Still think people on food stamps have it too good? Chef Karl Wilder is trying to feed his family on the budget equivalent of what they would receive on food stamps. He’s been documenting his meals on his blog as part of an awareness campaign for the San Francisco Food Bank.
He just finished his two months on a food stamp budget, and he says, “I admit to being bored by it. I am sick of many of the foods that work in this budget. I am ready for it to be over.” He went to the doctor and found that although he’d lost weight, his body fat percentage went up, and his blood sugar, cholesterol and triglyceride levels were all higher.
Still think poor people have it made on food stamps?
wow. finally someone is doing this. I remember Top Chef would challenge the contestants to make healthy lunch options for school children but they were restricted to the budgets that the public school had to use…
but im sure that changed nothing. where public schools get their food from is apparently really political…
Sample of real journal entry:
“More hate mail. The hate is not directed at me but rather a woman who drives a Mercedes and uses her food stamps to buy crab legs and lobster — fiction — however several people write of her and her variations every day to tell me how abused the food supplement program is. I no longer answer these emails.”I love how anecdotal stories somehow become “reality”. The whole welfare queen image really needs to be stamped out.
Having worked in a grocery store, I saw some women all dolled up in designer jeans, hair done, fancy-ish makeup, and their kids were nearly in rags and they were paying with food stamps. While the Wellfare Queen myth is way blown up, there are those that abuse the system, especially with some unreported side income. But that is a really cool experiment, thanks for the perspective check Chef!
I’ve worked at grocery and convenience stores myself over the years and have noted the “usual” users of food stamps and EBT user to fall into the following categories:
- College Students
- Elderly
- The working poor
- Single Mothers
You wold have the occasional scenario you described, be it was definitely not the norm. People tend to skew their memories related to these types of things and pack one or two examples to represent the whole.
Besides, while that woman you described may have been a welfare queen, it is also quite possible she had a hob interview that day, or has to maintain that appearance for her job as a receptionist, a greeter at a restaurant or any other number of job that requires one to keep up an appearance - you never know…
In any system you have set up to help people, you are going to have those who will seek to abuse it. Does that mean we ought to skew our entire opinion of anyone seeking or receiving aid from these sources? No. Does that mean we ought to rip this help from those who need it because there are others out there who abuse it? Of course not.
Another argument I hear about this topic comes from people who make too much to be eligible for EBT. They complain about it. I understand that in some circumstances you may be very close to the cut-off, and in need, but that’s not the mentality I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the people who live comfortably—perhaps not luxuriously, but well above poverty or lower-class—who have this selfish “Well I can’t get that help!” attitude.
I mean, seriously. When’s the last time you honestly wished you made little enough to be eligible for one of these programs?
Working in a Grocery Store myself, I see this constantly from my co-workers, and it sickens me. I feel absolutely disgusted by their judgmental, selfish attitudes.
August 2011
By Sam Harris - The Los Angeles Times
1) Atheists believe that life is meaningless.
On the contrary, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that it can only be redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Atheists tend to be quite sure that life is…
My Horde mage finally hit 85! <3 Now I can raid with the Canadians! Whoo Hoo!
It’s not often you can actually say “case closed”, but in this case it’s literally true: climatologist Michael Mann has been cleared of all wrongdoing by the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation.
Did I say “has been cleared”? I meant has been cleared once again, since there have been several investigations into his research and Dr. Mann has been cleared of all charges every single time (like here and here). All of this stemmed from the “ClimateGate” nonsense of the past couple of years, where leaked emails were taken hugely out of context by the press and climate change deniers, and used to smear scientists. Dr. Mann was at the center of the whole manufactured controversy, being the biggest target of the people who want to deny the Earth is warming up.
This latest, and hopefully last, investigation into Dr. Mann’s research (PDF) again shows he is not guilty of misconduct. A couple of the report conclusions are worth pointing out:
We found no basis to conclude that the [Climategate] emails were evidence of research misconduct or that they pointed to such evidence.
That’s clear enough, I think. They also said:
There is no specific evidence that [Mann] falsified or fabricated any data and no evidence that his actions amounted to research misconduct.
During a press availability following a speech in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Friday, Michele Bachmann was asked about a narrative that hasn’t gone away during the seven weeks she has been a presidential candidate: verbal gaffes.
“When you speak six times a day, slip-ups can occur,” Bachmann said. […]
**So here’s the thing…she called Russia the Soviet Union, she wished Elvis a Happy Birthday on the 34th anniversary of his death, she said the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in New Hampshire and not Massachusetts and she said that ENRON was shut down because they didn’t pay their bills…when Enron was actually shut down because the company executives were sent to prison amid a fraud scandal.
So Bachmann says she’s making these mistakes because of her busy schedule. I guess she will do MUCH BETTER when she’s elected President. Because the President is never busy…. Right?
Of course, when it gets right down to it, her speech mistakes aren’t the issue with Michele Bachmann. It’s her stand on the issues. And in that regard, she’s radical & extremist to the far-far right wing.**
MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Two ivory-colored tusks, each about five feet long, soar over the entry to a new exhibit opening later this week at the state archives building.
The tusks sprout from the skull of a mastodon, an extinct elephant-like animal that roamed Alabama and much of North America…
