House passes farm bill, eliminating Food Stamps

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Thing is, now that both houses have passed a farm bill, it can go to conference where the food stamps will be restored, the only question being at what level?  The Senate bill already made some hefty cuts to the program.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

BTW, I fixed krazen's broken link in the quote below:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021413860_foodstampsxml.html

$526 on food spent on 3 people in 2 weeks. $12 per person per day.


These food stampers must be eating like kings.

Somehow, I doubt that all the food they eat is consumed on the last day that food is purchased.  If like most people, they make weekly shopping trips, then that $526 dollars is lasting three weeks, not two.

But even $12 a day is not eating like a king.  If you think that is the case, you must not be the one who does the grocery shopping in your household.  At $8/day (over three weeks if one takes a reasonable inference from the story of how long she makes the benefit last instead of your hyperbolic one) or $6/day (over four weeks, which the person in the article says she could do if she didn't include items like fresh veggies in her family's diet) the resulting diet is even less kingly.  As noted in the article, she doesn't have full access to a kitchen of her own, so even if she had the time, cooking every meal from scratch isn't an option.

I have the space to buy food on sale for later use and the time and facilities to cook it myself and yet despite living in area that has a lower cost of living than both Tacoma and where you live krazen, I doubt I could fix myself a healthy diet on $6/day.  I could make it stretch if I dumped things like fruit and veggies from my diet and subsisted on 88¢ Banquet frozen dinners every supper. (As an occasional small meal, they're acceptable, but I shudder to think about anyone forced to eat one of them or the equivalent every day.  The sodium alone would likely kill them and if not that, then the fat would.) [Note: 88¢ is the sale price on them.  Usually they're in the $1 to $1.25 range depending on the store.]

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Food at the local Tacoma safeway costs far less than $12 a day for anyone who isn't a 400 lb hog. Cereal + milk costs roughly $.33 per serving according to the posted prices.

And what fruit or other sides are you including to make it a balanced breakfast?  Or do you think because fruit grows on trees, it is free?

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What is astonishing and highly amusing is your pretense that a balanced diet does not include fresh fruits and vegetables.  But perhaps you think that because they are poor they should be relegated to malnutrition?  You also have conveniently ignored my point that last shopping day does not equal last eating day and the fact that her current living situation does not afford her the chance for proper kitchen facilities.  Or are you in favor of seeing to it that she is assured of an adequate place to live that would enable her to spend less on food?  That is indeed one of the tragedies of poverty.  Inadequacies of one resource often leads to inefficient usage of other resources.

I was told the jobless don't have time to prepare proper meals and that a proper meal took more than 20 minutes to prepare.

Well, if all the woman in question was doing was sitting around her rented rooms with her two kids, she'd have the time, but I doubt you or krazen want her to be doing just that. She certainly doesn't.  And you try fixing something more nutritious than pasta and sauce from scratch in under 20 minutes, including prep time and cleanup.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And you try fixing something more nutritious than pasta and sauce from scratch in under 20 minutes, including prep time and cleanup.

A sandwich, a bowl of soup and an apple.  BAM! A glass of juice on the side.  4 funking minutes.
[/quote]

I wasn't aware that opening a can of soup counted as from scratch.  As for fruit juice, that's barely better than soda whether fresh squeezed or from a container.  It's still sugar water, just without the carbonation and a few vitamins.

OTOH, I will agree that without an excessive amount of time or effort, tho certainly more than merely 4 minutes, soups and stews could be made that would be far healthier than the sodium saturated canned variety, assuming she has access to a slow cooker and a place to let it sit without being a fire hazard.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I wasn't aware that opening a can of soup counted as from scratch.  As for fruit juice, that's barely better than soda whether fresh squeezed or from a container.  It's still sugar water, just without the carbonation and a few vitamins.

OTOH, I will agree that without an excessive amount of time or effort, tho certainly more than merely 4 minutes, soups and stews could be made that would be far healthier than the sodium saturated canned variety, assuming she has access to a slow cooker and a place to let it sit without being a fire hazard.

Why must things be "made from scratch"?  Sure, I'd agree that everything else being equal, "made from scratch" is better, but most people, those on SNAP or not, don't have the time (or knowledge) for that.  You can eat healthy and cheaply making things that aren't made from scratch.

But nevermind all that, what do you want everybody to drink?  Does that need to be made from scratch too?  Does every meal need to be made from scratch to meet your approval?  Can lunch or breakfast be something fast and easy or should every meal in the day take 3 hours to prepare?  Do you have a "made from scratch" meal everyday?  3 a day?  Who makes them for you?  Do you expect everybody else to do it too?  Are you disappointed when you find out your friends and family don't live up to your, frankly, outrageous expectations?

Well in a healthy diet, water is quite sufficient, especially if you have food you want to enjoy rather than wash down.  As for knowledge, it takes fairly little knowledge to make a basic soup or stew.  We're not talking souffles or other fancy dishes.  Living alone, I do all my own cooking, tho not always from total scratch, tho I'd be healthier if I did.  Still, I grew up in the era before the home microwave oven was commonplace, and we always had a sit-down family dinner every night.  I could actually survive and thrive if all microwave ovens were to suddenly disappear from the face of the earth.

My little diatribe about from scratch was probably a bit overenthusiastic not because of krazen's outrage that people on SNAP eat prepackaged foods.  Still, even the healthiest of prepacked food generally has too much sodium, and the cheaper versions are sorely lacking in vitamins and usually even worse about the sodium and have too much fat for the bulk they have.  I do usually have a fairly simple salad with my main meal of the day consisting of just  few leaves of romaine lettuce to give my diet the fiber it needs. (No dressing, I never saw the point in drenching a healthy food in oily goop and lettuce tastes good as it is, just as broccoli definitely does not need cheez sauce.)

Are my tastes typical?  No, but I don't get disappointed in the tastes of others.  Are there things I would do to improve my diet?  Of course there are.  However, for krazen to castigate the poor for not living up to a food standard I doubt he himself follows, since few do so of any economic station, set me on edge.  Especially when he castigates the woman in the article for not making more use of her friend's kitchen.  Given that their friend is letting her family stay in a couple of rooms for a decidedly below market rental rate even for this area of cheap rents (Tacoma may be as cheap as here, but I severely doubt it is cheaper), I find it quite understanding that she doesn't want to bother her friend more than she absolutely must lest she become homeless again because her friend finds her too bothersome.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

An iceberg head of lettuce is $.99.

Iceberg?  I thought you were upset about the poor buying junk food with taxpayer money.  Not only is iceberg bland thus needing a oily dressing to make it taste good, nutritionally it is far inferior to romaine.  One would almost be better off eating the paper bag, if one's grocery store still uses them.  Granted, iceberg lettuce is better than no lettuce at all, but romaine is not that much more expensive and in my experience it keeps better than iceberg does.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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If she's getting twice weekly mental health appointments, I think it's fairly clear why she's on disability.  Whether she should be on disability, I won't be arrogant enough to diagnose via a magazine article.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The 21 year old is apparently counting down the days until she becomes a 22 year old, upon which time she apparently can put on her big boy pants and collect full scale free money courtesy of the hard working men and women of the United States.

What an amazing thing to aspire to be.

What's amazing is that you think you know what someone thinks based on third-hand knowledge of their circumstances.  The reporter didn't even interview the girl, probably because she had more sense than her mother of what the probable response to the article would be.  Also, the girl certainly won't be getting VA benefits (unless she signs up to defend our country as her patriot mother did) and I doubt she'll be getting SSI disability, so if living low on the mechanically processed pork is what she thinks she will do come age 22, I expect she will find herself gravely mistaken.  For that the matter, Debra says explicitly in the article that her daughter wants to get a job but that she has been discouraging her because of the effect on Debra's benefits.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Well in a healthy diet, water is quite sufficient, especially if you have food you want to enjoy rather than wash down.

How boring!

Not quite as boring as I find your schtick.  On the other hand, I don't have a condition where my doctor recommends I drink more than when eating meals.

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[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Who is this fellow and does he collect not one, not two, not three, but four forms of welfare?

So now VA benefits are welfare?  So much for Republicans supporting the troops.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Who is this fellow and does he collect not one, not two, not three, but four forms of welfare?

So now VA benefits are welfare?  So much for Republicans supporting the troops.

That would actually be number 5, even if you charitably referred to a nurse as a member of the troops. Number 4 is whatever sad sap got stuck paying for the astonishing medical cost of twice a week individual therapy.

Most likely the VA.  Apparently in your world, our troops must never get injured; they either are perfectly healthy or they die honorably on the battlefield.