cigarettes and alcohol took most of our family paycheck. I remember having a little canned vegetable soup over a bowl of crackers. White bread and government cheese. We were hungry a lot. Once we ended up in foster care food was an issue, we used to hide it and overeat a lot. As adults we all have ridiculously over stocked pantries and fridges and not hoarding food is a struggle as well as keeping our weight under control. I know better than to ever go to an all you can eat buffet.
Ouch. When my kids were young, we didn't have much, but sometimes very hungry kids would find us and ask for food. Usually it was Ramen which they were happy to accept.Originally Posted by flowerseverywhere
Tiam, I don’t know what the level is. I hope there is less hunger than there has been in the past. SNAP benefits, WIC, food banks, school food programs, soup kitchens, community gardens food security programs, and school backpack programs all help. On the other hand all of those are a sign that there are a bunch of people who don’t have enough food on their own.
are working with.I often see the people who work with high risk population having less food than the population they
Have seen that too. Or they have enough just barely, but only because they have very advanced shopping, budgeting, and cooking skills. And they spend an extreme amount of the time they are not at work cooking from scratch.
A few friends with poorly paid jobs helping the poor have lamented that they wished they had the resources of the poor they were helping. This is usually in context of how they would use the resources in a different way that would provide more benefit. They are still glad to have their jobs though such as they are.
And some of it might not look as bad as it did in the past since people might put their money into beans and rice rather than ramen or plain bread as might have been done previously since more people seem to know that rice and beans are more balanced.
Flowerseverywhere, I see where you’d want to err on the side of stockpiling after going through that. In foster care, did you have enough food and nutritious food? Some friends in foster care have talked about getting bare legal minimums of food, so that they were generally hungry. I have a friend who still eats most meals barely chewing the food because the children who ate the fastest got a little more food --say, three-quarters of a meal, instead of the half a meal that their more slowly eating siblings got. The rest of us have promised that this friend can have a whole meal and no one will take the food away and they are welcomed to chew their food, but the habit is of such long duration that they have a hard time slowing down.
.When my kids were young, we didn't have much, but sometimes very hungry kids would find us and ask for food. Usually it was Ramen which they were happy to accept
Have gotten that too. Children or adults who showed up “to play/visit” with an uncanny knack for meal times. I finally just started making a little extra as there got to be too many times in a row when there wasn’t enough for the visitor and I would have to do the “I already ate” charadeso they could have my portion. I also made and froze some servings of frugal soups so I could heat one of those up really quick for a hungry visitor. When a garden was going well, I would plant extra for people in that situation and offer some of that to take home so people would have better nutrition. Sometimes would teach the kids how to cook it if it was something new to them.
My husband's family was quite poor. He has told me of eating pancakes for weeks (no syrup), and being served Koolaid without the added sugar. He also does not eat oatmeal anymore as he said that he had way too much of it as a kid.
When I met him in high school, he ran cross-country and had cardboard in the soles of his running shoes to keep his feet from getting wet through the holes.
My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished two bags of M&Ms and a chocolate cake. I feel better already!
You gotta wonder why unsweetened koolaid is preferable to plain water.
Tiam, I don’t know what the level is. I hope there is less hunger than there has been in the past. SNAP benefits, WIC, food banks, school food programs, soup kitchens, community gardens food security programs, and school backpack programs all help. On the other hand all of those are a sign that there are a bunch of people who don’t have enough food on their own.
are working with.
Have seen that too. Or they have enough just barely, but only because they have very advanced shopping, budgeting, and cooking skills. And they spend an extreme amount of the time they are not at work cooking from scratch.
A few friends with poorly paid jobs helping the poor have lamented that they wished they had the resources of the poor they were helping. This is usually in context of how they would use the resources in a different way that would provide more benefit. They are still glad to have their jobs though such as they are.
And some of it might not look as bad as it did in the past since people might put their money into beans and rice rather than ramen or plain bread as might have been done previously since more people seem to know that rice and beans are more balanced.
Flowerseverywhere, I see where you’d want to err on the side of stockpiling after going through that. In foster care, did you have enough food and nutritious food? Some friends in foster care have talked about getting bare legal minimums of food, so that they were generally hungry. I have a friend who still eats most meals barely chewing the food because the children who ate the fastest got a little more food --say, three-quarters of a meal, instead of the half a meal that their more slowly eating siblings got. The rest of us have promised that this friend can have a whole meal and no one will take the food away and they are welcomed to chew their food, but the habit is of such long duration that they have a hard time slowing down.
.
Have gotten that too. Children or adults who showed up “to play/visit” with an uncanny knack for meal times. I finally just started making a little extra as there got to be too many times in a row when there wasn’t enough for the visitor and I would have to do the “I already ate” charade
Right! Well, I guess what I'm saying, or asking really, is whether or not society has met the challenge more than in the past. I rarely see families who are cooking from scratch. (Most Hispanics and Asians still do). Most rely on processed food but the extreme lack seems different than a couple of decades ago. I still see children in my program who wolf food down and become very anxious over food and I know their home circumstances so I know they really are hungry. But I also know they have something. Even if it's not very healthy food, it's not just bread and butter or something. So, my question was rather theoretical in wondering if SNAP, food banks, churches, food programs have come a long way to dealing with the issue. In my town we have several food banks that are heavily used, at least two or three very good soup kitchens and 5 schools that provide free breakfast and lunch to any child in the community 5 days a week and they aren't that heavily used. We have several community gardens and shares and free food pick ups that aren't even banks but just surpluses of bread and vegetables from stores. There are more resources than there were, (it seems to me) than a couple of decades ago. I know that if I was in that situation, on any given day, if I was being resourceful, I could hit up places and be fed or even make a "stone soup" kind of meal.
Writing to add my personal thanks to everyone who has helped their poorer neighbors or family members in their need for food - you are really angels in disguise, especially for doing it without judgment. I agree it seems like there seems to be a lot of resources out there but I wonder if the rules have gotten more restrictive, e.g., certain resources are not available to single childless adults, for example.
Another aspect: a h.s. football coach who works in a poor/working class high school told me that they fed the team a hot meal at the end of the school day before practice. (I'm sure it was something basic like spaghetti). He observed that many of those kids would save half to bring home to their families.
Hard to say we are a first world country when this is not even a shocking occurrence.
Writing to add my personal thanks to everyone who has helped their poorer neighbors or family members in their need for food - you are really angels in disguise, especially for doing it without judgment. I agree it seems like there seems to be a lot of resources out there but I wonder if the rules have gotten more restrictive, e.g., certain resources are not available to single childless adults, for example.
Another aspect: a h.s. football coach who works in a poor/working class high school told me that they fed the team a hot meal at the end of the school day before practice. (I'm sure it was something basic like spaghetti). He observed that many of those kids would save half to bring home to their families.
Hard to say we are a first world country when this is not even a shocking occurrence.
Most single people can still get SNAP if they qualify and are able to access food banks. If they are in need their are social service programs like St. Vincent de Paul and Salvation army and churches that come through. I'm not sure if rules are MORE restrictive. I can't think of an example of that. But if you are working poor it can be difficult, because you may not qualify and may not have time to access the free resources available.
I saw this when I was unemployed a few years back--I'm single with no kids. I was working two jobs--temping more or less full-time and a part-time retail job. Working both just barely kept my head above water. And working 70 hours a week leaves little time for hunting for a real, permanent job, or searching out food banks or contacting the government offices that could offer help.
And if I did contact a government agency, they would want me to come to the office, three towns away, in the middle of a work day. So I'd loose a couple of hours of pay and annoy my boss, for the chance of maybe getting some help--because they couldn't tell me what I might be eligible for until they met with me. Both my jobs did not allow employees to have cellphones with us, so I found it difficult to even return a phone call on time, or when the office was open. I once dealt with a problem and never actually spoke to a live person; I just left phones messages and got voice mail in return. The matter finally got resolved, but if I could have had one "face to face" type of phone call, I probably could have cleared the matter up in 5 minutes, instead of 2 weeks of calling and leaving messages.
A relative of mine has been getting insurance through the ACA. The first year, she got it for free. The second year, she paid about $30 a month. But the third year? Well, she made $6,000 more last year. So this year, she has to pay $165 a month for an insurance plan with a $6500 deductible. She was also getting about $30 a month to help pay for heat in the winter; that's gone now, as well.
Do the math. She didn't bring home an extra $6000; taxes took a chunk. Her insurance cost for the year is $1980. Her deductible is more than the extra $6000. As she puts it, the $100 she would have spent going to a walk-in clinic, pre-ACA, is now going for insurance that she can't afford to use. So she has less access to health care now than she did before. Yes, it is a comfort to know that if she is hit by a car or gets cancer or another serious illness, she'll have insurance. But she still can't afford to see a doctor for anything that might seem minor, or that might clear up a in week or two.
I know this is about health care and not food. But that $165 a month seriously affects her budget. She would, in fact, be better off if she hadn't gotten a raise at work and made the extra money. She goes to a food bank once a week now, because paying for her health insurance has affected her food budget.
There's a whole group of working poor out there who are struggling to buy food and keep a roof over their heads who make just a tiny bit too much to get aid, but not enough to stop worrying constantly if the money will run out before the end of the month.
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