Record for Americans on Food Stamps

Well, America has yet another thing to be proud of, a record number of Americans are on food stamps.

Food stamps, the main U.S. antihunger program which helps the needy buy food, set a record in September as more than 31.5 million Americans used the program -- up 17 percent from a year ago.

Assuming that includes all people, not just the applicant, with a population of 305,000,000, this implies about 10-11% of the country is so poor and desperate they have to get food stamps. Bear in mind to even qualify for food stamps, often the income limit is around $1100 dollars and no more than $2000 dollars in assets. In other words, you're dirt poor, broke beyond broke.

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And food stamps have been proven to cause obesity

Due to the fact that the best (in $/calorie) food you can get on them has very little nutritional value, large amounts of saturated fat, AND at an average of $20/week in food stamps, you don't have enough at the end of the month which shoves your body into a feast/famine cycle.  While the coorlation has diminished in recent years, it's mainly due to the fact that unskilled labor wages now also mimic this feast/famine cycle.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

come on Food stamps do not cause obesity

the empty calorie food is the cheap food and these corporate retailers dump massive calories in empty food, like high fructose corn syrup into bread, into salad dressing, even into canned vegetables sometimes.

Just as an example, McDonalds, Burger King do not accept food stamps but people eat there because it's cheap and they can afford it. Then some of the other corporate restraunts, take Outback, their onion bloom is something like 2100 calories. All of these places do not take food stamps.

But your association is dead wrong because these people need to eat and sounds like you drank some cool-aid to not give people food stamps. In other words your title reads like a method to justify not giving hungry people food stamps so they will not starve and that's just not a good idea.

What needs to happen is these empty calorie foods need to be stopped, curtailed and the money increased on food stamps as well as prices lowered on the nutritional food choices.

Those damn corn subsidies, high fructose corn syrup is one of the things I blame the most. Who the hell needs this chemical sweetener dumped in bread, in salad dressing, in soda, in every stupid thing.

Then I missed my own point

Which was that we need to give people MORE food stamps. As in, enough to actually let people eat right and healthy (nutritional food choices) AND eat for the entire month (break the feast/famine cycle).

You do this with *MORE* food stamps, not less.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

oh you conservative brain people

I'm sure that's what you meant, classic conservative brain round about conclusion. Ya wanna know where I learned conservative brains plain think differently from the leftie heads? Sen. Jim Webb. He'd start with some really far out conservative thing, think it all the way through and end up over in Populism land. But he always starts his thought process in conservative land of thought.

In my case, it's autism

Or at least, Asperger's, which is a rather mild form. Makes me think in a lot of black and white terms usually. But unless you're willing to include the root word, I'm no conservative....at least, not in the American sense. I am sort of in the European sense of the word- since I'm also a great believer in the Seamless Garment of Life, which has a tendency to oppose capitalism as unjust, which kicks me over into populism land.

Silly me thinking human life, and the first level Maslow needs, should not be left to the chaos and injustice of the free market.....

 

 

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

anti-choice

Seebert, I've repeatedly warned to not include social positions that are anti-choice on this site. I mean it.

Food stamps and me

I used food stamps when I was homeless. It was a Godsend. And then I wrote a small book for other people on food stamps called "A South Florida Culinary Adventure."

got a link? Still in Print?

Considering the small sum of money in total for food stamps I imagine that is one good book for cooking good meals on a very limited budget is tough.

You can put up a link to your book if it's listed somewhere so people might buy it, check it out.

Cookbook Link

Thanks for the suggestion. A South Florida Culinary Adventure is available at Amazon.com and through local bookstores. It can also be purchased directly from the publisher at
http://www.eloquentbooks.com/ASouthFloridaCulinaryAdventure

Alice Shapiro

register and log in

I notice a lot of people don't see over to the right, in the upper right hand column is a place to register and log in.

The anonymous or not logged in comments are just a convenience, but for those posting comments quite a bit, if you create an account and then log in, you will have your own account and you can also track your own comments.

That makes it much easier for you to see who replied to your comment so you can respond.

There is a host of features that will appear when are not available to those users who do not have an account and are not logged in.

I highly recommend it!