43 Million Americans on Food Stamps?

[goodsamaritan]

Paleo diet is expensive because it is REAL FOOD.

So it is poverty that keeps people from being able to eat REAL FOOD?

43 Million Americans on Food Stamps?
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/food-stamp-usage-hits-new-high-432-million

Can the americans here explain the food stamp system circa 2011?
You issue some kind of debit card to the poor, right?
And they can just buy from any participating food selling firm?  Also clothing?
Please explain to us non americans how this works.

[Sully]

I get food stamps.

Yeah I get a card and a pin #. The money comes monthly.

Oh and yeah, I can only get food. Its called a Questcard here. I only can get food.

[laterade]

A person will apply for an interview and receive a debit card with an amount that varies depending on things like children and income.
I do not know If the healthier markets accept the card, whole foods would be your best bet, but there is little chance that some one would go there if they could get more matter at the store right down the street. A card would dry up quick at whole foods anyway.
The last time I saw one being used, the guy was buying a bunch of candy at the regular market.

This is what It will buy you in Arizona. They can buy food from any place that accepts food stamps, meaning big corporate companies.
https://www.azdes.gov/main.aspx?menu=162&id=5203

[laterade]

I get food stamps.
Yeah I get a card and a pin #. The money comes monthly.
Oh and yeah, I can only get food. Its called a Questcard here. I only can get food.

Which places do you use the card?

[Sully]

I go to Outpost Natural foods. They have 3 stores here and except questcard/foodstamps. THey have Wisconsin local grass fed beef. Ground is 5$ a lb. Not too bad.

Whole foods excepts foodstamps but they don't have local grass fed meats like outpost. Their grass fed meats comes from a different state than Wisconsin. They have grass fed lamb from new zealand. It's like wtf? Meat from all the way over there, ridiculous.

Outpost is the best Natural food store in Wisconsin, and maybe the whole midwest. Or perhaps the United STATE! Fresh unforzen grass fed beef from all different cuts. And local, can't beat that!
 BTW, if anyone is near Milwaukee, outpost is good place to go.
http://www.outpost.coop/

[Sully]

There was a time when I first started eating raw meats they didn't have local grass fed beef and had organic beef from North Dakota or something. Man they are meeting the needs!

[achillezzz]

I go to Outpost Natural foods. They have 3 stores here and except questcard/foodstamps. THey have Wisconsin local grass fed beef. Ground is 5$ a lb. Not too bad.

Whole foods excepts foodstamps but they don't have local grass fed meats like outpost. Their grass fed meats comes from a different state than Wisconsin. They have grass fed lamb from new zealand. It's like wtf? Meat from all the way over there, ridiculous.

Outpost is the best Natural food store in Wisconsin, and maybe the whole midwest. Or perhaps the United STATE! Fresh unforzen grass fed beef from all different cuts. And local, can't beat that!
 BTW, if anyone is near Milwaukee, outpost is good place to go.
http://www.outpost.coop/

I CHECKED THEIR WEBSITE!!
FUCK ME... I THINK I GOTA MOVE TO WISCONSIN ONE DAY

[kurite]

Paleo diet is expensive because it is REAL FOOD.

So it is poverty that keeps people from being able to eat REAL FOOD?

43 Million Americans on Food Stamps?
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/food-stamp-usage-hits-new-high-432-million

Can the americans here explain the food stamp system circa 2011?
You issue some kind of debit card to the poor, right?
And they can just buy from any participating food selling firm?  Also clothing?
Please explain to us non americans how this works.

Well its true that people with less money often resort to fast food and other crap, but I live in a very well-off suburb of chicago and people still don't give a crap what they eat. Today my friend told me he finally figured out a diet that works...He said all you need is marijuana and bananas. Made me lol. Anyway I guess more people do go in the health crowd here though because I know two raw vegans but still either you care or you don't its generally not the money.

[goodsamaritan]

BTW, if anyone is near Milwaukee, outpost is good place to go.
http://www.outpost.coop/

Pretty website.  I should make websites that look like this!  Thanks!

[Sully]

No prob guys, I like to share my good fortune. Unfortunately though, they only carry grass fed liver for organs.

[sabertooth]

I am on food stamps and I use it mainly to buy my wife and kids food, I have 3 kids and a stay at home wife and make less than 30,000 a year so that qualifies me for 500 dollars a month in food assistance. Every six months I have to show proof of income and get the card renewed. Good food is so expensive and I wouldn't be able to live as well If I didn't have that assistance. There is an Irony about the program which is if I made an extra 500 a month through hard work I would lose my benefits so I am stuck on this reservation with no motivation to better my income. There are many people who are in the same situation. There is no motivation for me to work harder for less money, so I am better off camping out on the boarderline of poverty.

We get some choice Items at the whole foods store and I try to buy some of the cleaner foods the standard grocery stores have to offer. I buy my meats with cash from a restaurant. I am fairly poor and I have to budjet my diet strictly and I have sacrificed many material goods to be able to afford good food for my family. It is well worth not having cable TV , my own  cell Phone, new shoes, curtains, appliances, or a fancy ride, car insurance, etc in order to provide me and my family with good food.

I see wealthy people who have everything , but feed their kids garbage, many of these these kids are surrounded by fancy toys and material goods but they are being made sickly and stupid from bad nutrition and I know that my children are much better off than the majority of children who come from wealthy homes.

I justify my eatting at the governments expense by knowing that If I couldn't afford to feed my family well, then the government would be having to pay for a lifetime of their medical expenses due to  sickness that is caused by poor nutrition. As things are, I never have to take my kids to a government Doctor, except for their yearly check ups in which they are labeled to be perfectly healthy. Do you know how much money I will save the government just by raising healthy kids who will hopefully grow up into healthy productive adults.

I know many poor families who actually sell their food stamps for drug money and let their kids live on noodles and cereal.

[TylerDurden]

Food stamps? My god, you Americans have all the luck - gun-ownership rights, food-stamps, local and State referendums etc.

[turkish]

I am on food stamps and I use it mainly to buy my wife and kids food, I have 3 kids and a stay at home wife and make less than 30,000 a year so that qualifies me for 500 dollars a month in food assistance. Every six months I have to show proof of income and get the card renewed. Good food is so expensive and I wouldn't be able to live as well If I didn't have that assistance. There is an Irony about the program which is if I made an extra 500 a month through hard work I would lose my benefits so I am stuck on this reservation with no motivation to better my income. There are many people who are in the same situation. There is no motivation for me to work harder for less money, so I am better off camping out on the boarderline of poverty.

We get some choice Items at the whole foods store and I try to buy some of the cleaner foods the standard grocery stores have to offer. I buy my meats with cash from a restaurant. I am fairly poor and I have to budjet my diet strictly and I have sacrificed many material goods to be able to afford good food for my family. It is well worth not having cable TV , my own  cell Phone, new shoes, curtains, appliances, or a fancy ride, car insurance, etc in order to provide me and my family with good food.

I see wealthy people who have everything , but feed their kids garbage, many of these these kids are surrounded by fancy toys and material goods but they are being made sickly and stupid from bad nutrition and I know that my children are much better off than the majority of children who come from wealthy homes.

I justify my eatting at the governments expense by knowing that If I couldn't afford to feed my family well, then the government would be having to pay for a lifetime of their medical expenses due to the sickness that are cause by poor nutrition. As things are, I never have to take my kids to a government Doctor, except for their yearly check ups in which they are labeled to be perfectly healthy. Do you know how much money I will save the government just by raising healthy kids.

I know many poor families who actually sell their food stamps for drug money and let their kids live on noodles and cereal.

Wow Sabertooth,
 you are very wise indeed - it took me a long time to figure this out. I agree with everything you say. But you still should try to read good books - i believe books and nature are the best teachers.

have you tried foraging or growing ur own food?

[goodsamaritan]

Food stamps? My god, you Americans have all the luck - gun-ownership rights, food-stamps, local and State referendums etc.

I agree... Americans are lucky with the food stamps program.

We have no such thing in my country.

Any other country out there with a similar food stamps program?

[sabertooth]

Wow Sabertooth,
 you are very wise indeed - it took me a long time to figure this out. I agree with everything you say. But you still should try to read good books - i believe books and nature are the best teachers.

have you tried foraging or growing ur own food?

thank you. My wife is very interested in maintaining her own garden. We don't have suitable land at the moment but we plan to move within this next year, and will most likely have a better place then. She wants to build her own garden at that point, and have the kids help her with it. I'm sure that will help us a lot (with food for them). She had a small garden at her fathers' house growing up, and that was the only way she ever got any food that was not out of a box or freezer as a child so she remembers how much that small bit of actual, real food helped her.

Also at some point in my life I plan on purchasing a hunting permit and hopefully bringing home some wild game meat that way. In Kentucky where I live, it is ridiculous the amount of red tape one needs to wade through, just to get a gun and go out into the woods to bring back some dinner for the family. But I'll do it someday.

We once had a small flock of chickens, and we still talk about going back into that plus adding some turkeys to the mix. Once that comes to pass, it will be a good source of fresh eggs & occasional poultry for us. I am interested in having a rabbit hutch, so I can have fresh rabbit meat. We throw around these ideas a lot and it seems a lot of it just might work for us.

It's just that these plans & dreams take some time to come to fruition. My wife hopes/believes that next spring, we will be in a much better place financially and will be able to get into a better home, hopefully with just a small bit of land, and then we will make all these things happen.

[turkish]

Also at some point in my life I plan on purchasing a hunting permit and hopefully bringing home some wild game meat that way. In Kentucky where I live, it is ridiculous the amount of red tape one needs to wade through, just to get a gun and go out into the woods to bring back some dinner for the family. But I'll do it someday.

I dont know much about hunting but why not bow and arrow. Its equally effective, not sure if that too involves red tape.

[wodgina]

I agree... Americans are lucky with the food stamps program.

We have no such thing in my country.

Any other country out there with a similar food stamps program?

We don't have food stamps but if you can't find a job you get free money here about $470 a fortnight plus money for rent/utilities. You also get heavily discounted medical and public transport. If you convince them you are to unwell to work which is pretty easy you get around $600 a fortnight plus rental/utilities.

The money can be spent on anything.

I know people who have been able to pull off a pretty good lifestyle with this money. Not so much now with the mining boom but it is definitely a possible lifestyle choice.

[sabertooth]

Wow Sabertooth,
 you are very wise indeed - it took me a long time to figure this out. I agree with everything you say. But you still should try to read good books - i believe books and nature are the best teachers.

have you tried foraging or growing ur own food?

I have scavenged a good amount of road kill and have gotten a deer just recently, I like deer but Its real lean and I cant eat a lot of it. I also have some back yard chickens and I get some eggs, and will be trying to expand in the spring. I really want to set up some rabbit hutches, I think I could easily turn a few bails of hay into some tasty rabbit in no time.

As for reading good books; I sometimes wish I still took more time to read literature cover to cover as I had before this whole internet addiction creeped up on me. When I was a teenager I would spend endless days in the park beside the city library reading quietly. I read Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Goethe, and countless others. It was a happy time for me. I found reading to be an more engaged kind of meditation which allowed my mind to focus on streams of thought and to cultivate a greater overall awareness and inner peace. When I wasn't reading I was scrounging for vitals, or getting into mischief.(I camped out on the street for the entire summer I turned 19 and it was a good experience). I found some street kids that just wanted to have fun , playing cards in the park, breaking into the hotels for the indoor pool and sauna, climbing to the top of buildings, just clowning around. I also talked to allot of the fallen people who lived on the street. There is much to learn from people who have been down life's rocky road if you are willing to listen to their stories. Most of the far out conspiracy stuff I believe in was learned from talking to my old war vets and other street people long before I ever began to troll the internet.   

[SkinnyDevil]

Food stamps? My god, you Americans have all the luck - gun-ownership rights, food-stamps, local and State referendums etc.

You are being facetious - yes?

[turkish]

I read Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Goethe, and countless others. It was a happy time for me. I found reading to be an more engaged kind of meditation which allowed my mind to focus on streams of thought and to cultivate a greater overall awareness and inner peace.

Most of the far out conspiracy stuff I believe in was learned from talking to my old war vets and other street people long before I ever began to troll the internet.   

Sabertooth,
 since you have read more literature than i have, any recommendation for kids. How to start them on it, my daughter is 8.5yrs old i want to start her on good literature but have no clue (being a science guy). Any ideas on how to start get her started.

Curious about the conspiracy stuff from vets.

[sabertooth]

Sabertooth,
 since you have read more literature than i have, any recommendation for kids. How to start them on it, my daughter is 8.5yrs old i want to start her on good literature but have no clue (being a science guy). Any ideas on how to start get her started.

Curious about the conspiracy stuff from vets.

When I was in the 4th grade I was a stubborn student, and the way public schools are set up didn't fit my style of learning so I had trouble in school, my mother told me that I could either take after school tutoring with this mean old woman we called Bucktooth Owens, or I could read a book for an hour in my room each day. I chose to read in my room. My mother was raised in South Dakota and had a complete collection of the little house on the prairie written by Laura Ingells Wilder from when she was a child. I remember reading Farmer boy cover to cover when I was about nine years old. Its the first book that began my recreational reading habit. These were some really down to earth books written about life on the frontier from a perspective of Laura as she was growing up. She turned her childhood stories into the little house on the Prairie  series of books that were easy for me to read and I found enjoyable. You may have to read a few chapters of a book to her in order to spark her interest, my father read the hardy boys books to me when I was about seven or eight and I believe just reading to children before bed is a good way to interest them into books. I really don't know of too many other books to recommend for a 9 year old girl, I also became intersted in the science fiction works and fantasy fiction like the hobbit and lord of the rings.

Kids are amazing in their ability to learn under the right circumstances if it was not for the independent learning that was encouraged by my Mother I would of never became literate had I just relied on the public schools. There is a book called Dumbing us Down I think that every parrent who has kids in school should read. It was written by an award winning teacher who explains how schools were set up to limit children's mental development in a way that was scientifically designed and developed. The author had also written a book called the Underground history of America were he explains how compulsory schools were set up and established by the big foundation philanthropist against the will of the people , so that they could develop the masses into mindless drones. Its very credible research.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm Here is the ebook on The history of education

I cant find Dumbing us down, but there is a summery of the 7 basic lessons that are part of the hidden curriculum http://www.Johntaylorgatto.com/bookstore/dumbdnblum3.htm

As for the conspiracy stuff from vets. I don't know were to start, There was this one man I met on the streets who was sprayed with agent orange in Vietnam, He literally had cancers eatting his legs up. Thousands of  troops were deliberately marched into areas that were just sprayed with the poison. I also knew this man who went blind after desert Storm, due to the vaccines. My grandmother worked in the V. A. hospital and was full of horror stories about crazy vets she had to care for, there were many vets that were labled as shell shocked or post traumatic stress syndrome, but in reality they were damaged chemically by either vaccination or some other method. She was never allowed to diagnose the vets with anything, If they had agent orange spots it had to be labled as suspected agent orange. I have studied back to world war one and how soldiers on both sides were given the same poisonous inoculations which triggered the Spanish flu epidemic that killed millions. The vaccines are not as deadly nowdays, but they still damage the vets in more insidious ways. Most of what the vets I met have told me is just common knowledge about how the government is running the drug trade and how the wars are a complete sham operations.

I met an explosives expert who went into kosivo during the whole Bosnia convict and he said that after one operation he went back to the hotel and watched on the US news how he had just blown up some ammunition's warehouse when in reality he said it was just a warehouse for food and civilian supplies. All the war news that gets back to the American people is filtered and turned into propaganda. Bill Clinton painted UN markings an US jets and sent them in to blow up bridges and infrastructures in order to put those people in their place. The government would not submit to the tyranny of the bankers and were in the process of building a financial system that was free from outside influence, so they had to be dealt with. False charges of genocide were thrown out as justification for blowing up innocent civilians, and overthrowing the government and somehow everything is justified.

[Brother]

I justify my eatting at the governments expense

Justify what? The government is a ponzi scheme and you were smart enough to position yourself at the recieving end on the schtick. Other notable welfare clients in your country include (but are not limited to) IG, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, NC Financial Services. Heck, America's got so much money that they put our (Denmark) and several other "national" banks on welfare too. THANK YOU AMERICA!

Notice how this system actually manages to take the worst of crony capitalism and the worst of socialism and stir it into an unholy concoction. If you have a company thats going well, goddamn you are The Man! you will be rewarded your own weight in gold many times over, even if you fail you will get your weight worth in gold because ...tadaa...if you fuck up you can just send the bill to the treachery (formerly treasury) to get picked up by "we the people". Fan fucking tastic, if you ask me.

If someone who did not position themselves at the system output bitch at you, tell them to stop paying for your sustainance, that you never asked for HIS money. To which they will reply, "But I cant! Then Ill go to jail!". Camly answer him: "well then Im not really the problem here am I? I dont own a gun, I am unable to take anything from you by force even if I wanted to". You could also remind him of the other wellfare clients that you would suspect were doing fairly well on their own just to get some perspective on relative cost of each welfare client. Citigroup = $25 billion in welfare so far. Thats perspective!

You have to justify nothing! These other fuckers have to justify why they are so happy getting fleeced for no real benefit of their own (they could not have gotten both cheaper, better, and best of all voluntarily) and then pass the blame onto people who are just like them, but who refuse to pay for the party when you dont even get to choose the music.

The value in this system is now spread so thin it is practically worthless. When a company like "facebook" is worth more than large corporations that actually produce something, you know the financial system is desperately trying to turn into value, what isnt value, to keep going for another few rounds. They try and teach us that value is where we put our money, but that is a paradox because then what makes the money valuable? We put our value into things we like, thus making them valuable, but if the money is backed by little but IOU's, most of which we know for a fact defaulted (money was created by the bank and lend out, but value did not come back in since the project failed and nothing was created, so the money pool grew without new value to back it up), then we cannot create value with "not value". A generated interrest from people is not "value". I could announce that every day at noon I would walk down to ground zero, take a plate and shit on it, right out in the middle of the squre. I would generate A LOT of interrest, but had I created value? You need to look at the system like this to understand why true evil is staying willingly ignorant about this mindboggling abuse of us all. And seen in this light, what you do is "the right thing to do". Now if you could avoid taxes without getting mauled by banksters, I would coin you a hero.

[sabertooth]

I was being facetious and I personally think my 6000 dollars a year in government aid I receive is just a drop in the bucket and Its definitely something I need and have earned. At least the American people have enough influence to gain some of the chicken scratch leftovers out of the government feeding trough to make sure that the working poor who built this empire don't go hungry. The big conglomerates get their billions of dollars in kickbacks and people like me are dished out some chicken scratch to keep us on the reservation. I consider it Hush money If you think I bitch about the government now lord knows what I would do If my family was truly starving. The cost of food is so outrageous that without this assistance there would be millions of Americans would be more willing to confront the injustices head on, if it wasn't for these welfare programs. The sad thing is that everyone with a brain knows that with this technology Clean food could be produced and shipped out much more frugally than what is being done today and food cost should be an issue of the past. Yet we spend more time and money on foolish things than we do on the nourishment of our bodies

My Granny raised her children in South Dakota before the food stamp programs existed, She raised 6 kids on one income and my grandfather was to ignorant and selfish to even ask the local charities for help, by the time she left him she weighed 95 pounds and all the kids were malnourished. They would eat mainly cornmeal mush, oatmeal or potatoes. My Granny would tell me how the government would subsidize local farms to grow corn and nothing else. The local farmers were being paid to grow only corn while the local kids were starving for real food. (this is my heritage; the midwest was turned into an big Agra reservation in which healthy foods were discouraged from being grown by the federal government) She told me that when there was too much corn produced they would just dump it on the side of the road. Some farmers would get subsidy checks for growing absolutely nothing. The land of America is so rich there is no reason for people to go hungry. There would be no need for foodstamp programs if the government subsidy programs didn't distroy the family farms that used to make up the heart of America in the first place. There was a day in age when everyone had their own hogs and chickens and the neighbors sold each other food for a fraction of what food in the stores cost. It seems that the more money government forces into these programs the more harm it does overall, even if it seems that some individuals are helped the greater overall effect is negative. People who are now spoiled on government food cards will never have the motivation to forrage or grow their own, and most of them are not aware of how damaging much of that possessed food they buy with their money can be, and so they pass on a legacy of poor nutrition to their children. I consider it a blessing for those who use it wisely and can use it to provide quality food, I just wish things weren't so bad that now over 40 million Americans have to depend on it for survival. The persent situation seems to be alright I just worry about what will happen years down the road when the new food regulations go into effect and half the nation has these rationing cards, they will have no choice but to eat what ever big Agra puts on the shelves, just as the Indians had no choice but to eat the reservation food that killed them off.

I see no real easy way out of the Charity trap other than being able to play the system for what you can get out of it As long as I can still find some decently produced food in the grocery store with my hush money, I will remain somewhat content although ever vigilant.

[achillezzz]

life is complicated 

[goodsamaritan]

life is complicated 

Not really.

Stay focused.