Food stamps as a dieting tool.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Really? Compare what a pound of potatoes costs with what a bag of "tater tots" costs. Compare what peaches cost to what canned peaches cost. What does a large porkloin cost at Costco compared to chicken nuggets, fried chicken or frozen chicken kiev?

Compare 10lbs of ground beef at Costco to ready made hamburger patties. Alla will make huge bowls of her Ukrainian meatballs and we will use that as the basis for our meals for many days. That means a meatball with breakfast, with our eggs. One for lunch on a sandwich and one for dinner with pasta.

I meant I think it is difficult to do without buying any processed food and impossible to do with it. I don't know about Costco, but at the supermarkets here you can expect to pay over $3 lb for the cheapest ground beef - 73% lean, 80% lean is 3.99+, ground sirloin 4.99+. The cheapest beef on sale is $3.99, for a grilling steak, at least 5.99 on sale. Whole chicken is about 1.79lb. Fish is even more expensive. And if you want a good steak - ribeye or NY strip, anywhere from 9.99 and up, on sale. Even chuck for stew is $3+. And I have pets too, so that adds a bit each week.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Come to Boston and see how hard it would be to feed three for that amount.

My experience is that Boston is cheaper than Vermont. More competition in stores for one thing, lower transportation costs for another. Be that as it may, the biggest differences are in our diets. Danno is married to a Russian, I am married to a Ukrainian. Those people do not even make $550 per month total income and food costs about the same there as it does here...and they do not have food stamps! They also see a "Quarter Pounder" as a meal for 4 people (in terms of the amount of meat) Our families diet is not anything like most Americans and not anything like most "poor people". If Alla lived by herself she would not eat 1/3 of $550 per month. I bet she could easily eat for the $130 per month. Pasha and I run up the food bill! We eat much more than she does and we want things like pickles, ketchup, mustard, Alla by herself would not buy that stuff. I also insist on lemon juice to put in my water, but it is still much cheaper than soda...and healthier, but that is all I drink. Water with lemon juice.

As Danno mentioned, our "food bill" includes cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, etc. We buy all that at Costco for the most part

[spookyturtle 9,466]

If you can feed four people with a quarter pound of ground meat, my hats off to you. I'd like to know what you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner 7 days a week for that amount.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I meant I think it is difficult to do without buying any processed food and impossible to do with it. I don't know about Costco, but at the supermarkets here you can expect to pay over $3 lb for the cheapest ground beef - 73% lean, 80% lean is 3.99+, ground sirloin 4.99+. The cheapest beef on sale is $3.99, for a grilling steak, at least 5.99 on sale. Whole chicken is about 1.79lb. Fish is even more expensive. And if you want a good steak - ribeye or NY strip, anywhere from 9.99 and up, on sale. Even chuck for stew is $3+. And I have pets too, so that adds a bit each week.

You need to check out Costco. We do not by the cuts of meat you mention. The only beef we buy is either a piece of loin which she makes borscht with (cut up small) or ground beef. But your mention of those is typical for American diets. Steak tonight, fish tomorrow night, chicken the next night. Add what you spend on meat for a week...see how much ground beef that will buy you at Costco, or porkloin. For much less you can buy enough meat for a week. I made a meatloaf once, classic American meatloaf. Her reaction was ... "you use all this meat for ONE meal?" Well, I got a couple sandwiches out of it, but yes, basically what the typical American family eats in meat for one meal, a Ukrainian/Russian would feed a family for a week.

Our dog eats the same meat we eat, cut up small and mixed with rice or buckwheat or oatmeal. Nothing else. No canned or bagged dog food ever. Never! If Alla cooks a chicken or a huge package of thighs, for example, the dog has chicken and rice. She saves out some ground beef from the meatballs, boils it in small meatballs for the dog and feeds the dog one small meatball and a handful of oatmeal (it is a pekinese and weighs about 4 pounds so it is not a big eater. ) After the meatballs are boiled, Alla puts noodles and cut up vegetables in the pot and we have beef vegetable soup. Most Russians will eat soup at every meal and for snacks.

Most fish is not cheap, that is true (unlike Ukraine where it is the cheapest meat)Alla has that awful Solatka (all the FSU husbands call it "stinky fish")But we usually get some regular filets. In winter, here, I go on the ice and buy fish from the fishermen (legal in Vermont but not most states) Alla loves walleye, perch and Northern Pike. It is cheaper than fish in the store but very seasonal. You could not eat cheaply with fish in this country, that is true. But again, fresh fish is cheaper than Fish sticks or breaded filets, comparing per pound price.

[Laveau 67]

I thought it was common knowledge that food stamps are not, and were not ever, intended to provide the entire food budget for a family. Apparently not. $130 for one person would be a sizeable portion of the food bill, we spend about that much per week for a family of 3, of course we do not much processed food...not at all Ukrainian.

The cheapest foods are not the most unhealthy, the cheapest foods are the basic foods...potatoes, rice, meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, salad, bread...all unprocessed, all cheap. Soup is homemade from broth of boiling meat and adding noodles and vegetables. OMG who thought of that!!!!!?????? At least compared to their processed counterparts all of these things are very cheap and healthy. If they were not cheap they would not be the staple foods of impoversihed nations around the world and the populations of poor countries would be fat. We drink water, coffee, tea or milk fresh from the cow, from the farm. We know the cow it comes from. Eggs from the chickens on the farm.

The problem we have in this country is that poor people are not poor, they actually have the equivilent income/benefits of $58,000 per year for a family of 3, for example. They eat processed foods which they can afford because they are heavily subsidized, and they sit in front of big screen TVs eating their chicken nuggets and Mac & Cheese.

Now I am not complaining, and I have no intention of doing that myself, but the reason that obesity and diabetes is rampant in poor people in this country is NOT because cheap food is the healthiest

This is just ignorant talk, no surprise.

I agree 100% with you, Gary! I'm on a strict budget. I must watch how much I spend on food. The staples you listed are spot on. Very inexpensive compared to a cart full of processed foods and junk (with the exception of ramen noodles, I guess).

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Eating ground beef 7 days a week can't be healthy nor would I personally want to have it that often even it was. I eat my fair share of rice, pasta, potatoes and beans. I like soup too, but again, I don't have it every day of the week. Chicken it the cheapest meat you can buy and I wouldn't want that more than a few meals a week. I like variety in meats, vegetables and starches. The average male needs approx 2000+ calories per day and to help avoid high cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension, etc a healthy, balanced diet is important, along with exercise.

[lostinblue 1,989]

What gary says is correct. How many people on food stamps have a garden? When the economic reset in this country happens..(and it will)Many people will starve to death not knowing how to survive.When you are poor you need to really go back to the basics to survive. This is where a wife from a different country will make her family endure . People can grind their own wheat berrys and make home made bread,noodles,pasta ect. If they knew. Instead of teaching how to grow potatos,beans,and other food. how to economically process it. We teach the history of homosexuality in LA. Everyone has a garden in the RUB countries. My wife survived the cultural revolution in China. She had relations starve to death in the famine of 1961. They still had ice boxes as a child. One of her greatest wishes as a child would to have a piece of ice to suck on in a hot ChengDu day. Her best friend would invite her for supper to eat a rat. They would put small fish hooks outside with bright string attached in hopes a bird would catch themselves on the hook(many did)so they would have meat for supper.

This woman who grew up on this enviroment would make it on welfare and thrive. Make your own tofu ,soak mung beans sprouts... A lot of rice,dumplings,and all kinds of strange sauces of chinese Sichuan cooking.You grind your own flour, make your own noodles.Have a garden,can your food. In Maine you can grow cold hardy salad and root crops almost year round. If you know how and put in the effort.

http://www.amazon.com/Winter-Harvest-Handbook-Production-Greenhouses/dp/1603580816

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses

It can be done....

The schools teach children how to sing praises to Dear leader and has forgotten how to teach them to survive hard times.Without government help for the most part.Look at what is happening in Spain ect. World wide economic chaos might be around the corner.Few people have pressure canners.grain grinders,crocks for making fermented foods. You liberals will laugh at what I have written here. That is fine. My belly will be full long after hunger pains wrack your body.

[decocker 7,198]

You liberals will laugh at what I have written here. That is fine. My belly will be full long after hunger pains wrack your body.

because liberals don't garden or can or understand the importance of self sustaining?

so ridiculous.

[lostinblue 1,989]

From a blog on food pantrys.

It's admirable to want to buy unprocessed stuff, dried beans, stuff like that--but our local food pantry director says reality is many of the folks who receive food boxes don't have a clue what to do with anything that isn't a mix or a can that you heat up. She says dried beans are especially a problem. Folks don't seem to know how to cook them. (We're talking about some mentoring programs in the community and one thing I want to do is help teach folks how to cook economically without everything having to come out of a can or a box.)

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Eating ground beef 7 days a week can't be healthy nor would I personally want to have it that often even it was. I eat my fair share of rice, pasta, potatoes and beans. I like soup too, but again, I don't have it every day of the week. Chicken it the cheapest meat you can buy and I wouldn't want that more than a few meals a week. I like variety in meats, vegetables and starches. The average male needs approx 2000+ calories per day and to help avoid high cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension, etc a healthy, balanced diet is important, along with exercise.

And this is why you spend more for food, my point exactly. A Ukrainian will eat the exact same meal 3 times per day for a week and INSIST that ALL that was cooked is eaten before the next batch is made. It is not bad at all when you get used to it. Ukrainians view food more as a requirement of life rather than sport like Americans.

Actually I never claimed that a Ukrainian type diet is healthy (they claim that but they are full of sh*t) It is fatty, rich, and they like to put sour cream on everything. Fried pork, fried potatoes, nine iof that is healthy, though Ukrainians think as long as it is not "processed" it is OK. There may be some truth to that, but only a little.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

What gary says is correct. How many people on food stamps have a garden? When the economic reset in this country happens..(and it will)Many people will starve to death not knowing how to survive.When you are poor you need to really go back to the basics to survive. This is where a wife from a different country will make her family endure . People can grind their own wheat berrys and make home made bread,noodles,pasta ect. If they knew. Instead of teaching how to grow potatos,beans,and other food. how to economically process it. We teach the history of homosexuality in LA. Everyone has a garden in the RUB countries. My wife survived the cultural revolution in China. She had relations starve to death in the famine of 1961. They still had ice boxes as a child. One of her greatest wishes as a child would to have a piece of ice to suck on in a hot ChengDu day. Her best friend would invite her for supper to eat a rat. They would put small fish hooks outside with bright string attached in hopes a bird would catch themselves on the hook(many did)so they would have meat for supper.

This woman who grew up on this enviroment would make it on welfare and thrive. Make your own tofu ,soak mung beans sprouts... A lot of rice,dumplings,and all kinds of strange sauces of chinese Sichuan cooking.You grind your own flour, make your own noodles.Have a garden,can your food. In Maine you can grow cold hardy salad and root crops almost year round. If you know how and put in the effort.

http://www.amazon.com/Winter-Harvest-Handbook-Production-Greenhouses/dp/1603580816

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses

It can be done....

The schools teach children how to sing praises to Dear leader and has forgotten how to teach them to survive hard times.Without government help for the most part.Look at what is happening in Spain ect. World wide economic chaos might be around the corner.Few people have pressure canners.grain grinders,crocks for making fermented foods. You liberals will laugh at what I have written here. That is fine. My belly will be full long after hunger pains wrack your body.

My MIL for whom I have the deepest respect (and she is about 3 left clicks of Stalin) survived the 2nd war as a young girl. Her friend, Misha, was shot in the head for being a "communist slav" He was 6 years old.

When Alla moved here and she saw photos of the lake we live on and the yard we have, was thrilled because her daughter "will never be hungry, you have a clean lake for fishing and land for a graden or even eat the grass, grass is good to eat!"

[spookyturtle 9,466]

And this is why you spend more for food, my point exactly. A Ukrainian will eat the exact same meal 3 times per day for a week and INSIST that ALL that was cooked is eaten before the next batch is made. It is not bad at all when you get used to it. Ukrainians view food more as a requirement of life rather than sport like Americans.

Actually I never claimed that a Ukrainian type diet is healthy (they claim that but they are full of sh*t) It is fatty, rich, and they like to put sour cream on everything. Fried pork, fried potatoes, nine iof that is healthy, though Ukrainians think as long as it is not "processed" it is OK. There may be some truth to that, but only a little.

Whatever you're satisfied with for food, that's all that matters. I'm not Ukrainine so I probably can't relate to it on the level that you do. Many parts of the world enjoy food, not just America. And good doesn't have to be extravagant or unhealthy.

[Darnell 8,479]

Raise yer hand if'n you like mutton !!!

(L)

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Raise yer hand if'n you like mutton !!!

(L)

Sheep are for luvin' not eatin'.

[Danno 1,228]

What gary says is correct. How many people on food stamps have a garden? When the economic reset in this country happens..(and it will)Many people will starve to death not knowing how to survive.When you are poor you need to really go back to the basics to survive. This is where a wife from a different country will make her family endure . People can grind their own wheat berrys and make home made bread,noodles,pasta ect. If they knew. Instead of teaching how to grow potatos,beans,and other food. how to economically process it. We teach the history of homosexuality in LA. Everyone has a garden in the RUB countries. My wife survived the cultural revolution in China. She had relations starve to death in the famine of 1961. They still had ice boxes as a child. One of her greatest wishes as a child would to have a piece of ice to suck on in a hot ChengDu day. Her best friend would invite her for supper to eat a rat. They would put small fish hooks outside with bright string attached in hopes a bird would catch themselves on the hook(many did)so they would have meat for supper.

This woman who grew up on this enviroment would make it on welfare and thrive. Make your own tofu ,soak mung beans sprouts... A lot of rice,dumplings,and all kinds of strange sauces of chinese Sichuan cooking.You grind your own flour, make your own noodles.Have a garden,can your food. In Maine you can grow cold hardy salad and root crops almost year round. If you know how and put in the effort.

http://www.amazon.com/Winter-Harvest-Handbook-Production-Greenhouses/dp/1603580816

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses

It can be done....

The schools teach children how to sing praises to Dear leader and has forgotten how to teach them to survive hard times.Without government help for the most part.Look at what is happening in Spain ect. World wide economic chaos might be around the corner.Few people have pressure canners.grain grinders,crocks for making fermented foods. You liberals will laugh at what I have written here. That is fine. My belly will be full long after hunger pains wrack your body.

This observation is dead-on.

Years ago people used to grow gardens even in the plot behind their row homes and certainly everywhere that space is more available.

Oddly enough you now see gardens more often in suburbs and even wealthier areas than you will see them in the poor areas..... why? Food Stamps.

As the last of the -over 50 die off, so will the last garden plots in the "economically challenged areas".

Danno has a garden as do a number of my neighbors, I even posted some pics at one time.

As Lost in Blue noted, it takes skill to garden, to even know when to plant what, if we stay on the crash course we are on, there will be a huge sting to the learning curve.

PS: right now is a good time of the year to get a good buy on a canner or tiller.

Edited November 23, 2012 by Danno