7 month old baby in their calculation for funds. Seriously, does she not understand that a “3-person household” would get her the same amount of money whether the third person is her baby, a teenager, her mom, etc.?
My husband and I do about four hundred dollars a month. We don’t need to – that’s counting all the random luxuries we’re enjoying because we’re finally out of grinding poverty (for the first time since we married) and we CAN afford to eat out, buy expensive cheese, beer and wine, etc.
When we were poor, we were making it work on fifty dollars a week, and one nasty couple of months were down to about thirty dollars for two weeks. And even then, we were deeply privileged to have grocery stores as close by as we did.
Four hundred dollars a month for, essentially, two people is NOT budgeting. That’s what you spend when you don’t have a budget and you just buy what looks good instead of buying discount produce or Cool Ranch Soda because it’s on sale.
Exactly, Stressandstars. I really dont see how this is a budget. I really, really don’t.
If she really wanted it to be a decent “challenge”, she should do it for 6 months. And while her grocery trip may have come in on budget, she has allotted exactly zero wiggle room for eating between meals, extra anything in case the yield on any of their recipes isn’t enough to satisfy, no beverages, etc. Are they seriously going to drink only water for every beverage for the whole week?
One other piece of complete bullshit – in calculating her EBT budget, she entered info for a family of 3, but their baby barely eats any solid food at this point. Just a little bit from their plates twice a day. So really, I’d say she *didn’t* meet the challenge from the get-go because she used a 3-person budget to buy food for, essentially, two people. Let’s see her make the same 80 bucks fly when her daughter is 4 and eating actual meals plus snacks.
After six weeks of enforced poverty nevermind six months, you never want to look at another grain of rice or dried bean again.
GIVE ME ALL THE CHIPS AND ALL THE ICE CREAMS.
ALL THE SODAS WILL BE MINE.
I was just coming to say the same thing RE: doing it for an extended period of time if she’s seriously & honestly going to challenge herself.
First off, one week isn’t shit when you already have the basic staples in your pantry … do it long enough that replacing flour & spices & cooking oils, etc., is a part of the equation too.
Also, to be a stickler for details, multiply that $403 X 12 & / by 52 to get a more realistic $93 per week, because that’s what it truly boils down to.
I’m not even saying it can’t be done, but beyond showing herself to be a sanctimonious asshat, she proves nothing.
Well, she did say that she wasn’t going to use what was already in her pantry. Not to defend her (see my comment above on all of the bull-crappedness of this lady) but ONE WEEK? not a fair trial at ALL.
Plus, not to be a hater, but rice does actually make you bloat up like a balloon. Take it long enough and you end up fat – from rice, not chips and soda.
I had a really bad dry spell a couple months ago and rice and noodles was ALL I could afford. I ended up putting on a whole lot of weight.
Just saying this because I doubt these girls actually think these people buy soda and chips with their stamps because they see them all the time. What they see is someone who is fat – and assume they’re having chips and soda every other night.
Oh right, because the entire continent of Asia is so fat and bloated from eating so much damn rice. What the hell are you talking about, unless you’ve been cooking your rice in butter it’s not going to make you omgFAT.
Exactly!
I don’t know why, but her smiling Grinch derpface next to that load of fuckwittage makes this even more gag-inducing for me. Seriously, no perspective. Not that I am some expert in this area, but I know enough to know not to open my damn mouth about it
I like your turn of phrase.
Seriously. We easily eat healthily on about 400 a month (family of three) but we live in the heartland, in a state with no sales tax on groceries, with a cheap farmer’s market and a co op that sells many organic and local foods for the same price as conventional produce in some places. I also know a lot about nutrition, having had the luxury to learn about it in my spare time. I would never dare to assume that anyone not in similar circumstances to me could eat the way we do.
I worked as a cashier and more often than not, you could spot those with EBT (or “ebit”, which is apparently the way to make it sound cool or like debit), not because of the way they looked, or the clothes they had on but because of what was on the conveyor belt. Once I even had a woman with Food Stamps say to her friend who was in line behind her (with 2 gallons of ice cream) “Oh, don’t pay for those, I got food stamps!” So not only was the assistance going towards junk food, it was going towards someone else’s junk food!
IMO, Food Stamps should be regulated the same way that WIC is (only certain foods, sizes, ingredients, etc allowed to be purchased on the taxpayer’s funds).
Only certain INGREDIENTS? Oh for fuck’s sake.
If only poor people understood nutrition!! <— taken from a terrific and highly relevant blog post:
http://www.fatnutritionist.com/index.php/if-only-poor-people-understood-nutrition/
http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/benefitsandservices/foodpkgregs.htm#BREAKFAST_CEREAL
Thanks for that link. That post is full of awesome and I’m going to use it whenever people start blathering about “People on food stamps use them to buy filet mignon and truffles! They should be required to purchase only brown rice and kidney beans!”
I love The Fat Nutritionist. You win for posting the link.
Oh I love the fat nutritionist! She cuts through so much bullshit with aher mighty truth hammer! Thanks for posting this :)
I would like someone to try to tell you what to eat for a year. Then YOU see how YOU would feel. Do you buy ice cream? Do you eat chips? Have you ever eaten either.
Yep, that’s what I thought.
So what you’re saying is that people on foodstamps only eat foods that are purchased with their Foodstamps? Food stamps don’t pay for Pizza or subs, does that mean people with food stamps never get to eat pizza or subs? No. My point is that there should be more regulations on what can be purchased with food stamps. Right now the only thing not allowed is prepared foods and alcohol.
And as far as I knew, food stamps are meant for those in need to feed themselves and their family, not to feed their friends ice cream.
Are you aware of the huge amount of money that food stamps put into the system? Food stamps are probably responsible for your cashier job. And if you didn’t have that job lady, you’d possibly be on food stamps. Wanting to eat ice cream to ease your unemployed depression.
Also I doubt that the paltry taxes you pay on paltry cashier wages are keeping the whole welfare system afloat. But thanks for your input.
Pay a little attention before you spout off, I said I workED as a cashier, which means I used to hold that job and no longer do.
And when I workED as a cashier, I made minimum wage but forgot to pop out a bunch of kids and therefore didn’t qualify (and never have) for any assistance -medical included.
@Multiple sargasms, I’m making it official:
@just ugh:
Ok, NP PartyPants!
Oh, wait…
Sorry, kid, you can’t have ice cream cause some jerks wanted to regulate what your parents can get with their food stamps.
So sorry, so poor.
I’ve seen EBT accepted signs outside of Jack In the Box. Not pizza or subs, but still fast food.
Wow, good call. After a quick search, I see that’s happening in AZ, CA and MI -good ol’ Michigan where a woman won the lottery yet was still receiving food stamps and officials were none-the-wiser until she was interviewed about it on the news. We’re really headed in the right direction eh?
http://news.yahoo.com/food-stamps-fast-food-restaurants-183900927.html
Back in the 60s, there was a ethnographic study on the financial relationships of inner city residents–basically there was a lot of sharing of resources that went on unreported to the welfare authorities, because, hey, that’s what gets your benefits cut.
I have no problem with someone treating others to ice cream with their EBT, because they are creating a social relationship that means they’ll get some extra diapers or toilet paper from a friend when they have no cash to buy it themselves.
For real, do people think diapers, children’s clothes, babysitting, etc are free? Poor babies shit too.
NO ICE CREAM FOR POORS ONLY FOR THE TAXPAYERS.
Why do you think that people on food stamps don’t or have never paid any taxes?
Yes! That’s such a good point. “No, you can’t have ice cream, ice cream is only for people who *deserve* it.”
Such utter bullshit! If someone wants ice cream, give them the damn ice cream.
This is ridiculous. Who would make the decision on what is acceptable and what is not? The government officials who think that pizza is a vegetable? The voters? You? What people choose to put into their own bodies is their own business as far as I am concerned.
The same people who make the decisions for WIC. No one seems to be throwing a sh*tfit about the regulations on that program.
I am going to be on food stamps in a few weeks. I pack lunch for my hard-working husband everyday that he has work because that’s the most frugal way to go about it. I buy a big bag of chips and give him a zip-lock bag full with every lunch. I should somehow be judged for this? I shouldn’t be allowed to give this great guy some chips with his lunch because the government decides what is best for MY family to eat? I’m not saying there shouldn’t be any regulations on it, but the assumption that MOST people on food stamps buy junk is simply incorrect. Extra regulations should not be created due to a falsehood.
Here’s the link on why there aren’t any restrictions on EBT cards:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/menu/Published/snap/FILES/ProgramOperations/FSPFoodRestrictions.pdf
Basically it’s too costly, can’t define “good” food from “bad” & most importantly “No evidence exists that food stamp participation contributes to poor diet quality or obesity”.
Multiple Sargasms, next time do more than a “quick search” (google search, I’m betting. Am I right? What else would give you that poorly written yahoo! article, eh?).
This is good, I am bookmarking it
All I needed to do that search for was to find out what states allowed fast food to be purchased with EBT/SNAP.
And no, Einstein, as it was a Yahoo! article, it was a result of a Yahoo! search.
Also, this has been said, but it bears repeating! Not everyone on food stamps has access to a kitchen to cook stuff. A lot of convenience foods may be less healthy, but you can open and eat with little fuss.
Also, fuck, were I living in poverty, I probably could use a treat sometime– you know, like we humans all do. Shit, I need a lot of cookies to get through the week and I have a safe, stable living situation and all.
Word. There’s also the fact that if you can’t buy perishables, you have to buy what you can eat or consume quickly. Calorie-dense items or frozen meals that fill the stomach are the smarter move. Lentils?! FUCK THAT.
If anyone deserves to eat ice cream or buy it for others, it’s someone living below the poverty line, someone whose life probably sucks enough already. If my taxpayer dollars are going toward a poor person’s ice cream, I don’t give a shit. My income (a grad-student stipend, but still) doesn’t give me the right to tell other people what to eat. It just doesn’t. Yes, people in general would be healthier if they ate better food, but you can’t actually argue that ice cream should be reserved for the middle and upper classes. Come on.
Why is this poster getting reamed for sharing her observation? Based on my totally nonscientific, anecdotal evidence, I also notice patterns and am pretty good at guessing who is going to pull out a food stamp card at Whole Foods. It’s usually the person who buys the de-stemmed grapes and copious frozen foods.
And I’m a staunch liberal, supporter of social programs and I believe if you have food stamps, go buy what you want. It’s no skin off my teeth if you don’t want to eat cabbage.
On the other hand, let’s not pretend like all poor people on welfare are subsisting on Cheetos while living in the ghetto. A former roommate of mine got knocked up out of wedlock unexpectedly, lives for free in Section-8 housing in a nice-ish neighborhood in Southern California, had/has her medical and her child’s medical care paid for by the government, had her entire college education paid, stays at home doing nothing while her child goes to a private Montessori daycare. And no doubt, she’s buying destemmed grapes at Whole Foods with food stamps.
And guess what, this is America. That’s okay. But seriously, forget the idea that poor people are all people like my own parents were — busting their asses with multiple jobs and trying to pull themselves out of poverty.
Because pulling yourself out of poverty is an available option these days, what with structural inequities remaining exactly as they were ~50 years ago and wealth not polarizing… OH HEY WAIT.
You know one person; I know another. I was a cashier at a big-box, Walmart-ish grocery store. Shall we play anecdata roulette? Obviously, we can hold everything constant, since demographics and access routes near your Whole Foods would have anything to do with your clientele and their choices.
Plenty of people pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Plenty don’t. People aren’t all the same, and that’s okay. But the point is: welfare in this country is generous. Life in this country is generous. This is a country where if you don’t want to or physically cannot work, the government will support you. If you have no house, Section-8 will house you. If you want to educate your children, public schools will do it at no cost. If you can’t feed your children, WIC will help you. If you have no health insurance and also no job, Medicaid and MediCal will pay for you.
I’m not pointing these things out because I think they all need to go away. I’m not Rush Limbaugh. But I’ve also lived in a third world country, watched my parents struggle, and I know that on a global scale poor people in American are comparatively well off.
The only sad exception is the mentally ill — we woefully mistreat the mentally ill in this country, hence why they so frequently end up homeless.
This just isn’t true. If you are on welfare you get $200 and change for your housing, so you’re basically guaranteed to end up homeless. You think you automatically get Section 8 housing? No you end up in the shelter system for god knows how long.
Neither does the government support the sick, they make disability as difficult as possible to claim, and even if you’re successful you’re looking at 18 mths of waiting AT LEAST.
Hundreds of people fall through the cracks every day, the American welfare system is not one that supports, it’s not designed to.
In NYS, where I am a social worker, you can only get Section 8 if you are in the witness protection program or a victim of DV. Applications have been declined from all other applicants, per policy, since 2004.
I’m not really going to argue because I agree that anecdotal evidence does not a real argument make. But I’ve seen REAL poverty – not the narrow American definition in which a lack of fresh fruits and vegetables is the most harrowing “food desert” ever — and it doesn’t look anything like what I’ve seen in America.
People here, they have it good. I find it amazing that it’s unacceptable to think with any nuance about poverty, welfare, etc. It’s not black and white and it’s hard to argue with people who see it that way.
Yeah, I looked into Section 8 Housing for someone here in TX, & it’s definitely a ‘maybe’ situation based on available funds in your county & meeting criteria & being wait-listed & yada yada red tape out the kazoo …
Amazingly, the only people who think gov’t assistance is a gravy train are those who’ve never navigated the system.
But seriously, who is saying it’s a gravy train? Why do you need to jump to hyperbole? I said “generous” and I hold to that when I compare our own social system with India’s, China’s, etc.
When I think of gravy train, I think a sweet job on Wall Street your dad hooked up for you. When I think welfare, I think there but for the grace of God and your fellow tax-payers you go.
@Jennifer Perillo Bought Loubies with Your $80K:
I assume you’re responding to me, since you reference ‘gravy train’?
I wasn’t responding to your 10:46 p.m. comment when I wrote that; I was agreeing w/ what Featherbrained said RE: Section 8 Housing.
For what it’s worth, I think we’re very much on the same page, & especially when it comes to the mentally ill (not to mention: our veterans).
Ah, sorry, Donkadelphia… got ya. I have a close relative who is mentally ill and I’m deathly afraid she’ll end up on the streets since according to the law, you “have the right to be crazy” (as has been told to me by many police officers, psychiatrists, etc) as long as you don’t hurt yourself or anyone else.
@Jennifer Perillo Bought Loubies with Your $80K:
I have a very brilliant friend who is (to those of us who know her well) mentally unstable but very functional when sticking to her meds … she’s had her share of down-on-your-luck scenarios in this suck-ass job mkt (READ: unemployed = uninsured = unmedicated) & man, oh man, it’s beyond scary when she is left to her own devices.
Yeah, the under-funding of mental health benefits in the USA is a crying shame, no two ways about it.
Have you been to Appalachia at all??? Seriously, hang out in certain parts of West Virginia and Kentucky for a few days, get someone to show you around, and then tell me that we don’t have REAL poverty in this country.
And it’s worse than China and India because the USA is supposed to be better than that! We aren’t supposed to have people who live in rotted out shells of trailers with no running anything and then are expected to drive 30 miles to town for work and school. You are like Rush Limbaugh if you are spouting off crap like that.
And the Native Americans! Have you ever read or seen anything about the way a lot of Native Americans have to live?! It’s embarrassing and there is nothing well off about their situation!
I don’t know where you live, but you are very lucky to live in such a nice place with no poverty. I wish others in the US were as lucky. But just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Some states/cities have tried to regulate food stamps to prevent buying junk food, actually. The gov’t won’t allow it.
Unrelated to her post: Why are so many f-ing bloggers from North Carolina?! Has anyone else noticed this? It’s weird to me.
I wondered about this, just liked there are so many blogger in the Central Florida area. Perhaps because Central Florida is a pool of shit?
The NC ones seems to be in the Charlotte area.
There’s nothing else to do in North Carolina?
You could always commit suicide, but I suppose you do that once and the novelty wears off.
I kid, I kid! the Charlotte, NC, urban area is a wonderful place, home of something or other to see and probably two, maybe three other things!
Hell, maybe even four other things!
I think NC is a cool state too, at least the beach parts (or is that SC?) but there does seem to be a lot of bloggers, especially the mommy kind, from there.
Aww, I love the Raleigh-Durham area and Asheville. North Carolina is a fantastic state, for the most part.
Besides talk to strangers on the interwebs, no, there is nothing to do in NC. I went to undergrad there, and my parents still live there.
Ugh. Is she talking about food deserts or other issues poor people have with access to fresh produce and other healthy foods? It’s fine if she wants to do a food challenge, but as a middle class woman (this is all an assumption since I don’t read her blog), she probably has her pick of grocery stores, both discount and high end near her.
I don’t know if the “challenge” is really valid. If she has a school age child, that child would probably qualify for school lunch (maybe even breakfast in some school districts). That would be one more expense she doesn’t have to factor in to that $400/month.
I doubt she would even acknowledge that food deserts exist. “What? The local gas station doesn’t have organic tofu!”
she didn’t, but many people commented suggesting that she limit where/how she buys her groceries to accommodate for food deserts.
If only they just had Kindles they could get healthy recipes and then go shopping for healthy ingredients.
If she’s so passionate about this challenge she should find a family on food stamps and do a house swap, see how far her budget goes when she has limited resources for shopping.
I’m actually surprised there hasn’t been a reality show like that yet.
“I maybe should have done a better job of emphasizing the fact that I do think food assistance programs are wonderful for people that need them. I hate that here are some that abuse the system and give others that are truly deserving of it a bad name. I commend your relatives for making ends meet in such a tough situation. I would love for the people abusing the systems to be filtered out so that more funds and other resources could be allocated to those that are truly in need. Thanks for your comments!”
http://www.ahealthysliceoflife.com/2012/04/13/eating-healthy-on-government-assistance/#comment-45754
UGH. Chick, people like YOU are the ones giving the system a bad name. YOU are the one bitching about what people buy on EBT, shooting the judgmental side-eye at their chips and soda. It’s not that there are really notable numbers of people committing welfare fraud, it’s that YOU judge everyone and think they are abusing it.
I hate these people. The next time someone says dumb shit like that to me I’m going to say we should get rid of half the handicapped parking spaces out there, and also employ someone to run up to people who park in those spaces and kick them in the knees, just to make sure they’re handicapped enough.
But WHERE are all these mythical people abusing the system? I hear about them but in the 5 years I used assistance to buy my food, I never met them. I never met the junk food buying, Filet Mignon eating poor who are “wasting taxpayer money”. I met a whole lot of single moms buying milk and animal crackers, a whole bunch of low income families getting some bunches of carrots and peanut butter, and me and my lazy ass ex husband buying our tortillas. Wash, rinse, repeat. Seriously, not once did I encounter someone buying something I found offensive while they were obviously using assistance funds to shop.
Everyone seems to have a story about that one ghetto welfare queen they saw buying steak with her EBT whilst texting on her iPhone and wearing $200 worth of weave. Because that’s more interesting than the chick buying spaghetti sauce and corn flakes and not flaunting her card or telling everyone she knows that she gets food stamps. When people start talking in public about how much they hate peop,e on welfare, I cringe, because you just really never know who is quietly getting by on public assistance.
I have never seen people abusing the system by buying things that are “offensive” or whatever. But virtually everyone that I work with (clients, not co-workers) receives some kind of government assistance and what I do see ALL the time is people claiming children that either (a) aren’t part of their household or (b) are no longer legally considered children (like some claim kids that are 25+). This happens most often with fathers who do not support their children in any way – the kids don’t live with them and they don’t pay support – but they claim the kids for the food stamps.
I don’t really know I feel about this. On the one hand, I don’t like seeing the system being abused, but on the other hand, most of these men don’t have a lot of opportunities and never have – not to mention there are often other factors like drug addiction and mental illness at play. So yeah, abuse does happen… but I’m not really interested in listening to this privileged bitch’s outrage over it.
She lives in a “rich area” on the lake, where most people in their 20′s (heck most people) could not afford to live.