Asymmetrical Information

Who you callin a ho, girl?

As usual, violence is done to the condition of Poverty and Hunger. Look to the Indian Ocean Rim, even before the Tsunami and see what true need is.

The term "food insecurity" is another take on the idea that a large number of people/familys are only one (or two)paychecks away from being homeless. While this is true for some people, this is more useful for Rescue Mission and Charity fundraising. In the middle 1980's, we were about 2 paychecks away from the road and I had no steady work. Even then 10% was inflated.

I have worked with a Rescue Mission and the local Salvation Army. The needs are significant. However, the figures used back in the '80s were unrealistic and the figures now are a crock.

I suppose that makes me unfeeling.

33 million Americans don't know where their next meal is coming from

What's the number of males aged 22-29 in the U.S. these days? That's surely a big chunk.

Thomas Sowell has said that studies show the poor have no more malnutrition due to lack of calories in America than the rich. I cold look up the cite, but I think it is unnecessary. Your eyes wold recognize someone starving and you do not see that on the streets of America.

They are food insecure about their next meal. They don't know if they're going to McDonald's or Burger King.

i have this problem all the time...

i don't know if i'll get a reservation at le cirque, cipriani's, or rao's.. like seriously, i need help...

and almost all of the women i know are starving (themsleves) they're malnourished, ribs sticking out, etc (ok so they're bulimic and eat lots of expensive food, but they still qualify)

and hell... i am 1 paycheck away from the streets.. much of manhattan is also... when you only really get one paycheck a year, it means a hell of a lot.. y'all should remember the NY mag article highlighting the investment bankers who couldn't pay taxes on their apartment with their official salaries.. they needed the multi million dollar bonus to make ends meet... 150k don't go nowhere in NYC..

idiotic things you can do with statistics.. suc fun..

also, one should note that they mentioned the percentage of the pop that would be hungry at some point in the year. not hungry all year, but at some point...

i.e. most college students are hungry in around finals... cause they drank all their money and the parents won't (or can't) kick money down until after exams or they come home... they technically qualify...

this also highlights the idiocy of giving tax rebates or checks to people based on their tax filings... everyone i knew in college got rebates during a period of high heating costs and exceptionally cold temperatures, as we all met "low income" definitions... which is easy when you have all your investments in capital gain producing assets, rather than income generating assets, and are in school 8 months of the year...

it seems that leftists and liberals are really, really innumerate... anyone interested in the real world and good in math seems to be very libertarian or conservative...

And some people are good at sweeping generalizations with anecdotal evidence...

While I'm not defending how statistics are used here, the point of the article isn't that people are going hungry, but that people:
a) are struggling to make ends meet (which isn't historically abnormal in American society).
b) aren't getting proper nutrition because healthier foods cost more than junk foods.

Of course the quotation "The U.S. Department of Agriculture pegs the number of "food insecure" Americans -- its term for hungry people --" is at odds with the actual definition of "food insecure" as Jane points out. There's a conflation of those below the poverty line and "food insecure," and it's bad reporting.

It also should be noted that obese people can be food insecure with hunger due to the dubious nutritional values of cheaper foods. When you've met some of these obese "food insecure" people who actually might go hungry, it's partially because their budgeting leads them to go for fattening foods.

Minor tangent, but it sounds like a good time to read A Modest Proposal again.

Give me a break. I can buy a three pound bag of rice at Wal-Mart
for around a $1.06. You can purchase tons of food for next to nothing at the dollar stores. Nobody half way normal starves in the United States. It is absurd to claim that "it's partially because their budgeting leads them to go for fattening foods." The opposite is actually the truth. Junk food costs far more than fruits and vegetables.

it seems that leftists and liberals are really, really innumerate... anyone interested in the real world and good in math seems to be very libertarian or conservative...

Pity that the they didn't teach you proper punctuation to go with your great grasp of numbers.

idiotic things you can do with statistics.. suc fun..

You can do even more idiotic things with letters, too, its "suc" fun as well.

Junk food costs far more than fruits and vegetables.

No, actually, junk food is often cheaper and more accessable than fruits and vegetables. Ever heard of the dollar menu? Have you seen the produce selection at what passes for grocery stores in poor areas, particularly cities where people don't have cars to get to the nicer markets?

Think of what goes into a bag of chips and how long that bag can sit in a warehouse or on a shelf before sale compared to the care needed for, say, apples. Certainly it's possible to eat healthy on a strict budget if you have discipline and time and know what you're doing, but let's not deny that it's much, much easier and economical (in the sense of time even if money is equivalent) just to get the Value Meal on your way home from work.

Large bag of Cheetos down at the local supermarket: $2.60

10 lb bag of apples at said same supermarket: $5

Sure, one sample, anecdotal, but seriously people, come on. Eating out, even fast food, is much more expensive than preparing food. In a world where a pound of ham is a few dollars [enough for up to four sandwiches] and a burger is $4.99 plus tax, I think the problem lies in what people choose to consume, not their available options.

I honestly can't believe that people are in this thread arguing that McDonald's dollar menu is cheaper than buying food from the store.

The reason people (well-off or poor) buy a $1 McDonald's sandwich and a $1 order of fries instead of making a cheaper sandwich out of a loaf of bread and some lunch meat and warming up a $0.39 can of corn or green beans is because the junk food tastes better and they can afford it, not because bread, balogna, and corn is too expensive for their budget.

For those who don't believe me, why don't you see how many sandwiches you can get with $10 off the dollar menu at McDonald's vs. spending $10 at the grocery store on a head of lettuce, some deli meat, and a loaf of bread.

Another point of comparison you brought up would also be instructive: What's the difference in price per ounce between a bag of chips and an equivalent amount of apples? Why is it that I think that a pound of fresh apples is still going to turn out to be cheaper than a pound of potato chips, despite the chips' ability to be warehoused for longer durations?

The point you make about how easy it is to buy the value meal is telling, as well. If you have enough money, you can afford to be lazy. I know I have often been.

I've got relatives who used to have to buy and cook whole foods because they couldn't afford such luxuries as potato chips except on special occasions. At times, McDonald's was a rare treat.
I've never heard anyone complain that, compared to McDonald's, fresh produce is just too expensive.

a burger is $4.99 plus tax, I think the problem lies in what people choose to consume, not their available options.

Where the @#$@#*& %@# are you buying your burgers?

Frozen vegetables are are very nutritional, and pretty cheap, but they don't taste as good (to many) as a cheeseburger.

Where the hell are apples 50c/pound? At Shaw's or Stop & Shop in my city, the crappy apples are sometimes on special for 99c/pound, while most of the ones that are actually in decent shape (not that good, and industrial durability is assumed) are $1.50/pound. I can drive to an orchard not far away in fall, but that option really isn't on the table for the people we're talking about here, many of whom don't even have the selection of apples I have in my town when they go to the store in their city.

And the giant bags of chips are cheap, cheap, cheap. $2.30? No way. Maybe at 7-11. It's easy to buy the off-brand or get them in big volumes off the shelf for a lot less. And why not look at the generic price, it's what people advice when making this comparison for lunchmeat and other "healthy" alternatives! (And is Oscar Meyer bologna on white bread going to provide great nutrition?)

Besides, if you have 10lbs. of apples, you'd better have a lot of fridge space.

As for the second post:

Comparing chips to apples by weight is ludicrous because apples are much, much heavier. A pound of chips is a huge bag. A pound of apples is two apples. Apples aren't particularly filling in my experience, either, even though I stuff myself with them during the day in the interests of not getting fat.

If you've gone shopping for apples or chips at a grocery store, you would know this. Perhaps you're looking at the price of Terra Chips?

I've never heard anyone complain that, compared to McDonald's, fresh produce is just too expensive.

Perhaps it depends on where your poor relatives live and when they were talking about this. Heck, forget McDonald's; check out a Taco Bell menu.

Will Allen,

What do you serve with the frozen vegetables?

I honestly can't believe that people are in this thread arguing that McDonald's dollar menu is cheaper than buying food from the store.

I can't believe you've actually done your own shopping. A can of corn is closer to a dollar, not 40 cents. A head of iceberg lettuce, the cheapest you can buy, is about a dollar. Some deli meat? What kind and how much? Most hams at the deli counter run about 5.00 a pound at the cheapest with some approaching 8.00. Roast beef costs more. A loaf Wonderbread costs abou $2.00. You also haven't put any condiments on the sandwich yet, either. It's a rare person who eats a deli sandwich dry. A jar of Helman's costs 4.39 at Fresh Direct. You can probably get a lesser brand for cheaper. A squeeze bottle of mustard is about a dollar.

All this haggling over the price of apples threatens to obscure the point.

The poor in America generally have lousy eating habits. There are several reasons for this. In any event, the dilemma is not new. George Orwell pointed out that the poor of Lancashire could easily afford brown bread and carrots every day and enjoy good health but they preferred

It's hard to eat well. It takes knowledge, time, and accessable groceries. Middle-class people and above often have the time, nearly always have the accessable groceries, and can get the knowledge from their friends or from helpful conservatives on Jane Galt's forum.

Most importantly, we have the money and time to make healthy food that is also appealing or interesting to eat. Or we can seek it out.

If you don't have the money or the life experience, your choices shrink considerably. Fast food is still cheap and still common and the kids are guaranteed to love it. The produce at the bodega has flies and mold spots. If you can find the hippie co-op, you can get better produce, but there's a cultural barrier there. (It can be surmounted, I'm just acknowledging it.)

With strict budgeting and planning, apparently, you can eat a whole week's worth of ham sandwiches on Wonderbread with canned corn (and people wonder why diabetes is a problem with "help" like this?) or take your choice of Birdseye frozen vegetable bags for lunch or dinner. Is this going to satisfy you physically? Maybe. Will it satisfy your palate? Tough call.

Would any poster here want to live this life indefinitely? I doubt it.

There are real challenges here. Trivializing doesn't make them going away; offering piecemeal solutions on a forum I can guarantee no poverty-stricken diabetic is reading really doesn't advance the argument. Perhaps we can reach a point of passing moral judgment and then moving on, but I don't see what the purpose there is.

Why can't we talk honestly about why people eat the way we do?

I used to eat convenience food exclusively: either microwave meals or fast food. Then my doctor recommended a migraine control diet that required me to make most of my food from scratch. The result was that I ended up spending about 50% less on food. (And my migraines went away, but that's not relevant to the discussion.) I could spend even less and still eat well if I wanted to take the trouble of planning my menus better.

People who choose drive through over making dinner don't have a money problem. They have a time problem.

Let me put this way. I do a lot of cooking. On numerous occasions, I’ve prepared meals that fed a total of seven to eight people---costing no more than $8.00 to $9.00 to prepare. You do not have to be mathematical genius to realize that works out to around $1.00 a person. One of my best efforts is a French stew. I buy the cheapest cut of beef and slow cook it for about 8 hours. Some people believe it compares to what might find in an expensive restaurant. Mexican and Oriental food are extremely inexpensive to prepare. For just a few bucks, you can feed a lot of people.

About the price of groceries, I think we may be running into regional differences. When I lived in Texas, produce was cheap cheap cheap. I could fill my cart for next to nothing. Roast beef from the deli may have cost $6/pound, but I could buy a roast for $1/pound and cook it myself. Beef was cheaper than chicken or pork.

In NC, pork and chicken were cheaper than beef. Produce was more expensive than in Texas, and suffered seasonal variations, but was still cheaper per pound than any type of meat.

I've always lived in the south, so I can't say how prices look in the northeast or midwest. But it might be more polite to assume that the person who is quoting prices is probably using numbers that are true in their part of the country.

(BTW, I regularly see canned veggies on sale in the range of $.50/can, although the regular price is usually $1.)

Mexican and Oriental food are extremely inexpensive to prepare. For just a few bucks, you can feed a lot of people.

Depending upon how they are cooked, however, they aren't particularly healthy. If you make Rice and Beans, for example, great. When you start adding sour cream, guacamole and cheese to Mexican dishes, they get quite fattening. Chinese dishes are often quite fatening as well, as they often involve frying and cooking with heavy oils. Thus you may be able to eat rather cheaply, but still get obese, and we are back to where we started with the dilemma that Jane posted.

David, that brings up the issue of time and of knowledge. I tried to make lamb biryani once and spent $40 on the process. If you don't know how to make healthy, tasty food on a budget, or can't leave the stove running for eight hours, you're going to end up buying unhealthy, tasty food instead of the semi-healthy, unappealing diet that is the alternative.

Cooking a roast is an excellent idea, but it requires some knowledge, some capital, and the time and facilities to do it. Not just having an oven in your apartment, but the basic cookware you need to get stuff like that done. If you've never made a roast, are you going to know the inexpensive pan you need to do it, much less the cut of meat to buy and the way to cook it?

And again, it's not easy to go food shopping in inner cities. Food is less expensive and fresher in places with big supermarkets that compete with one another.

This is starting to dovetail with the thread about middle-class people failing.

But it might be more polite to assume that the person who is quoting prices is probably using numbers that are true in their part of the country.

It might be more polite. It might also be more polite to refrain from giving a sanctimonius lecture about how much food you can buy for ten dollars, without acknowledging that it might not buy you much at all, depending on your region.

When calculating the costs of preparing your own food, no one here is considering that their are other costs beyond the cost of the actual sustenence. When you cook it, you have to use either electricity or gas in most places. Then, you probably have to buy things incidental to the preparation (cling wrap, aluminium foil, etc). After you cook it and eat it, you have to clean up the dishes, costing more energy and you need some detergent. While its still no doubt cheaper in general to prepare you own food, there are other costs associated with cooking your own.

I can easily outstrip any fast food place where I live. This is probably true in most of America, though the margin of benefit is probably going to be very different some places.

Seriously, though, I have several coworkers born in other countries (three from India, one from Nigeria, one from Haiti) and every one of them says that the first thing they did when they came to America was gain weight - and not because the diets were higher in fat, but because the food was so much cheaper.

Sure, there are still problems, but they're getting smaller, and easier to manage, rather than larger, and harder to manage.

Guys, I shop at a supermarket located in a housing project in New York city. The selection certainly isn't wonderful, and the prices are outrageous compared even to a friend's supermarket across the river in Hoboken, much less a suburban or rural one. Nonetheless, there's simply no question that it is cheaper for me to prepare food at home than to buy it at McDonalds. A pound of hamburger is $2.79, buns can be had on sale for $1.00 (and bread will do nicely if they're not on sale), cheap American cheese is $1.29, and lettuce and tomato together are $1.00 more. I will exclude condiments, as their cost is trivial. Potatoes are pennies a pound, oil $1.00 a bottle, and soda $1.50 for 2 liters. That brings the grand total to perhaps $7.50 for four quarter-pounder with cheese super-sized extra value meals.

The numbers get even better when we don't try to replicate McDonalds, but branch out into stews, soups, beans-and-rice, noodle rings, and all the other contrivances by which our mothers managed to stretch a food dollar until you could see light through it.

What home cooked food takes is time, but even the most harried mother generally has eight hours on Sunday that she can stick meat and vegetables in a pot and let them sit on a back burner over low heat--and if you have the money to take a family of four to McDonalds, you have the $25 it takes to buy a crock pot at my local hardware store. The real issue is that the poor can't buy nutritious prepared food on their budgets--and given the choice between bad-for-you prepared food, and preparing time-consuming good-for-you meals, they choose the prepared food they can afford. Some of this is laziness (the same laziness, I'd point out, that makes middle-class mothers buy pre-prepped chickens and salads at the supermarket); some of it is ignorance about how bad for you fast food (or cheap foods like hot dogs and bologna are); some of it is preference; some of it is poor impulse control; some of it is status (immigrants, in particular, place a high social value on having crappy fatty meat on the table, rather than good-for-you grain-and-legume combos, which they associate with poverty); some of it is that there is less social stigma attached to overweight in poor communities, which removes much of the impetus for staying slim (we all claim to be losing weight for our health, but most of us are really doing it for our bikinis). But the issue is not that the poor are somehow financially unable to have healthy meals; they are making choices about what to eat that have bad health results, for a variety of reasons, only some of which are amenable to external help.

People eat poorly because we are genetically predisposed to liking fatty, salty, and sweet food. We are predisposed to this because our ancestors had to work their asses off to stay alive long enough to propagate their genes during what was commonly a nasty, short, and brutish lifespan. Thankfully, we don't live like Thag the Caveman anymore, but we have retained Thag's dietary preferences. If one wishes to make the case that the poor lack knowledge regarding what diet would be best for them, well, make that point (although with the amount of information on diet and exercise in the mass media today, it may not be easy), but to state that the poor cannot eat well because they lack sufficient money is simply false.

Cooking a roast is an excellent idea, but it requires some knowledge, some capital, and the time and facilities to do it. Not just having an oven in your apartment, but the basic cookware you need to get stuff like that done. If you've never made a roast, are you going to know the inexpensive pan you need to do it, much less the cut of meat to buy and the way to cook it?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the majority of Americans probably have access to an oven, stovetop, and an assortment of pots and pans. People do not become obese because they are too stupid to roast meat. Any cut of beef + heat = roast.

Comparing chips to apples by weight is ludicrous because apples are much, much heavier. A pound of chips is a huge bag. A pound of apples is two apples. Apples aren't particularly filling in my experience, either...

Comparing foodstuffs by cost per unit weight is the only intelligent way to do it, as far as I can see. (What method of comparison would you prefer?) Someone who eats chips until they get full is going to spend a heck of a lot more money than someone who eats apples until they get full. How many apples is in a pound depends on what kind of apples one buys, of course.

Perhaps it depends on where your poor relatives live and when they were talking about this. Heck, forget McDonald's; check out a Taco Bell menu.

I really don't think it matters where they live, or where they lived. I honestly can't believe that anyone thinks that fast food is cheaper than cook-it-yourself food. My experience has not born that out, and I really doubt anyone else's has either.

I can't believe you've actually done your own shopping. A can of corn is closer to a dollar, not 40 cents. A head of iceberg lettuce, the cheapest you can buy, is about a dollar. Some deli meat? What kind and how much? Most hams at the deli counter run about 5.00 a pound at the cheapest with some approaching 8.00. Roast beef costs more. A loaf Wonderbread costs abou $2.00. You also haven't put any condiments on the sandwich yet, either. It's a rare person who eats a deli sandwich dry. A jar of Helman's costs 4.39 at Fresh Direct. You can probably get a lesser brand for cheaper. A squeeze bottle of mustard is about a dollar.

You forgot cheese ;)

I get my cans of corn pretty regularly for 2/$100. Often the generic version is less.

A head of lettuce will make a lot of sandwiches, won't it? (or even, if we want to get crazy about our health, some sandwiches and a nice salad)

A pound of ham will make the equivalent of 20 quarter pounders, by my math. (This somewhat misses the point, as I wouldn't put a quarter pound of ham on my sandwich, and probably neither would you.) So the ham (which, if you use a quarter pound of it for your sandwich will be the most expensive item in the sandwich) at $5/lb costs a shiny quarter per sandwich, or 40 cents for your expensive ham.

Your $2 loaf of Wonder bread is going to make how many sandwiches, again? The reason I didn't mention mayo or mustard should, at this point, be obvious. Unless you've got some kind of eating disorder, you're not going to put enough mayo or mustard on the sandwich to significantly change the price. You can make dozens and dozens of sandwiches on one jar of mayo or mustard. That's why the little packets are free everywhere.

This seems to be a theme: Tell me, do you buy all new ingredients every time you make a sandwich?

With strict budgeting and planning, apparently, you can eat a whole week's worth of ham sandwiches on Wonderbread with canned corn (and people wonder why diabetes is a problem with "help" like this?) or take your choice of Birdseye frozen vegetable bags for lunch or dinner. Is this going to satisfy you physically? Maybe. Will it satisfy your palate? Tough call.

I'm sorry if you took my example of cheaper-than-McD's and also healthier-than-McD's as a suggested regular diet, but the fact that you did is your error, not mine. "Wonderbread" was suggested by someone arguing with me, not me. As for satisfying one's palate, I doubt fast food will do so, either.

It might be more polite. It might also be more polite to refrain from giving a sanctimonius lecture about how much food you can buy for ten dollars, without acknowledging that it might not buy you much at all, depending on your region.

I guess I'm going to remain sanctimonius. I simply don't believe that it's going to be cheaper (anywhere) to pay someone to prepare your food than it is to prepare your own food from more basic ingredients (even from more expensive grocery stores) I would feel less confident about my position if you didn't quote me the price of a jar of Helman's as if it actually made a significant impact on the price of a sandwich.

Regardless of what you eat or how much it costs,
if you are fat, you are eating too much of it. It may or may not be cheaper to get fat at McDonald's, but you'll be lots healthier, and thinner, and have more money, if you get the 'supersize', cut it in half and save the second part for tomorrow.

McDonalds is not making people fat. It is selling them the tools to do it themselves.

Let’s get something straight regarding the French stew that I occasionally prepare. I can fix this dish in a very inexpensive pot costing no more than $3.oo. On top of that, it can be cooked on a simple burner. One does not need a $5,000 Viking stove!:

http://www.vikingrange.com/welcome.html

Is it laziness, ignorance, or the combination of the two? Whatever, the poor in this country can easily eat nutritious meals at reasonable prices. The Democratic Party and its leftist buddies have got to stop making phony excuses for these people.

“I'd point out, that makes middle-class mothers buy pre-prepped chickens and salads at the supermarket”

Heck, I’ve also purchased prepared roasted chickens at various grocery stores. I normally spend around $4.99 for a slightly over 4 pound bird. The potato salad and/or cole slaw costs about $2. 75 for a 3 pound container. This is enough to feed 4-5 adults. Please do the math. I have not done any cooking whatsoever, and the meals still cost a bit more than $1.00 each.

Someone who eats chips until they get full is going to spend a heck of a lot more money than someone who eats apples until they get full.




That's where I disagree. For making me feel full, or even queasy, an ounce of chips goes a lot further than an ounce of apple.

head of lettuce will make a lot of sandwiches, won't it? (or even, if we want to get crazy about our health, some sandwiches and a nice salad)

I have never heard of anyone making a sandwich with just a head of lettuce, but you seem to the culinary expert around here.

As long as this thread has lowered itself into full "grain of Galt" mode, I should add that the rotisserie chickens I get at the store usually run more than $5 and there is no way in hell we feed 4 adults off of one of those things. 2, with leftovers for one person for lunch, maybe.

David, where did you say you lived again? I think I'm starting to learn why Massachusetts has the second-lowest rate of obesity in the country... we're the only state where lunch meat isn't $1.99/pound, apples aren't 2 for a dollar, canned vegetables aren't cheaper than cat food, and this bounty is available at stores on every street corner, even the most blighted.

See this article from Sunday NYTimes magazine about the poorest county in Texas, that also has rampant obesity among children.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/magazine/02OBESITY.html?oref=login

Sorry if someone mentioned it already. I'm racing between classes....

That's where I disagree. For making me feel full, or even queasy, an ounce of chips goes a lot further than an ounce of apple.

Do you disagree generally?

I would maintain that your case is rather unique.

Wouldn't you agree?

obvious. Unless you've got some kind of eating disorder, you're not going to put enough mayo or mustard on the sandwich to significantly change the price.

The point isn't that it significantly effects the cost of the sandwich, but it significantly effects the amount of money you have, which if you are poor, and trying to do this for ten dollars, matters a lot.

The stats are totally bogus. Food, compared to housing, transportation, etc is *incredibly cheap*. Talking about hungry here is as ridiculous as John Edward's lame story about the little girl who went cold because she could not afford a coat--when, in fact, used clothing is also so cheap here that much of it is exported in bulk to developing countries.

It is true that a lot of people at or near the poverty level eat poor diets, but that has much more to do with culture and education not lack of money. In fact, for many in that situation, if they won the lottery their diets probably wouldn't improve much (Elvis Presley being the poster child for that proposition). As others have pointed out, a well-balanced healthy diet can be had for very little if you're willing to eat brown rice & lentils, rather than quarter-pounders-with-cheese and supersized fries.

I'm not saying life of the working poor is easy--not at all--but the reasons are very different than they were for the poor in the 19th century (or for the poor in sub-saharan Africa). Poor people here have trouble affording housing, medical care, and reliable transportation--not food and clothing. And, in fact, most can afford things like TVs, DVD players, cable TV, and so on and *still* have trouble with housing, transportation, and medical care.

But that's just not as 'sexy' as talking about the poor going hungry (or shivering in the cold without a coat).

some sandwiches and a nice salad)

Since when is a salad with just iceberg lettuce a "nice" salad?

Well, for one thing there's poor, and then there's poor. Got an anecdote.

I was practically homeless for several months once when I was in college and out of work. Another student (whose parents paid for his apartment) let me sleep on his couch. I could use his stove and the shower at prearranged times. I could not store anything in the apartment, though, in case his parents (who had a key) came in and thought he was letting his girlfriend stay overnight.

So I was restricted to non-perishable items I could afford, could keep in my car for extended periods, and could cook very quickly or not at all. I ate a lot of canned soup and canned fruit.

But more often I was given fast food or junk food that my friends bought for themselves but didn't want... half a sub, an order of fries, a taco, a slice of pizza, the rest of a bag of chips.

I didn't starve, and it's a miracle that I didn't. But I did find out that junk food is simply more available to you when you are really down and out.

I don't know, but rereading the comments, I see that my original claim was "junk food is often cheaper and more accessable than fruits and vegetables," and that led to a bunch of challenges of "You're wrong, with some preparation I can make [x/y/z] meal for less than the cost of a super-size value meal" which misses the point I was making.

The stats are totally bogus. Food, compared to housing, transportation, etc is *incredibly cheap*. Talking about hungry here is as ridiculous as John Edward's lame story about the little girl who went cold because she could not afford a coat--when, in fact, used clothing is also so cheap here that much of it is exported in bulk to developing countries.

It is true that a lot of people at or near the poverty level eat poor diets, but that has much more to do with culture and education not lack of money. In fact, for many in that situation, if they won the lottery their diets probably wouldn't improve much (Elvis Presley being the poster child for that proposition). As others have pointed out, a well-balanced healthy diet can be had for very little if you're willing to eat brown rice & lentils, rather than quarter-pounders-with-cheese and supersized fries.

I'm not saying life of the working poor is easy--not at all--but the reasons are very different than they were for the poor in the 19th century (or for the poor in sub-saharan Africa). Poor people here have trouble affording housing, medical care, and reliable transportation--not food and clothing. And, in fact, most can afford things like TVs, DVD players, cable TV, and so on and *still* have trouble with housing, transportation, and medical care.

But that's just not as 'sexy' as talking about the poor going hungry (or shivering in the cold without a coat).

Brittain, just how many calories do you think an average adult needs on a daily basis? How many calories do you think are in a whole chicken? This thread has become surreal.

Actually, the ratio to look at is price per calorie, not per weight of unspecified food. Apples have an awful lot of water in them! Rice, however, is very cheap on the price-per-calorie index, for instance. Obviously you have to have some fruit and veg as well, and balanced protein. I've been eating very cheaply and very well (buying staples in bulk and cooking from scratch) for several years - spending about £10 a week for my husband and myself. It is very important to have at least a little capital equipment, plus know-how, but it's not THAT hard or expensive to acquire.

Here in London, I think the ethnic minorities are eating a lot better than the white poor - that's judging from the patronage of the street markets and the range and quality of foods at small groceries in the bad neighbourhoods nearest me. And I think this has everything to with many of the former groups perpetuating a better family & food culture (Theodore Dalrymple has written about this). The English should be ashamed of themselves.

33 million Americans don't know where their next meal is coming from

Will it be McDonald's? Arby's? Jack-in-the-Box?

The horror. The horror.

These percentages sound entirely plausible to me. I mean, I eat sausages all the time, and I haven't the faintest idea where those things come from.

"A pound of ham will make the equivalent of 20 quarter pounders, by my math. (This somewhat misses the point, as I wouldn't put a quarter pound of ham on my sandwich, and probably neither would you.) So the ham (which, if you use a quarter pound of it for your sandwich will be the most expensive item in the sandwich) at $5/lb costs a shiny quarter per sandwich, or 40 cents for your expensive ham."

Your math is wrong. 1/4 lb. per sandwich x 20 sandwiches = 5 pounds.

"That's where I disagree. For making me feel full, or even queasy, an ounce of chips goes a lot further than an ounce of apple."

1 oz. of apple is not a full serving. That would be I think about 1/4 of one apple. You're comparing apples and oranges, so to speak.

OK, people, listen up.

Poverty is not caused just by not having enough income. Poverty is caused by not knowing how to manage money. Poor people are basically ignorant (I include myself during the time period mentioned above, because I did not know anything about how to get help or how to game the system). Someone can be in debt over their heads becuase they bought a car and a house and a bunch of furniture and electronics, but be scared to work things out with their creditors. In such a case many people find it easier to skimp on food.

If poor people were smart enough to think of and implement all the clever thrifty suggestions you guys mentioned above, they would probably not be poor for very long. I figured some of the stuff out, and I was not poor for very long, so I know it can be done.

Knowledge is freedom, too...

The only people starving in America are 16 year old girls in suburbia, the Olsen twins, and some supermodels.

Since when is a salad with just iceberg lettuce a "nice" salad?

When you pour some $5.00 a bottle dressing on it.

By the way, a slow cooker, which makes cheap cuts of meat tender and delicious, runs $3 to $5 at the thrift stores where we buy them. The mesquite ham we are making our sandwiches from this week was $2 a pound at the ghetto Jewel (Albertsons affiliate) where we shop because nothing exotic sells there; we bought them out of the entire 5 pounds remaining.

I have never heard of anyone making a sandwich with just a head of lettuce, but you seem to the culinary expert around here.

Not a particularly intellectually honest response. Lettuce is a cheap, healthful food. You can use it in a lot of things. My point was that one can make a less expensive and more healthful (though not quite what I would classify as 'healthful') meal for less money than you can buy a meal at McDonald's.

Obviously, one would use some lettuce in their sandwiches, and the rest in something else. (If you noticed, I even offered a suggestion)

Since when is a salad with just iceberg lettuce a "nice" salad?

Look, it's the same straw argument again. You can use lettuce to make a sandwich (no, not 'just' lettuce) or a salad (no, not 'just' lettuce).

The point isn't that it significantly effects the cost of the sandwich, but it significantly effects the amount of money you have, which if you are poor, and trying to do this for ten dollars, matters a lot.

The point only valid if we live in a universe where we have to buy all of our groceries at the same time. A head of lettuce can last a week and can be used to make many different dishes. Mayo and mustard last much longer.

I don't know, but rereading the comments, I see that my original claim was "junk food is often cheaper and more accessable than fruits and vegetables," and that led to a bunch of challenges of "You're wrong, with some preparation I can make [x/y/z] meal for less than the cost of a super-size value meal" which misses the point I was making.

I think you're largely correct. For instance, if you note the second paragraph I put in this thread (in response to your assertion), you'll see that I'm disputing your use of the cost assertion, (since I think you're wrong about it) not your point (upon which we agree).

Since then, I've mostly been arguing with Herman on the issue of whether one can eat more cheaply and healthfully on less money if one prepares the food themselves.

Perhaps you and I can agree that the poor eat junk food from fast food places primarily because it's easier, not because they don't have sufficient funds to buy from the grocery store.

"Since when is a salad with just iceberg lettuce a 'nice' salad?"

Haven't you heard of a bachelor salad? Take a head of iceberg lettuce in one hand, and a bottle of salad dressing in the other. Stand over the sink. Take a bite from the head of lettuce, then a swig of salad dressing. Repeat.

I often eat salads with just lettuce, or with lettuce and half a cucumber. Cucumbers are 50 cents each at the local supermarket.

Oh, forget it. You guys are redefining "poor" as something more like "not overly comfortable and somewhat short of cash." So long as you ignore what real poverty is like, this is not a valid discussion.

Oh, forget it. You guys are redefining "poor" as something more like "not overly comfortable and somewhat short of cash." So long as you ignore what real poverty is like, this is not a valid discussion.

"Since when is a salad with just iceberg lettuce a 'nice' salad?"

Haven't you heard of a bachelor salad? Take a head of iceberg lettuce in one hand, and a bottle of salad dressing in the other. Stand over the sink. Take a bite from the head of lettuce, then a swig of salad dressing. Repeat.

I often eat salads with just lettuce, or with lettuce and half a cucumber. Cucumbers are 50 cents each at the local supermarket.

I have heard an oncologist say that he eats beans everyday. Beans and rice are the best staple and very cheap. Yes, you have to think about the meal in advance as they take time to cook, but you can eat off that pot for several days. Yes, they are not exciting foods, but they will fill you up and keep you healthy. Add a corn tortilla and you have a great meal. If you can afford a sauce and some fresh veggies to go with it, all the better. It becomes a mind set. Getting the information may play into it.

Barbara Ehrenreich is an unabashed lefty whose drivel usually makes me want to cringe. But I unreservedly recommend her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. It should be at your politically-correct public library, and I think Ms. Ehrenreich will be pleased to hear that you did not cut down any trees for your own copy, or further enrich the faceless monolithic publishing company.

Anyway, the book really drives home the point that for the poor the choice between a double cheeseburger and a bag of apples has almost nothing to with what they cost, either absolutely or relative to each other. Some of the above comments have scratched the surface of this, but the array of things that stand between the working poor and good nutrition is surprising. Actually the array of things that stand between the poor and "good choices" of many kinds is surprising.

Many of the comments are of the character "if the poor would only exercize some ingenuity, solutions would fall like rain." If that is your view, you really need to read this book, it will open your eyes.

Your math is wrong. 1/4 lb. per sandwich x 20 sandwiches = 5 pounds.

Oops. Thanks for the correction.

i said i was numerate and literate, never said that i had perfect typing...

anyways, this is completely inane and insane as a discussion. anyone, anywhere can make food cheap enough and healthy enough if they are in the US.

just as an example: Macaroni & Cheese, Ramen Noodles, canned soup

all of these are cheaper on a cost per calorie basis than mcd's. soup is even healthier for you

i do love how the standards keep rising: the poor must be able to make quick, cheap, healthy, tasty food that requires no capital (not even a hot plate) where all ingredients (even if they form more than one meal) in total cost less than a happy meal

britan33: a nice salad for me has 20 year old balsamic vinegar, extra virgin single vineyard olive oil from tuscany, radiccio, watercress, endive, escarole, spinach, carrots, onions, mushrooms, red, green, and yellow peppers, tomatoes, hand grated parma-reggiano and a few prawns. but, in terms of argument, some iceberg lettuce a few slices of celery and some oil is nice enough if you're on a budget.

the vast vast vast majority of the planning poor will buy a deep freezer. then they will either go hunting or save up or split a side of beef. cut that up, stick it in the deep freeze, and you have base for a lot of meals

buy one of those insanely large bags of rice at the grocery store (the ones that are almost solely purchased by restaurants or immigrant families), buy a bag of oats of similar size, buy root vegetables (onions, carrots, potatoes) in large quantities that store...

then cook peasant food, stews, roasts, etc... its amazing that the left don't know how to stretch a dollar... pretty much everyone here was poor 3-5 generations ago, or close enough that the family had to learn tricks like this. you have to be so completely insanely stupid to not be capable of feeding yourself cheaply and healthily that it is beyond worthless to discuss those incapable of doing this.

the people who can't cook for themselves are likely to be psychotic, homeless, or have severe drug problems (likey 2 or more). the others just don't feel like it. I know i sure as hell don't but then i can buy my way out of trouble... these are not secret strategies here, every group of humans everywhere in the world has had to stretch food, either due to lack of cash, harsh climate, war, or overly fleet or dangerous prey

you have to be so completely insanely stupid to not be capable of feeding yourself cheaply and healthily

There we go, that's the conclusion of the thread. Declare a large proportion of the country "completely insanely stupid," take your victory lap, and go home.

It's been my experience that food is definitely cheaper and more abundant in middle-class areas than in poor inner-city areas. One problem is crime and the high cost of grocery and other types of retail stores operating in poor inner-city areas because of it. Clean up the crime rate in the inner-city and there will be better, cheaper and more abundant food available to the residents. . .of course the left rarely wants to do anything real about crime. They often claim that poverty causes crime, but they never address the fact that often, crime causes poverty by pushing jobs and decent-priced stores out of poor neighborhoods. Softness on crime = poverty promotion.

PS -- My favorite cheap meal when I was a single parent was hard-boiled eggs, wheat toast and oranges. Protein, starch and Vitamin C for a very little outlay then, and it really hasn't changed much since then. I often get a 36-egg flat of eggs at my local Safeway for about 3 bucks and they often have buy-one, get-one free deals for that same price, or 72 eggs for $3. I sometimes turn down the "get-on free" offer nowadays because I can't possibly use that many eggs at my current lifestyle before they will get bad.

Also spaghetti with meat sauce is ridiculously cheap, and it's even cheaper (and healthier) if you use turkey hamburger instead of regular hamburger.

Food in California (outside some metropolitan inner-city areas, and of course in remote mountain areas where transportation is a factor) is so cheap that often homeowners who maintain say, orange trees, will let the fruit rot on the ground while they buy ready-made orange juice from Safeway.

They're ignoring several things, like the fact that many poor people are technically transient, staying in overnight hotels (at a higher price) because they can't raise the first-and-last most apartment complexes require.

These hotel rooms do not have stoves or refrigerators, generally.

All of this talk about preparing food cheaply assumes certain things, like stoves and food storage. It's incredibly hard to make cheap meals when you can't store food someplace cool or bug-free, and when you don't even have a pot to your name.

And everybody talks about produce, when *I've* been in supermarkets where I wouldn't dare buy the vegetables due to mold— and those were in comparatively good neighborhoods. What happens when someone is trapped into buying from the only local store, and they don't take care of their produce?

You have to see this kind of poverty to believe it. It isn't pretty.

Many of the comments are of the character "if the poor would only exercize some ingenuity, solutions would fall like rain."

If so, it's because stories like this Reuters one keep repeating an often heard theme "healthy food is more expensive than junk food". If these stories would instead address "it's easier to eat junk than to eat healthy", the discussion that follows might be more productive.

Joe, I must say that I found Ehrenreich's book unreadable, due to the overwhelming condescension exhibited towards the people she writes of.

buy one of those insanely large bags of rice at the grocery store (the ones that are almost solely purchased by restaurants or immigrant families)

My roomates are a brother and sister from India. They make rice and homemade flatbread (I don't know how to spell it - they pronounce it 'chipatay') and we eat cheaply when they do.

They buy the insanely large bags of rice, and flour.

My cooking is a little bit more expensive, primarily because I use meat.

Oh, forget it. You guys are redefining "poor" as something more like "not overly comfortable and somewhat short of cash." So long as you ignore what real poverty is like, this is not a valid discussion.

I think the difference between the two was the original point of the blog post. Megan is arguing that the numbers of people living in 'real poverty' are overstated by Reuters.

Food in California (outside some metropolitan inner-city areas, and of course in remote mountain areas where transportation is a factor) is so cheap that often homeowners who maintain say, orange trees, will let the fruit rot on the ground while they buy ready-made orange juice from Safeway.

How many of the poor are homeowners with orange trees in their backyards? And even if they were, free oranges does not a diet make.

Are these "food insecure" poor folks smoking their food stamps or what?

I regularly cook and shop for my family (of 5). Spaghetti is incredibly cheap. I get a jar of sauce for $1.50 (on average) and a bag of noodles for $.50. We like parmesan cheese on it (the can costs about $3.00, but it lasts for several servings, even with the way my daughter pours it on). I take the leftovers for lunch the next day. Serve with milk (about $2/gallon, but we don't drink the whole thing in a day) and cooked peas (from frozen, about $1/bag), or salad (estimate about $2-$3), throw in a loaf of french bread (grocery stores sell them for a buck), and the meal is under $7, and I have lunch the next day. If you want hamburger in the sauce, add another couple of dollars, but it isn't necessary. It's easy and healthy and fast (total prep is under 30 minutes).

Canned soup (like Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable) costs about $1/can that feeds 2 people. 2 cans feeds my family (3 young 'uns), and throw in 5 grilled cheese sandwiches (half a loaf = $1, though I can go cheaper, cheese = $2, margerine = $.25), and my family has supper for about $5.

Fact is, carrots, potatoes, peppers, oranges, apples, etc, are at worst slightly more expensive than junk food (chips, corn dogs, etc.), are cheaper than fast food, and healthier as well. And the skills it takes to make meals isn't that difficult.

Eggs are a fantastic bargain. A dozen cost around $1 and can be the basis for 4 - 6 substamntial breakfasts or lunches. Powdered milk is another cheap, healthful food.

the vast vast vast majority of the planning poor will buy a deep freezer. then they will either go hunting or save up or split a side of beef. cut that up, stick it in the deep freeze, and you have base for a lot of meals.

The hunting option isn't one that is available in urban areas, where large numbers of the poor live. Here in New York, some do try to supplement by fishing, but this is not practicle and is unhealthy in the long run, as the fish they catch have contaminents and aren't safe to eat in large quantities on a regular basis. As for the deep freezer, I know plenty of non-poor that can't afford to just go out and buy one, and where exactly do you put in an apartment in a place like NYC? There are people who are emphatically NOT poor in this city who don't have the space for items much smaller than that.

Pease porridge hot; pease porridge cold; pease porridge in the pot, nine days old.

i do love how the standards keep rising: the poor must be able to make quick, cheap, healthy, tasty food that requires no capital (not even a hot plate) where all ingredients (even if they form more than one meal) in total cost less than a happy meal

Heh. I want to be able to do that.

Yes, there will always be the cases where people can't cook because they are transient or don't have utilities or other reasons. But we have an obesity problem in this country. All those millions of people being written about are not out on the street. If this were just about the homeless, it wouldn't be seen as a health epidemic/crisis. Go to a third world country, you will see real hunger. As someone said: "I want to live in a country where the poor people are fat."

If poor people were smart enough to think of and implement all the clever thrifty suggestions you guys mentioned above, they would probably not be poor for very long.

Knowledge is freedom, too...

Speedwell makes an excellent point. Yes, fast food is more expensive than fixing food at home, but it takes some knowledge. Most Americans know how to fix a sandwich, or at least open a can of spaghettios (shudder). Even buying Stouffer's frozen dinners is (a bit) cheaper and (a bit) healthier than McDonald's.

In effect, many of the poor we are looking at have been through a filtering process; we've already filtered out the ones who can get their act together enough to buy a crockpot or assemble the ingredients to make good sandwiches. Those people (mostly) aren't poor any more; it's the people who are left who we're seeing.

When I was about 20, I lived on black bean soup and carrots for a month. The total monthly food bill was about $40.

I was trying to save money, but it was mostly just one of those things you do when you are that age.

Back on the subject of this post, I suggest anyone who has a TV shouldn't be complaining they don't know where their next meal comes from. Also, there are many soup kitchens and food banks. As someone said above, transportation and housing are much more challenging to those below the poverty line, apart from a few remote rural areas where transportation and food are related.

I grew up in a 2-parent-4-kid family supported off of a USAF enlisted man's paycheck (~36-40k/yr.). I ate beans and cornbread twice a week and cabbage soup at least once a week. Hunger in America is a myth. If you are budgeting correctly, you can eat just fine, even on a minimum wage job. Listening to Manhattan jackoffs whine about how much their food costs disgusts me. Oh, is the poor little Yankee hungry....move to a place where the cost of living ain't quite so pricey then. It's the frickin' United States, nobody's stopping you. Wh..what's that? You like where you live? Then quit bitching about and trying to 'solve' problems that don't exist.

Like some of the other posters have stated - America is a country where the poor are fat. You want to see poverty? Go to Manila, where my mother is from. Where the truly poor are rooting around garbage piles for something to eat. This is a country where people have to invent crises like this to inflate their moral vanity.

Eggs are a fantastic bargain. A dozen cost around $1

No, really, I feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone/Switzerland/Santa Barbara even though my city is only half-gentrified, half-working class. Eggs cost $2.50/dozen at the store. Maybe some generics are $1.99. I don't understand.

Kim, the people who live in hotels as transients aren't what we think of as "homeless," even though they might qualify under the loosest definitions. It includes a large number of working poor who don't have a permanent home.

I spent a couple of years on the standard Grad Student Diet (spaghetti with tuna in the tomato sauce, Ramen, the odd canned veggies) and survived it. Believe me, much, much cheaper than eating two meals a day at Mickey D's. Equipment required: one stovetop and two really cheap saucepans. (Seriously, for awhile I was boiling water for coffee in one of those. So add: one funnel and a bunch of coffee filters.)

There are people in the United States who don't have access to a stovetop. There are not 33 million of them.

Re packaged and/or "fast" food vs. fresh: I used to work in the Mission District in San Francisco. In our general neighborhood there was a McDonald's and a Burger King. In between them were an Asian market full of incredibly cheap produce; a very cheap Vietnamese pho restaurant; a very cheap (and good) taqueria; a terrific Indian restaurant with a cheap all-you-can-eat lunch buffet; and a good Safeway where you could get all manner of fresh veggies and other wholesome things cheaply (not so cheaply as at the little Asian market, but cheaply enough). Across the street from that was a sort of grocery outlet store, where you could get whatever was overstocked, I suppose.

In other words, anyone who fell back on McD and Burger King in that neighborhood wasn't doing so for lack of alternatives.

Britain33, I too feel like you're in the Twilight Zone. I shop in a ghetto market in the most expensive city in the nation, and eggs here cost $1.70 for 12 normal eggs, $2.50 for the expensive cage-free eggs that I buy on a very limited food budget. Your sense of what the poor pay for food is out of whack.

Sorry for the repeated earlier posts. The server apparently didn't appreciate the Instalanche.

To answer the raging debate of whether fast food is cheaper than homemade food, let's look at it logically. Compare the ingredients that go into a McDonald's meal as bought at a grocery store to the cost of the meal at McDonald's. McDonald's food costs less for two reasons: they buy wholesale (no grocery store markup), and they buy in bulk, getting discounts above even what the grocery stores get. McDonald's food costs more for several reasons: they prepare the food, and they cover overhead of buildings, advertisement, employee salaries, executive compensation, and so on.

The exercise for the reader: is the amount by which McDonald's food is cheaper, due to the factors above, less than or more than the amount by which the food is more expensive?

Fascinating discussion. I agree that regional and urban/rural differences may have an effect here... also, remember that lack of a car makes shopping pretty tough. You may only be able to buy a few days' worth of food at a time (what you can carry home on the subway) and this makes stocking up more difficult.

My other observation: It's more than just calories, it's nutritional content and the protein/carbohydrate/fiber/fat balance. The cheapest ingredients are air, water, white flour, sugar, and vegetable oil----mostly empty calories. White rice is cheap----and nearly nutrition-free. White-flour pasta is cheap----again, nearly nutrition-free. A diet containing mostly refined flour and sugar can, paradoxically, leave you both obese AND hungry.

I am super lazy. i used to buy cooked chicken at the supermarket for about the cost of a big burger and strech it over all the next two lunches and two dinners by making sandwiches with some vegies. I also liked peanut butter sandwiches and jam ones.
Not too unhealthy but 1/4 the cost of fast food and Significantly less time and effort required!
tase - maybe not quite as good - although chutney pepper etc helps.
And that canned tuna was good also. And rice in the big 10kg bags.
I didnt ever use the stove and a flatmate had a rice cooker.

From the other side however the problem is

Poor people are (on average) poor because they cannot manage money well, if you start expecting them to manage money well all that is likely to happen is that you will be disapointed.

You can write off these people like you can write off anyone or you can actually try to help them.
But saying "why dont you manage your money effectively!" could be just as effective as saying "why dont you get all A's in your exams!" to a student or "why dont you make more money" to those same poor people.

When Jane wrote out her justification for choosing Bush over Kerry, I seem to recall that she said something along the lines of, "the Republicans I've talked to seem really excited about the possibility of addressing the problems of the poor." I admit I was suspicious at the time; I'd guessed that we'd hear exactly word zero about the problems of the poor from Republicans.

It turns out I was wrong. In the space of a week, Jane, Mindles, and the commenters have fleshed out the Republican policy towards the poor. To wit:

1. Those tricksy bastards (Dems) are wildly overstating the problems [this post];
2 A lot of the problems associated with the lower end of the income scale are a result of the stupidity of the poor (and really, what can you do with the stupid?) [this post];
3. Almost all Republicans have suffered through much more trying times than any of the poor have faced - and they've kept the aspidistra flying, dammit; the poor need to stop whining [this post];
4. Mercy is twice blessed because it is given; it cannot be commanded by the government. If someone has screwed up and doesn't get another chance - well, they made their own bed. That someone else, with a different background, has had a second chance (or however many chances one gets in getting from 20 to 40 as a drunk) is of no import whatsoever, and people who are envious of the latter group should have had the forethought to have better parents. Indeed, even asking that we temper our scorn for them is too much - might be a disincentive to change [drug post];
5. Of course, the poor don't need to have forethought because we keep cosseting them. If we let a few old people starve to death on the streets, they'd smarten up, work harder, and start investing; doing anything at all to help the poor merely robs them of the incentive to improve their lot [SS post];
6. Occasionally, you run across the very rare situation where it's hard to entirely blame the poor for their situation, like natural disasters. In those cases, we may give them some help. But, before doing so, it's important to note
- that they've done very little for us;
- that they are insufficiently grateful at the moment of the crisis;
- that if we're going to put aside our principles and help them, we must get credit!
[stingy post].

I admit that I don't think much of these "policies," and I'm suspicious of their ability to address any of the problems associated with the poor (if any such problems exist, that is), but I give y'all credit for being relatively forthright about it. And hey, you might be right. What say we cut off the federal money to those slacker Red states to "incentivize" them into getting off their stupid, cosseted, whiney asses? And, obviously, require that they continually thank anyone they meet who lives in a blue state. Anyone? Anyone?

a burger is $4.99 plus tax, I think the problem lies in what people choose to consume, not their available options.

Where the @#$@#*& %@# are you buying your burgers?
===============================
Certainly not in Swiss McDonalds, where one large fries, plus medium orange juice plus one coffee (no burger) = US $ 12.50 (or 9.5 Euros)

Bargain! No wonder some MacD´s get bombed...

I am a college student. I have been for 5 years or so, on and off. I am flat out broke nearly all the time. Many times when I was a student in NY state, I collected bottles for the deposit so I could go buy dinner. I'm the asshole in the checkout who pays for a half cart of food with a sock full of nickels.

To those who say that healthy food is more expensive than junk food, I say you're full of crap. Utterly, completely, brimming with crap. 10 pounds of it in a 5 pound bag.

I had this conversation with a fellow student -- a young lady who was a freshman, first time away from home -- recently. When I asked her to name which healthy foods were expensive and which junk foods were cheap.

Turns out, this girl though "healthy" food consisted of both all manner of expensive 'organic' produce, and processed 'low-fat' foods. See, according to her logic, a box of Oreos is "junk food", while a box of Snackwells is "healthy food".

Is this what we get for millions of dollars in public health education in our schools?

I have an important public service announcement for everyone:

JUNK FOOD IS F#$%@ing EXPENSIVE!!!!!!!!!

I can eat real food for an entire day for the cost of two (2!!!) large candy bars, a medium bag of chips, or a soda and snack from a vending machine. The price of 2 value meals at McDonalds can feed me more than a week.

Learn how to cook, or better yet find roommates who can. Buy and cook real food. Take 15 minutes of the time spent parking your ass in front of the TV, and park your ass in front of the sink washing dishes or cooking instead. (you can cheat and still be in sight of the TV, though) For a long time I had to eat on $2 a day, sometimes less. I did fine. Rice, all manner of beans and vegatables, breaded chicken, eggs (eat the whites, if your cholesterol is an issue) and pancakes, sheeskabobs with lean beef peppers and mushrooms, and so on.

Think about how much food you can buy for $15. Real food, not junk. I can easily carry $100 of junk food in my arms. Try carrying $100 worth of rice, 99 cent wheat bread, dried beans and bargain meat cuts.

That girl then complained that poor people are obese because they eat too much junk food. Poor? I make $7,000 a year. I'm not poor, im ABSOFREAKINGLUTELY POOR.

I see those 400 pound people on Springer who probably make twice what I do. I hypothesize that many of those people are poor because they're fat and eat lots of junk food, not the other way around. I could never in a million years afford to eat like that.

I'd also like to note the option of bypassing the produce section of the grocery store altogether and simply growing your own vegatables. It's really, really easy to grow tomatoes, peppers and other small vegetables indoors in pots. Unless you're living in an underground plastic bubble you have a sunlight, dirt, and water. If you have a couple square feet of soil and you're below the arctic circle then you can also grow lettuce, zuchinni, melons, or almost anything else that you like for negligable amounts of money.

You can't feed a whole family from such a tiny garden, of course, but you can make things you buy a lot more tasty and nutritious. Of course, if you're too lazy to make a sandwich for yourself then gardening is probably out of the question. And it would probably never occur to you in the first place, since schools don't teach anyone how to grow vegetables. Or how to cook or budget money, apparently. Home economics classes must be out of style.

Damn, Tim -- you are poor! I think the poverty level for one person in this country is $9,000. Whoa.

" "food insecurity" is rather more tame than "don't know where their next meal is coming from""

They're pretty close. More accurately, "food insecure" means "didn't don't know where their next meal was coming from at some point in the last year", which is different than "went hungry".

I'm not a big fan of using "food insecurity" as a metric, because it tells us only of the problem, not of how well the solutions are working. After all, if you ARE food insecure, or even food insecure with hunger, after a day or two you're probably going to go to a food bank, or apply for food stamps, after which you DO know where your next meal is coming from.

So the PERTINANT questions are, "how many people are not sufficiently served by food security safety nets?", and to a lesser extent, "how many people are hungry, but unaware of food security safety nets?"

BTW, a 14 oz can of pinto beans is 49 cents at the local supermarket...cheaper when they go on sale. That, with a bit of shredded cheese and some hot sause makes one of my favorite South Beach Diet meals. Even with a salad, you're talking about a sub $2 meal for 2.

Another fave is black bean soup made with sausage, which doesn't cost much more. Mmmm...

For my own benefit, I went to a small grocery store in a poorer part of town (Atlanta, btw) this evening. (This grocery store was right across the street from a bus station)

The corn I bought (Del Monte) was $0.48 per can, and they had a special on the generic green beens, at 4 cans for a dollar.

SomeCall:

"What say we cut off the federal money to those slacker Red states to "incentivize" them into getting off their stupid, cosseted, whiney asses?"

Sure. Cut off social security payments and Medicare coverage to all those retirees in the (mostly) red-state Sunbelt; fire everyone in the military and cut off military pensions (the "red" states, and especially the South, have a relatively higher concentration of military bases and veterans, since red-staters seem to serve disproportionately compared to bluies); close all those national parks in the red-voting West and sell off the vast federal lands there so you don't have to pay the maintenance and staffing; take the progressivity out of the income tax so the (relatively richer) blue states don't pay more in taxes than the less-affluent red states.

Somehow this doesn't sound like something a liberal would support if he thought it through.

Tom: Don't forget to cut out the subsidies to all of those farming (red) states which allow there to be relatively inexpensive, healthy food (and cheap junk food) that not only feeds US but a large portion of the world (including the poor everywhere).

But then, this is probably getting off topic...

Haven't finished with the comments, yet, but has anyone mentioned meatloaf and potatoes yet? :)

...sunlight, dirt, and water...

That's about all it takes not to have to spend any money on reefer either.

Tom:

"Somehow this doesn't sound like something a liberal would support if he thought it through."

I think you are working on the basis of a few misunderstandings.

First, don't confuse "Democrat" with your particular understanding of "liberal." Most of the Dems I know (inc. myself) count ourselves in the fiscally conservative, socially liberal group - a group that includes an increasingly small number of centrist Republicans. In general, we're OK with not watching the govt. piss away money (see, e.g., some of the complaints about the pointless war in Iraq).

Second, I think you misunderstimate how worried at least some Dems were just after the election about possible Red state effects on some of our most cherished rights (like the right of a citizen to a trial and a lawyer). A lot of that has died away for now, but it'll come back once we get the AG-T, and if Republicans win in '06 and '08.

I've been arguing roughly for your suggestion since the day after the election. Or rather, I've been arguing that we should push for strong federalism - devolve SS, Medicare, etc. to the states, tie benefits to length of residence, and let the states do what they want (and risk pool with those states they feel comfortable pooling with). Reduce all federal taxes. Blue states will likely pick-up most of the programs and some of the taxes, but with the reduction in outgo, we'll probably still have enough for a tax cut. (And we might be able to pick up a few western states (CO, e.g.) with such a program). If Red states want to do away with every social program in existence, so be it. If you want to turn Alaska into an Arctic Disneyland, so be it. Hell, maybe you're right - if you are, we'll absolutely copy you. I'll feel bad about throwing some of our constituencies under the bus, but we're not in much of a position to help them anyway. The first rule of life is to survive - if Dems feel that their Blue state values (like the right to a trial) are endangered, we'll do a deal. (Obviously, this will take some time to work out, but I'd bet that some of the work has already been done by the Federalist Society).

Cardeblu:

"Don't forget to cut out the subsidies to all of those farming (red) states which allow there to be relatively inexpensive, healthy food (and cheap junk food) that not only feeds US but a large portion of the world (including the poor everywhere)."

I'm under the impression that we give the subsidies so that Red farming states can compete with the much lower costs of world produce makers. I like competition, and I like free markets, so I'm OK with buying my fruit from Mexico and my beef from Argentina. So I'm with you on getting rid of the subsidies too.

People who do not know, even for a short period of time, where their next meal is going to come from are not the working poor, they are the unemployed. More, usually the unemployed who are not accustomed to being such and do not know how to get help. What type of meal, "fast food" vs "healthy" vs "cheap", does not apply.

So OK, on to the anecdotes of how-I-do/did-it. For over three years, which is how long it took for the Gubmint to acknowledge that I cannot work, I lived in a place which did not allow a toaster, hot-plate, toaster-oven, candles, Sterno, or anything else that heated. There was, by grace of the landlord, one microwave per floor, so we actually could cook to some extent from 8AM to 10PM. But no refrigerators, so forget meat other than canned. Or milk, with the occasional exception of Parmalat (which does not need refrigeration until opened). There were a couple of used-to-be-someone's-basement groceries within walking distance (for those who could walk), but I had to take two buses to get to a regular market twice a month, which is how often I could afford the $3 it took.

I actually came to like a cup of rice (20 pounds at $5) mixed with a can of beef gravy ($0.50-$0.75 on sale, $1.10 normally)!!!

But I also ran into some of those with lack of knowledge, for whatever reasons. Putting something into a microwave without removing it from the cardboard packaging can produce startling results, and large amounts of smoke... Before getting the room there, I had spent two months at a shelter: three times, someone tried to make buttered toast by putting butter on bread and then putting it into the toaster. In both places, most worked at least part-time and could afford at least once a day at McD's or BK's - and did.

How many give up and buy pre-made meals?

Let's not forget the self-control element. If you haven't possessed the self-control necessary to go to college and get a better job -- bringing about your poverty -- you are rather unlikely to have the self-control necessary to bake skinless chicken (4.39/pound) and eat something sensible with it.

Add this laziness to the higher rates of smoking ($4.50 a pack X 1 pack-a-day X 30 days = $135 a month) and regular drinking (say, minimally, $30 a month), and I think you could see areas where the poor could carve out more of a healthy food budget while carving out less room on the sofa.

eggs here cost $1.70 for 12 normal eggs,

Jane, that's a lot closer to the $1.99 I cited than the $1 that the person I replied to had said!

I agree that there is an adequate safety net concerning food in the US (the original article said that only some 3% during at least ONE point last year felt hungry--yes, this is the newly unemployed not on foodstamps, and the mentally challenged. Further, about 99% of the 3% have access to free/affordable food to avoid constant hunger). That said, I'm all for the gov't and private charities helping even more to enhance the quality & distribution of subsidized food.

Objectively, junk food is much more expensive, even in cities where produce is twice as high as elsewhere. My wife feeds our family of four very well on $100 per month of groceries (she's frugal!), plus about $100/month to eat out/order in once per week. Note that $100 of rice lasts over a year, vs. 10 days of junk food (2 meals/day + snack) for $100. But this is NOT the issue.

I work with the poor daily. Most poor (not "broke") people really do lack wisdom in the US; many lack average intelligence; many have learned lies of advertisers and culture. There is nothing condescending or contempuous in acknowledging this. Education and budgeting are painfully difficult for most Americans, especially the poor. The answer is not to say "tough" but to keep being generous (even when some food is "wasted")--and be generous in education. I really like the above public service announcement: JUNK FOOD IS #$%@ EXPENSIVE!!!! We should see a lot of this. CABLE TV, CELL PHONES, CD's/DVD's, CIGARETTES, BOOZE, DRUGS, etc. are all EXPENSIVE!!!! Everyone getting public assistance should repeatedly get such information, because tax money is being wasted through ignorance/mis-education. I also think government should expand its help to the poor by having more case workers to help with budgeting or even temporary managing finances until better skills are learned. Now this is only done with severly disabled/very low IQ persons. Teaching wisdom takes a lot of time, but it can be done, and the effort is worth it for all of society in the end.

I live in Indiana, one of the poorest states and I see people buy groceries with food stamps all the time. Want to know what's in the typical shopping cart of these people? Junk food. Always junk food. Typically purchased in the most inefficient way possible. For example, instead of buying a large bag of cheatos, the 300 lb welfare case will buy 50 small packs of cheatos. Several 6 packs of coke. Several candy bars and then throw in a small box of generic grape nuts.

These stats are completely misleading if not flat-out wrong. The poor of Indiana are fat as cows and just as poor because of decisions like that. I am not kidding, I've see people buy $80 worth of chips and sweets with foodstamps. Do you realize how much ground beef, chicken and canned vegtables that can buy?

The arugment that the poor can't afford reliable transportation is equally dubios because I see it every day.

Only in the U.S. can someone be poor (even jobless) and still get to live in a 3BD appartment, have multiple vehicles, cable TV and enough food to maintain a healthy 300lbs.

Why? I suspect its because the organizations (private and gov't) and political parties (guess which one) need someone to "help" in order to exist and be legitamate.

Here's my "I was poor" story:

I was in college working in the lab during the summer between sessions. I had a paycheck coming in, but not for two weeks. I had $48 and the rent was paid. I was living in a dorm, though: no cooking of any kind! So, three bucks a day, no frills.

I found a restaurant that had a half-chicken and all you can eat salad bar for $1.75 (this is the 1970's). I would go there every night and stuff myself. For breakfast, a packet of peanuts, 25 cents from a machine on my way to the lab. For lunch, an order of fries from McDonalds, about 50 cents. Plus tax, of course. Every three or four days, I would have an extra 50 cents, and I would splurge by going over the beer joint and buying a longneck (and eating some of their free bar nuts). I didn't particularly enjoy this, but it wasn't too bad and I didn't lose any weight.

Even if you can't cook, there are LOTS of places where you can get a LOT of food cheaply. I now regularly eat at a chinese/vietnamese all you can eat lunch buffet that is only $5 (but the iced tea will run it up to $6.50). The food is quite good, nutritous if you want it to be and in huge variety.

There are no doubt desperately poor and hungry people in the US. There just aren't a lot of them. We would be a LOT better off trying to find and fix these few than worrying about 33 million people (a dubious statistic at best) who are "food insecure" or some other bogus statistic.

Here's a question: When is the last time you heard of someone dying of malnutrition in the US? I don't think I've EVER heard of it. No doubt it has happened, but it seems to be pretty rare.

Some call Me Tim, it really is quite difficult to grasp why you indentify yourself as a Democrat, since a candidate who supported strong federalism (with residency tests for benefits, no less!) has about as much chance of gaining a Democratic nomination for dog-catcher, to say nothing of President, Governor, or Senator, as I do of starting at quarterback in place of Peyton Manning this weekend.

As to your concern about Republican assaults on civil liberties, let us remember the last Democratic AG of the U.S., who saw fit to send SWAT teams, via search warrants obtained through false statements by federal agents, to settle child custody cases, instead of allowing judicial proceedings to play out. This AG was nominated to the post by a Democratic President, despite having a record of framing innocent people on trumped-up child abuse cases while serving as a county prosecutor, simply because she had ther right combination of chromosomes. This AG stood by and did nothing while top-level FBI officials (who were subsequently promoted!) blatantly obstructed justice in the investigation of the travesty of Ruby Ridge. Golly gee, shucks, it sure is dangerous to have Republicans running the Justice Department, ain't it!!!!

“It's been my experience that food is definitely cheaper and more abundant in middle-class areas than in poor inner-city areas.”

Well, I don’t know about where you live, but in London I leave my nice middle class neighbourhood and travel to the bad neighbourhoods to buy good, cheap, bulk food at the markets and ethnic groceries. I don’t have a car, either.

“It's more than just calories, it's nutritional content and the protein/carbohydrate/fiber/fat balance.…White rice is cheap----and nearly nutrition-free. White-flour pasta is cheap----again, nearly nutrition-free.”

Yes, I said in my original comment that obviously there does need to be consideration of balanced nutrition, but white flour and white rice are not nearly nutrition-free. Calories are an important part of nutrition – that’s the energy part, for goodness sake! And take a look at the actual figures: Cooked medium grain white rice has 2.38g protein per 100g, more than the brown variant at 2.32g. Unenriched white flour has 10.33g protein per 100g, about 25% less than the 13.70g for whole wheat flour – but definitely worth it if you are that hard up (wholewheat flour, where I am, costs about four times as much as the cheapest white flour. Personally, I buy half cheapo white flour and half whole wheat grain in bulk, which I grind myself. The cheapest decent grain mill I know of costs US$40 new).

(Interestingly, I read about a study once that showed that digesting whole grains actually requires a certain level or type of nutrition before it can be done efficiently – it was in the context of some situation where poor Irish children with a very refined-flour diet were switched to whole grain flour, and the change actually tipped them over into malnutrition.)

Now, you still definitely need vitamins and minerals – so eat fruit and veg!

Here’s the link for the USDA nutrition tables:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

I live in Indiana, one of the poorest states and I see people buy groceries with food stamps all the time. Want to know what's in the typical shopping cart of these people? Junk food. Always junk food.

I guess someone didn't get the right set of RNC talking points today. Usually, food stamp recipients dine on filet mignon, Lobsters, and foie gras.

I think it is high-larious to see the liberals suddenly becoming federalists. All of a sudden they realize we live in a republic. It looks like the ol' strategy of getting the courts to give you what you want isn't really panning out, eh?

Hell, I'm with you guys on this. If the Democrats became the party of decentralized federal government, then I could vote for one. What are the chances of this happening? Oh yeah, then the Dems might have to leave abortion to the states to remain logically consistent so, my guess is, the chances are practically nil.

Atlantic,

Well, I don’t know about where you live, but in London I leave my nice middle class neighbourhood and travel to the bad neighbourhoods to buy good, cheap, bulk food at the markets and ethnic groceries. I don’t have a car, either.

You remind me of a fascinating article by "Theodore Dalrymple" (it's a pseudonym, I believe; he's a physician who works largely in the UK prison system) in City Journal a couple of years back. He was on some panel or committee or some such, addressing the problem of "food deserts" — places where there was nothing to buy in local groceries except overpriced, unhealthful junk food. Someone was waxing eloquent about one such district, and Dalrymple noted that he shopped there routinely, at an Asian grocery, where he could pick up vast bags of onions for insanely low prices, &c. It struck a chord with me, because I once lived in an equivalent "food desert," where the nearest conventional "grocery" was called "Bottoms Up Liquors." Except that equally nearby was a little Indian grocer where you could get, yes, incredibly cheap huge bags of rice, among other things.

Theodore Dalrymple's real name is Anthony Daniels. I'm sure this is the article you're talking about:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_4_oh_to_be.html

Great article, and it discusses malnutrition from impoverished lifestyles, too.

Atlantic,

Yes, that's the piece I meant. I see on rereading that it wasn't a panel or committee, just a discussion over a lunch given by a left-wing magazine. Sorry for the faulty memory.

. If the Democrats became the party of decentralized federal government, then I could vote for one. What are the chances of this happening? Oh yeah, then the Dems might have to leave abortion to the states to remain logically consistent so, my guess is, the chances are practically nil.

So who DO you vote for? The GOP clearly doesn't stand for decentralized government either. Are you a Libertarian or at least play one on a weblog?

"Putting something into a microwave without removing it from the cardboard packaging can produce startling results, and large amounts of smoke"

I'm glad I read this far down in the comments. That was priceless! I still have tears running down my face from laughing so hard.

Ths importance of eating together is interesting.

Herman Munster,

Now you've descended into name calling, calling me a Libertarian and all. I'm a strict constitutionalist, and sorry pal, I vote GOP - I'm sure that lessens the weight of my words in your mind and believe me, it really devastates me.

Voting is an inherently categorical decision. If there is a chance for a strict constitutionalist (and this could be a libertarian) to win a race, which is pretty much only likely on a local level, then I will vote for that candidate. "Purity" is diluted significantly as you get closer to Washington but the direction is most important, vato, and the Republican Party, although not pure, is at least leaning in the right direction. Or a better direction than the Democratic Party, which is the only other choice.

The point of my comment is that abortion (and other forms of judicially imposed law that began with FDR) are seared - seared into the Democratic Party platform so the chances of them becoming a party that interprets the constitution as written (implying reduced federal power) is pretty much zero. The GOP is the party of appointing judges who don't rewrite the Constitution, and as long as that remains the case, they will get my vote. Kicking spenders out and putting cutters into the legislatures or executive offices is cake. Kicking out and putting in judges who won't rewrite the Constitution is tough stuff with mini dictators for life legislating from the bench.

> Buy and cook real food.

I have found even the cooking is not essential. supermarket food still leaves fast food for dead if you shop carefully. I also hardly ever washed dishes (the food was made directly from the packaging) and all hand eaten.

On the wider budget..
I used to live in a closet (no kidding - just big enough to lie down in though), it was REALLY cheap (who would have guessed!). Saved tons of money that way - and the big thing is it did not matter in the slightest - in fact I prefer it to a large room. It was just a place to sleep. My friend would have prefered i stayed in the bigger rooms but i liked the cost savings.
but you are definitly right about the not knowing how to do the simple things problem.

> SomeCallMeTim

you seem a bit bitter there tim.

1. What if the "Dems" ARE overstating the probem. surely you can accept that there might be a problem and yet it might be being overstated and this would result in misguided solutions.
2 stupidity of the poor (this is directed at both sides) maybe the poor ARE more "stupid" (not a precice word but i refer it it as noted in previous posts). Dont argue "they are no less intelligent than the rich people" as with point 1 that jsut puts you onthe side that is wrong, instead argue "we should help them anyway" as per greg's post.
3. Almost all Republicans have suffered - these are jsut arguments regarding why people are poor - you need to move away from that or you will loose all the arguments.
On 4,5 and 6 you have half a point each

> Blue vs red states

states competing agressively against each other in that way will just result in you both geting screwed in a "race to the bottom". Somthing some of the extreme right might like but everyone else will hate.

I don't know what the big deal is. When I was in college, I was poor. My daddy wouldn't send me money for eight whole weeks. But I didn't starve, I was able to sustain myself by picking out of the dining hall dumpster. I saved money on soap by not showering. For recreation, I would go to a bar with no cover for happy hour and lick spilled beer off of the floor or I would sneak into a movie theater and see a great Czech horror movie for free. So don't tell me that poor people have problems, cause I was one of them.

Heh.

I also forgot to add, that if I'm ever homeless for a long time (I have been without a roof, but not for longer than 2 or 3 weeks) and also completely, totally broke, I will never starve.

Not as long as fast food joints and supermarkets throw out lots of prefectly good food.

Now, I'm not saying that people should have to do that, nor do I think we shouldn't do something about poverty. I'm just stating something that not a lot of people actually ever think about. If you're ever on the street and with no money, remember that and try not to get too fat.

I never understand it when non-Republicans (and I'm not a Republican either, mind you) accuse the GOP of actually being giddy over the prospect of people being poor, homeless, or starving. That's just plain silly, grow up. Don't forget all those "bible thumping fundamentalists" the left whines so much about also give a lot of time and money to charity.

When GOP-affiliated groups organize street marches and rallies where everyone is waving around "let the poor bastards starve" and "we support our homeless people who off themsevles" signs, then I'll think the charge has merit.

Too many people spend too much time marching around saying their opponents like to eat children and club baby seals. And they actually seem to believe what they are saying.

SomeCall,

"Most of the Dems I know (inc. myself) count ourselves in the fiscally conservative, socially liberal group."

I actually don't think being "socially liberal" -- at least in the extreme sense to which the ideology is sometimes taken, undermining traditional bonds of social cohesion -- is consistent with the goal of fiscal conservatism. Social liberalism is associated in my mind with the creed of nonjudgmentalism -- which leads to society refusing to express disapproval of uncivilized and just plain self-destructive behaviors and mindsets that wreck people's lives and generate or perpetuate poverty.

Poverty, in turn, leads to overwhelming pressure to increase government spending for social programs. These tend to be a lot harder to eliminate than to institute, so even on those rare occasions when the program succeeds and solves the problem, the program tends to take on a life of its own and perpetuate itself. The accumulated bulk of programs and entitlements makes it very hard to be a fiscal conservative -- you either have to raise taxes or run deficits to pay the bills.

uncivilized and just plain self-destructive behaviors

Yes, this describes gay marriage to a tee, doesn't it?

I never understand it when non-Republicans (and I'm not a Republican either, mind you) accuse the GOP of actually being giddy over the prospect of people being poor, homeless, or starving. That's just plain silly, grow up.

Many members of the GOP are actually like this. Rush Limbaugh used to, and still may for all I know, have a segment on his show called the "Homeless Olympics" and suggeted events like the shopping cart push. Millions of Republicans thought this was funny. New York Post Cartoonist Sean Delonas regularly ridicules the homless in his cartoons, and again, lots of Republicans seem to like this, too. In college, the Young Republicans dressed up like bag men and ladies for Halloween. While I certainly wouldn't accuse the GOP in general of this behavior, there is no shortage of it on the right either.

Mike Hunt:"I've see people buy $80 worth of chips and sweets with foodstamps. Do you realize how much ground beef, chicken and canned vegtables that can buy?"

Canned vegetables are crap, mostly. You need fresh veggies and fruits, where most of the vitamins, etc., are still there. Even if you buy a fresh veggie and cook it, a lot of vitamins are lost in the process, depending how it´s done.

It's not about cost. It's not about money. Poor people take out loans they cannot afford to be cars that are more expensive than they need. Why? Because they want to. It makes them feel good. Because they can.

In the NYTimes magazine article from the weekend, mentioned above, poor parents had extremely overweight children. They learned how to feed the kids healthy food for less money. But they still bought the kids McDs and shoved candy bars in their lunches.

Why? Because the kids (all in a Hispanic community) were considered "pobrecito" or poor little things. And the parents felt like making the poor kids feel better with fattening foods. Sure it cost an extra buck or two. But so what? What else would a buck buy for a poor family that would feel as pleasant as giving candy or a Big Mac to desiring kid?

http://www.nitro-pak.com/product_info.php/cPath/224_225/products_id/166

"Less than $3.65 per meal"

No cooking. No preparation. Just add hot water. Good for you, and portable

Admittedly, you've got to buy in bulk, but a low-income apartment complex could go in on it together.

"Here's a question: When is the last time you heard of someone dying of malnutrition in the US? I don't think I've EVER heard of it. No doubt it has happened, but it seems to be pretty rare."

Rob, about the only time I hear it is when a deranged or abusive parent prevents their child from eating enough.

"Here's a question: When is the last time you heard of someone dying of malnutrition in the US? I don't think I've EVER heard of it. No doubt it has happened, but it seems to be pretty rare."

I am sure starvation IS rare, but starvation isn't the only thing that can happen from not getting proper foods to eat. Short of starvation, lack of food or malnutirion can lead to diseaes, and developmental problems in children. While its good that one rarely litearlly starves to death in America (unless its a child not fed by parents, as an above commenter mentioned), it doesn't mean that there are problems with people getting proper nutrition.

"Canned vegetables are crap, mostly. You need fresh veggies and fruits, where most of the vitamins, etc., are still there."

Personally I think that is mostly nonsense. sure some vitamins might be damaged by cooking or canning or whatever but, on the whole, a can of carrots is still going to have carrots inside. And those carrots will be basically the same as one out of the ground (plus any additives the company added). Sure if money is no object one could just buy the freshest nicest stuff but if money does matter you probably get a lot more vitamins by buying the same cost of the mass produced stuff than the organic stuff.

When I was in college, tuition was so high and money so scare, that I only ate every third Sunday. And even then, the only grocery store was located such that I had to swim shark infested waters, and trudge through nuclear holocaust. By the time I would reach the store, I'd realize that the radiation and shark attacks had left holes in my pockets, which I had only just repaired using a broken hang nail as needle, leaving me with only enough money to bribe a pidgeon to allow me to peck for seeds on its share of the sidewalk.

You people fucking disgust me. To quote the fountainhead, you are maggots, you find sores and feed off them. If American starving poor are a crisis, then the world's truly starving 1.5 billion souls are a hopeless case and a true case for a writeoff.

There is food poverty in America? Really? One day's labor at minimum wage, ~$50 can feed a family of four for a month comfortably. IF don't know how then you are fat, happy and trying to play jesus to the lepers in your head. Take a walk to a ethnic store in an ghetto, latino, chinese or indian. You can buy plenty of groceries to feed a family of four at $50 for a month. Cab fare home not included.

This is sad and pathetic. Any immigrant notices three things when they land here - the absolute astonishing amount of cheap food everywhere, the purchasing power of labor ( one hour of work can feed someone for a day!) and the amount of well fed bored fucks like y'all making a travesty of the truly hungry in the world.

Stop whining and go back to snarfing your sushi lunches and 4buckCoffees.

Mike Hunt:

"I live in Indiana, one of the poorest states," is untrue. Indiana has the 15th lowest % of people living in poverty the country. Was true in '89, remains true in '03 (latest figure I saw, and rank is my q&d count). I think the claim irritates me b/c IN is one of two (maybe three) red states that gives up fed revenue, and there is no way we're picking it up.

Will:

Federalism & state rights claims are merely strategies to get out from under a majority imposing its values on you. In the 50's and 60's, the South liked'em b/c they didn't want integration and the various civil rights requirements imposed on them. If Dems come to believe that something they don't believe in (like the imperial executive) will be imposed on them, they'll pull for states' rights. The trick is convincing them; a few more wins by the crew in back of Bush'll do it.

I can't believe you think the Gonzales case is in the same realm as a claim that the executive, during the course of a necessarily never-ending War on an Adjective, has the right to throw a citizen in jail without a trial or a lawyer. Gonzales may have reflected bad judgment (probably), bad images (certainly), bad faith (if there was lying involved), bad policy (neutral), and bad legal reasoning (the weight of authority was on Reno's side). Claiming that the Executive can throw you in jail, full stop - no hearing, no nothing - is tantamount to declaring the Executive king. I don't think the torture memos are in the same realm; Gonzales is on a different planet. That you don't see the difference in importance between those two sets of circs. is exactly why, if you guys keep winning, Dems will have to turn to federalism.

Tim:

"then the Dems might have to leave abortion to the states to remain logically consistent so, my guess is, the chances are practically nil. " Apparently, Harry Reid (Sen. Min. Ldr) is anti-abortion. So is one of the major candidates for DNC chair. Losing works powerful magic, and Dems will trade it back to the states if we keep losing - WTF do we care what happens in Red states?

GeniusNZ:

"will just result in you both geting screwed in a "race to the bottom" That fear is pretty much why, as I said, you'd have to tie benefits to residency length. It's effectively unconstitutional at the moment, I think, but (IIRC) there are a few areas with room for maneuverability.

Tim in Pa:

"I never understand it when non-Republicans ...accuse the GOP of actually being giddy over the prospect of people being poor, homeless, or starving." We don't they're giddy; we just suspect that claims that Pubs want to "address the issues of poverty" are either wildly naïve or wildly disingenuous. Maybe both.

Tom:

"I actually don't think being "socially liberal"... is consistent with the goal of fiscal conservatism. " First, Dems have changed - I think for a lot of us (though back in the day, I was a centrist Pub), the 90s were a come-to-Jeebus decade. There is a lot of trust, generally, in markets. Second, if your going to claim that "socially liberal" doesn't allow for fiscal conservatism, then you're going to have explain why (a) the socially liberal places are the big money makers in the US, and (b) the socially conservative places are the big money takers in the US.

(Sorry for the length).

I dunno, Tim, it seems to me that having Federal agents use a convicted felon to pester a citizen for weeks, until the citizen agrees to shorten the barrel of a shotgun, whereupon the agents shoot the citizen's wife dead as she cradles her baby, after which the Federal officials blatantly obstruct justice as the shooting is investigated, and the Federal officials are subsequently promoted, with the Attorney General's blessing, is every bit as bad as locking a citizen up without legitimate legal procedures being followed. Nobody get judicial relief from a sniper's bullet to the head.

I know, though, we were sooooooooo much safer when Democrats held the White House.

SomeCallMeTim,

Uh, Richard Gephardt used to be against abortion too. He used to be VERY pro-life. What happened? Oh yeah, just like every other politician, he is beholden to the interest groups that hold sway in his party, like the NAGs and NARAL. Roe v. Wade is sacrosanct in Democratic circles and a party that recently upheld the "procedure some opponents have called partial-birth abortion" with the shrillness they have will NEVER allow abortion to be regulated by the states. The Democrats are still very much the party of judicial legislation, and that will never change until there is a split in the party. Besides, it seems Harry Reid is on a quest to defang himself after his Clarence Thomas criticisms - the Congressional Black Caucus ain't takin' to kindly to him.

hey is talking out of his ass. The overwhelming majority of mathematicians are *liberal*, much like physicists, biologists, biochemists, neuroscientists, and scientists in general.

Mathematical Logician,

The overwhelming majority of mathematicians are not liberal. You need to qualify your statement by stating that the overwhelming majority of mathematicians IN ACADEMIA are liberal. Academics are liberal because they rely on the government for a lot of their funding, plus the mindset of an academic is usually the sort of elitist mindset that liberals have. Most conservative scientists and engineers go on to careers in industry rather than academia, and tend to quit at a MS or BS because they want to start families or get a head start on a career. I've experienced both, so I should know. I left a job at a major semiconductor company, where the overwhelming majority of my coworkers were conservative, to go to graduate school at an elite University, where the majority of the faculty and maybe half the students (in my department) are liberal. Also, many (I'd say 40-50%) are apolitical. Of course, this is just anecdotal; I'd have to provide evidence to give true proof. Oh wait, you didn't do that too - I guess everyone talks out of their ass on a blog comment forum.

Ah, perhaps you'd care to read some of the studies on the political tendencies of academics. If you care to do your research, you'll find three studies in the last 20 years on the subject. If you wish for me to point you to the last study, I will do so if you ask. For the time being, read this.
As for people with MS's and BS's, frankly I don't regard them as mathematicians (but that's simply explicable on the basis of my presumed elitism). On the other hand, I know of a substantial number of non American mathematicians working in industry, and if anecdotal evidence is what you will rely on, then I'll gladly share with you that none of the international mathematicians I know has any sympathy whatsoever for the party that panders to the religious right, and which embraces a rhetoric of disdain for international relations.

I will grant you that some of us mathematicians are a bit more fiscally conservative than the average scientist (and again, I don't mean by scientist just anyone with a B.S.). But that hardly makes us socially conservative, let alone sympathetic to republican ideology.

Finally, it is every bit as ridiculous to argue that scientists vote democrat because of funding as it is to argue that rural areas vote republican because of tax cuts. Scientists (academics, for which we have some data, unlike industrial scientists, for which we don't have data) vote democrat largely because of culture, just like blue-collar people sometimes vote republican because of culture.

I would consider voting republican, were it not for the way in which that party panders to religious and nationalist zealots, and to socially conservative authoritarians. Also, in order to get my vote, they would have to stop making fools of themselves by claiming that global warming research is a sham: that sort of dismissiveness towards scientific research (stem cells, etc.) does not do the republican party any darn good in our elitist circles. Heh. Innumeracy? I'm darn sure innumeracy is well distributed among parties, but those of us who can claim to be as far from innumerate as can be are democrats, not republicans.

Mindles wrote:

I suggest anyone who has a TV shouldn't be complaining they don't know where their next meal comes from

Most motel rooms have televisions, but not kitchens. As Barbara Echenreich's book points out, the majority of the food-insecure are living in similar kinds of accomodation.

(btw, if the figure of 33 million is correct, I would hazard a guess that about 15% of the food-insecure people in America are Native Americans living on reservations. On the basis of the few papers I've read on this, food insecurity is a predominantly rural rather than urban phenomenon and is most serious in the state of Oregon).

geniusNZ:
"Personally I think that is mostly nonsense. sure some vitamins might be damaged by cooking or canning or whatever but, on the whole, a can of carrots is still going to have carrots inside. And those carrots will be basically the same as one out of the ground (plus any additives the company added)."

I don´t do experiments on this issue personally, but every single article I´ve read on nutrition says you are wrong. So, until they all say the opposite...
Incidently, regarding oranges and vitamin C, it´s not even cooking. You don´t eat an orange after you cut it open, and you let it sit there in the fridge for hours, the vitamin C is a-gonner.

Expect no better from Reuters. Take a look back at some of their past articles where they will immediately glom onto any sensationalists claim from a lefty think tank or liberal politicians but ignore the facts. Heritage has a few good ones to look at:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/BG1221.cfm
The following facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau are taken from various government reports:

In 1995, 41 percent of all "poor" households owned their own homes. Seventy percent of "poor" households own a car; 27 percent own two or more cars.Ninety-seven percent have a color television. Nearly half own two or more television; Sixty-four percent of the "poor" own microwave ovens, half have a stereo system, and over a quarter have an automatic dishwasher.

As a group, the "poor" are far from being chronically hungry and malnourished. In fact, poor persons are more likely to be overweight than are middle-class persons. Nearly half of poor adult women are overweight.

Despite frequent charges of widespread hunger in the United States, 84 percent of the "poor" report their families have "enough" food to eat; 13 percent state they "sometimes" do not have enough to eat, and 3 percent say they "often" do not have enough to eat.

The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children, and in most cases is well above recommended norms.

Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes that are 100 percent above recommended levels.

Most poor children today are in fact super-nourished, growing up to be, on average, one inch taller and ten pounds heavier that the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1813.cfm
Calling the USCM for stretching the truth:
"According to the mayors’ data, the number of persons receiving emergency food aid is 15 times higher today than in 1986. This seems implausible. The U.S. Department of Agricul­ture (USDA) reports that, at present, between 18 million and 24 million persons receive emergency food aid each year. If the mayors’ data were accurate and representative of the nation, it would mean that fewer than 2 mil­lion persons received food aid in 1986 (one-fifteenth of the present number)."

www.lawsandsausages.com

What, you want the poor should starve instead?

Maybe Republican social policies should be designed to promote starvation. Unfortunately, before you see great improvement in lower-income people's health, you are likely to see massive social unrest, since that is what really hungry people do.

Maybe giving lower-income people the opportunity to consume too much junk food is a better idea than a socialist revolution, which is what has tended to happen in societies with starvation poverty.

McDonald's is the opiate of the masses. I'm surprised that so many apparently middle-class (though some of you are / have been poor) right-wing blog commenters don't realize this.

Who knows, you might produce findings that the rate of obesity among the poor is associated with decreased crime, either because they can't run very fast or because drug-addicted persons are likely to be skinny from not eating.

This is easily the most hateful thread I've read in a long time, and I thought that I've been around the blogosphere (I don't go to FreeRepublic).

I think the problem with this statistic is that it's based on subjective opinion rather than objective opinion. It's a measure of how hungry people think they might have been, or of how hunry they think they ought to think they have been.

Such opinions tend to be based on 'common wisdom' - a kind of opinion benchmarked against what is seen in society. In an affluent society with a large perceived or actual income gap between high and low income groups, the perceived poverty actually increases. The average US citizen can buy more food for the daily income of a 'below poverty line' person than the equivalent in Jakarta, Manila, or Bangkok.

"I dunno, Tim, it seems to me that having Federal agents use a convicted felon to pester a citizen for weeks, until the citizen agrees to shorten the barrel of a shotgun, whereupon the agents shoot the citizen's wife dead as she cradles her baby..." Ruby Ridge happened in 1992, under Bush 41. Not that witchhunter Reno was any improvement. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats care about individual rights.

Logician,

Your previous comment said that "scientists in general" were overwhelmingly liberal. Now you're saying that mathematicians, who you only define as having a PhD, are overwhelmingly liberal. Although you later go on to say "scientists" again. I already stated that academics were overwhelmingly liberal, and you provided the backup evidence. Good for you. Back to the point of "scientists in general" being liberal, it's really strange that you narrowly define your success criteria to make your statement true. You're not a statistician, are you? Granted, it was with anectodal evidence, but I used anecdotal evidence to make a point about blog-comment posting, while you assumed I was using it to make points for my side. C'mon, logician, gotta be worthy of that name now.

For the record, I'm an engineer. I only have a B.S., although I'm in grad school for a PhD. Does that mean I haven't crossed the magic threshold into "scientist" realm yet? Does the fact that my PhD is coming from Princeton mean I'm closer to that threshold than, say, another engineer from the University of New Mexico? My, what an elitist thing to think. But I would never accuse you of elitism, otherwise I might get another of your stinging sarcasms.

I'll give you the point about funding vs. culture. Culture probably does play a greater role in a scientist's ideological choice. But you can't honestly believe that a scientist's funding source has absolutely no influence on them, especially when others are competing for that same funding. And didn't I say that academics are liberal because of their elitist mindset? Doesn't that contribute to a culture? Oh, darn, there I go again, calling you an elitist and all.

Let's just boil it all down; get all scientific and shit.

You state:

-academics are overwhelmingly liberal. Studies prove this. I never disagreed, in fact I pointed this out.

-mathematicians (or is it scientists?) are overwhelmingly liberal. You used anecdotal evidence to prove this.

-scientists (or is it mathematicians?) are a group that includes only those with PhDs.

I state:

-scientists are overwhelmingly liberal in academia. Studies show this, for which I'll give you the credit for googling.

-scientists are not overwhelmingly liberal overall. I used anecdotal evidence to support this claim.

-scientists are a group that include anyone with a BS, MS, or PhD in the sciences and engineering, and use that knowledge on a daily basis for their livelihood. (Why do you insist on insulting us engineers? I have to solve PDEs too you know.)

So guess what? We've done absolutely nothing except disagree on what exactly IS a scientist. We're both defining that group so that we can meet our success criteria with anecdotal evidence. Wow, what a useful argument. Again, this leads to my earlier point about blog-comment posting and its utility. In sum, we've proved nothing except that you and your friends look down on those barbaric creationist boobs in flyover country, and that I think you are elitist SOBs.

Tim,

Here's a recent study on the political affiliations of the faculty at UC Berkeley and Stanford, across several departments--including mathematics and the basic sciences.

http://swopec.hhs.se/ratioi/abs/ratioi0054.htm

The study was conducted by libertarian economist Daniel Klein, incidentally. There are other studies out there, for which I don't have links, but which I *have* carefully read in the past, which suggest that the results of Klein's are far more widespread than one would have reason to believe. In fact, if my recollection isn't wrong, a study in the 80s suggests that the gap between left and right in the sciences grows wider with academic success--though in this particular item I may be wrong, as I also inquired on the religious proclivities of scientists at about the same time, and I cannot seem to find the sources I am referring to.

I don't believe your anecdotal claim that scientists in industry do not tilt significantly to the left. In fact, one of the reasons I have for discrediting your speculative claim is that there are a huge number of scientists in industry who are not American citizens, and foreigners are--I speculate boldly--quite reluctant to side with the people who trash the French, who dismiss the Germans, and who call the UN irrelevant. What business does a foreigner have sympathizing with the goals of unipolarity of the US administration?

The reason I exclude engineers from my analysis will probably illuminate what I'm after. I'm not sure that engineers tilt liberal as much as scientists do. It's not that I do not respect what some engineers do (nor that I deify the basic sciences or its practitioners). It is simply that I am responding to the arrogant claim--uttered by someone else, not you--that people who like and understand good math that are conservatives or libertarians. Such a claim needed to be debunked, and the counterexample comes handily from the fact that there are studies which prove (and anecdotal evidence from me: a mathematician at an important institution) that the Democratic party is far more popular among people who are supposed to be the source of scientific livelihood in this great country.

I may not disagree with your statement about blog-commenting (although I find the left2right folks rather thoughtful commenters), but I do disagree with you that my point is ad hoc. My point--which you seem to have misunderstood all along--is to debunk the idiotic idea that somehow being numerate is close to being a sufficient condition for being a conservative or a libertarian. Nothing further from the truth.

As for the usefulness of restricting to PhD's when talking about science, it is obvious to me. I know of no significant research being done by people without PhD's. Perhaps engineering is a different story, but I simply do not know of people who--with a BS or an MS--go on to add something meaningful to basic scientific knowledge. It is a pedantic point, but since it is mostly semantics, I don't care to adopt your loose definition.

I do look down on creationism, though I have no reason to dismiss people on the basis of their troubling beliefs. I would not advocate--for example--suppressing the right of creationists to get married (though I'm not at all surprised that many conservative republicans find it entirely appropriate to decide whether two gay people can get married or not). It is the latter which I find utterly contemptible. The fact that people believe in creationism? That's hardly contemptible at all. The fact that the republican party panders to and utilizes people who earnestly believe these things (in the detriment of embracing issues of real political relevancy for their lives) is something I find contemptible as well.

I believe the poor simply should have greater access to their unalienable rights. I say we arm them all with semi-automatics. Then they can hunt for what they need to survive, without any additional government help, except maybe, a monthly bullet allowance.

And they must be unregistered guns, too. For Christmas, we could use faith-based charities to buy them the 'Joy of Cooking' cookbook. Then they'd be set for life and we could use the money saved to hire our armed poor people to go kill the poor people in other countries, especially those with great natural resources. As long as we keep our IRAs invested in oil companies, we'll make more than we spend.

The only part I haven't worked out yet is when poor people no longer eat at McFastfood, there won't be near enough jobs to employ poor people. Maybe we can hire them all as CNAs to take care of retiring babyboomers in the McNursing homes of tomorrow, as a solution. And feed them bachelor salads and carrotsticks, to keep the costs down.

I am an Indian who came to the US on a student visa in the late 80s. As a grad student, I had to "endure" the horrible absolute "poverty" of that lifestyle imposed upon me. When I joined the university, even though I had financial aid (RA), because of the various quirks of the financial aid bureaucracy, the money did not come in for three months. I had $700 for startup expenses which I used for paying rent and deposit as well as winter-capable shoes, clothing and insurance. Since that was not enough, I borrowed $400 from various acquaintances and this was enough for all my ongoing needs including food, telephone bills etc. for the three months without an income. Telephone bills were the most expensive because at that time, a call to India was approx $2.50 for the first minute and $1.70 each addtl min. I was obviously able to make ends meet because I cooked all my meals at my apartment. No eating out until my first paycheck arrived.

Once I started to get my paychecks, I still felt no need to eat out much. I am vegetarian, and I can make much nicer, tastier and healthier choices at home than eat out, where a vegetarian selection is pitiful most of the time. It helps enormously that it is vastly cheaper to cook food at home than eat out.

My food was significantly richer here in the US than in India. When people say that the poor in the US don't have enough food, I have a hard time believing them. I know what real poverty is, and I saw it in spades in India. Let me tell you that poverty in the US does not even compare to poverty in India.

I just want to point out that I live in Jane Galt's neighborhood, and she's lowballing the prices by quite a bit. But when you can't win with facts, make 'em up.

PS I know all of us were college students, with no incomes. That *hardly* made us poor in the REAL sense of the term. This is the same sense of the word poor that Republicans use to claim this country is socially mobile.

Justin:

The question is whether we can have healthy, nutritious meals every day at very low cost, and the answer is very clearly yes. In my specific case, being a freshly transplanted vegetarian, I could not have gotten good meals without cooking at home. In an ironic way, the only way I could get good meals is by spending very little.

Should have been, "only way I could get good meals WAS by spending very little." These days vegetarians have better choices.

Will Allen claimed: Joe, I must say that I found Ehrenreich's book unreadable, due to the overwhelming condescension exhibited towards the people she writes of.

Yet somehow you found this thread readable?

If you can tolerate the overwhelming condescension exhibited in this thread towards people in the same income group that Ehrenreich was writing about, but you cannot tolerate Ehrenreich's book, then obviously your reasons for not being able to tolerate Ehrenreich are not "overwhelming condescension".

I wonder what the real reason could be, and why you're reluctant to give it openly?

Since that was not enough, I borrowed $400 from various acquaintances

That's what the poor need! "Acquaintances" with money to lend! If you expand this into a working paper, I think I can get you a job on a thinktank.

"Let me tell you that poverty in the US does not even compare to poverty in India."

This is undoubtedly true, but it is also irrelevant. The discussion here is not whether the U.S. poor are better off than those in India or any other country, but whether it could be possible that here in the U.S. it is possible that we can have so many "food insecure" and have so many obese people at the same time. Whether India has worse poverty is worthy of discussion, but doesn't change the circumstance here at home. I don't think our standard should be "Not as bad as Calcutta."

Where do all you commenters live? I for one live currently in West Alabama, where I confront the problem of poverty and obesity on daily basis.

Yes, you can eat relatively healthily here if you make the effort. I do, despite having only piggly-wiggly to shop at (see my food blog. But, given that only about three varieties of green vegetables are sold there, your diet gets pretty damn boring - not good when you've got whining kids to feed. Plus, you have to make a helluva lot of effort - cooking skills, shopping skills, planning out your meals so that the food you buy doesn't go off before you use it. These may seem like minor points, but can you imagine eating collard greens twice a day every day? And it's emphatically not cheaper to do so than buy pre-cooked macaroni cheese in a cardboard box.

The point is, the truly poor are disabled in their choice of food by the superstores' buying policy, their overworked lifestyles and the craving for variety in their diet. The argument of 'oh, but I subsist on dal and rice and that's really healthy and cheap' doesn't really wash when you can see the community around you (and on your television) eating all sorts of other tasty, fatty, salty things (and remember, our bodies are programmed to find fat and salt tasty).

I see these people shopping around me every day and the condescension exhibited in a lot of these posts belies belief. Alabama has the highest incidence of obesity in the nation, and diabetes has reached epidemic proportions. It's not rocket science why the poor are fat. You try living in small-town Alabama, working 12 hour night shifts at the catfish plant and then finding the energy to shop for and cook a proper meal for your five hyperactive kids. That post about 'I eat an all-you-can-eat buffet vietnamese for $5' - well, lucky you because the nearest Vietnamese here is 50 miles away and five bucks is a lot of money down here, when 22% of families are living off $546 a month for rent, food, heating and gas. Get real, guys, and if you don't know what real is, go visit someplace like here.

Dsquared:

I had said, "Since that was not enough, I borrowed $400 from various acquaintances."

You replied, "That's what the poor need! "Acquaintances" with money to lend! If you expand this into a working paper, I think I can get you a job on a thinktank."

The "acquaintances" in my case were other Indian grad students who had gone through the same stuff in the years before. A handful of them who were part of the Indian grad students and faculty group were willing to lend $50-$100 each to contribute to us new students and we were able to land on our feet in short order. As for how the first "pioneer" group of students were able to manage, I don't know. Maybe they were rich and had more money than I did. Maybe the bank/university/department/church loaned them money.

If you want to make it into a paper at a think-tank, think of it as informal micro-credit working at the US university level. It works because we were good credit risks since we had RAs lined up. If the poor need to take advantage of such networks, they need to be mostly free of bad influences such as drugs, gangs etc.

JM:

" they need to be mostly free of bad influences such as drugs, gangs etc."

That might be true. But the reason you have all those characteristics might be encoded in your past. And that past is not something the poor have. However poor you were here, you probably weren't particularly poor in India if you came here for grad school in the 80s. (I mean seriously - did any of your fellow Indian grad students come from families where the parents were servents in India?)

All of which is to say that while your information might have been useful in answering the narrow question you restated, it doesn't respond to the concerns of some of us on the thread about an underlying tone evinced in many Republican responses to American poverty.

I can put together a series of reasonably tasty and diverse meals in less than 45 minutes per, including shopping time, for significantly less than the equivalent number of meals from some fast-food joint, but then I have an idea of what the food pyramid is and how to put it to work cheaply. I find that most high school graduates have no idea of how to perform basic home-making tasks such as cooking and sewing. This hurts the poor most, because higher incomes make it easier to purchase healthier prepared food, but the dearth of knowledge is pretty widespread no matter what the income level.

Why not some programs to encourage home economics skills on a high school level, including cooking, sewing, hygiene, and financial training?

Pozzo:

You said, "This is undoubtedly true, but it is also irrelevant. The discussion here is not whether the U.S. poor are better off than those in India or any other country, but ..."

Well, the vast majority of those in India even today, and certainly in the past would be, by US standards, considered horribly, absolutely poor and destitute. I include myself and almost all my relatives in India at that time in that category. We did not go hungry and did not consider ourselves poor. There were people much poorer than us around us.

My own personal opinion is that each society has, as part of its cultural capital, know-how on how to manage to live with close to nothing and live a frugal life. India knows how to stretch a rupee to cover basic necessities because it has had to. I am very certain that US society also had, at least until the Great Depression, a common understanding of how to live a frugal life. At some point after WWII, this knowledge seems to have evaporated. Whether this was brought about by sustained prosperity, social programs, and/or by removal of stigma associated with anti-social behaviors, I don't know.

To sum it up, people who live within their means in the US, will not starve, even if their incomes are less than $10k p.a. The frugal lifestyle must be taught again, if only to restore cultural capital. Hunger enters the picture only if lack of income is accompanied by anti-social behaviors such as drugs, gangs and voluntary single parenthood. While we cannot eliminate these, we can certainly reduce it by expressing disapproval of such behaviors.

Hana:

You said, "only about three varieties of green vegetables are sold there, your diet gets pretty damn boring - not good when you've got whining kids to feed. Plus, you have to make a helluva lot of effort - cooking skills, shopping skills, planning out your meals so that the food you buy doesn't go off before you use it. "

Back to my old grad student days again. I did not have a car for three years. I am vegetarian and was in a Midwestern univ. What I and a bunch of other similar students did was go through the frozen vegetables section of our supermarket and store 3-4 weeks' worth of food in our freezer. We would go in public transportation or hire a cab. Invariably, frozen vegetables have significantly wider selections than fresh veggies. True, they are not as nice as fresh foods, but you have to make do with what you get. Once in a while, we would also bum a ride with other students to the nearest big city and get Indian foodstuff periodically. BTW, we developed passable cooking skills "on the job", so to speak. Using this scheme, I did not have to repeat a meal more than once a week.

I agree that it is tedious, requires planning and is no fun. But eating more expensive and worse meals at McD's all the time is even less fun.

"can you imagine eating collard greens twice a day every day?"
As tedious as eating hamburgers, chips and coke everyday. But it does not have to be so, as I explained above.

Well, Jesurgislac, since this thread has dozens of authors, I am not so willing to generalize about it's content. You differ. No doubt I differ with many of the comments here, but, please inform me; which is more condescending, to demand that non-psychotic poor people better manage their resources, with the belief that they are capable of doing so, or to assume that they are incapable of such actions? This is what Ehrenrerich does, and it is far more condescending than many in this thread.

SomeCallmeTim: " But the reason you have all those characteristics might be encoded in your past. And that past is not something the poor have. However poor you were here, you probably weren't particularly poor in India if you came here for grad school in the 80s. (I mean seriously - did any of your fellow Indian grad students come from families where the parents were servents in India?)"

Nope. No servants for parents in that group for sure. But I don't understand your comment about information encoded in the past. True, we did not lead a hand-to-mouth existence in India. So that was not something we experienced in India. However, we had to live hand-to-mouth for a period of time in the US. Despite not having encoded info on how to live such an existence, we were able to manage. My thought is that my own family has had an aversion to debts. Debts have always been something to avoid or closed as quickly as possible.

I don't think it is something encoded as much as taught. If families don't teach them, or if there are no families as such, then schools, especially those in poorer areas must teach frugal, debt free living. Poor people are not served well by bashing the lifestyle as not liberal and not having that taught in school.

Yes, markm, the pointless Randy Weaver entrapment and subsequent Ruby Ridge shootings ocurred under the Bush I Administration. The obstruction of justice which thwarted the investigation of the travesty occurred under the Clinton Adminstration, and Reno acceded to the promotion of those FBI officials who engaged in the cover-up.

Hana Loftus,

[T]he truly poor are disabled in their choice of food by the superstores' buying policy, their overworked lifestyles and the craving for variety in their diet.

I'm sorry, I was following you there up until you said that the "craving for variety" was making poor people obese. It's not "variety," it's fat and salt and sugar, as you say yourself in the same post.

I have no idea what the food options are in Western Alabama. I do know that the food options a lot of poor, obese, urban kids (in the SF Bay Area, anyway) choose don't tend much to "variety," unless you're counting whether it's McD or BK or Taco Bell. If you offered them a fruit or a vegetable, they'd shun the "variety." And these kids have direct access to an incredible variety of cheap and nutritious food. I don't blame anyone whose choices are really limited to McD or the corner liquor — no, excuse me, grocery — store's wilted lettuce.

I find it hard to believe that there are only three vegetables in your supermarkets. Are you sure? Nothing else? (Are there grad students in Western Alabama? What do they eat?)

SomeCallMeTim,

I think we're having some definitional problems with the concepts of "fiscally conservative" and "socially liberal," especially with the former.

I define "fiscally conservative" as favoring government that (1) lives within its means, and (2) limits its control over the economy.

I see you bring up again the fact that blue states tend to pay more in federal taxes than they receive in federal benefits, while with the red states, it's the other way around. You ask, reasonably, how this is consistent with my theory that social liberalism renders fiscal conservatism impossible.

One reason for the disparity is that the federal government is highly dependent for its revenues on on the rich, who under our progressive tax code pay the majority of income taxes. The rich tend to be concentrated in urban areas -- actually, in super-rarefied enclaves within urban areas. These areas have historically been the nodes from which the elite control enterprises that earn revenues from economic activity all across the country, and increasingly the world. A large component of this economic elite is comprised of what David Brooks called bourgeois bohemians -- educated, talented cognitive elites who have absorbed the socially liberal assumptions of the universities.

Increasingly, the economic landscape of American cities is being Brazilified, with a gap widening between the super-rich and the increasingly underemployed, immigrant, government-addicted, and underclass urban population. The result is a kind of perfect storm: The BoBos shudder at the thought of "judgmental" societal restraints on behavior, leading to breakdowns of voluntary social cohesion, leading to disorder and crime, leading to further economic marginalization (who wants to invest in a crime-ridden neighborhood?).

In contrast, although flyover country has fewer billionaires, my completely unresearched hypothesis is that the gap between rich and poor is less. (Although I grant that even though the gap between me and Bill Gates is much greater than the difference between a garden-variety rich guy and a food-stamp dependent single mother in a trailer park, the latter probably feels the smaller gap more keenly than I do the larger.)

Anyway, my point, which I discussed above, was that when you look at where the government gets its money (rich guys, mainly) and what it spends it on (the majority goes to entitlements and defense, aka old guys on the golf course and born-fighting Scots-Irish servicemen.) Again, my educated guess is that the former group tends to be concentrated in rich "blue" areas (although the actual tax-paying rich class may well not vote "blue"), while the latter tends to be concentrated in the red heartland.

Here's the official USDA $ amounts for the thrifty food plan: http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/FoodPlans/Updates/foodnov04.pdf

Anyone want to stick to it for a month and report back?

ok lets see....

> Incidently, regarding oranges and vitamin C, it´s not even cooking. You don´t eat an orange after you cut it open, and you let it sit there in the fridge for hours.

To be precise I see on the net there is a 20% loss after 24 hours in the fridge.
http://sarasota.extension.ufl.edu/FCS/FlaFoodFare/OrangesN.htm
I believe the reaction is oxidization by the O2 in the air (put some plastic wrap on them people!).

I notice the meme of htem all being destroyed seems to dominate rational discussion.

Frankly 20% is not all that bad you only have to eat one or two more slices of orange to make if the difference and any normal food should be sealed and not open to that oxidization. And Vitamin c seems to be the most fragile of the vitamins and even pasturization only kills at most half of it.
Personally I always overdose anyway.
Yes you will loose some but just eat a little more of it - your just going to fill out the rest of the diet with carbohydrates and stuff anyway.
If having canned vegetables increaces your vegetable consumption by 25% (lets say) they may well have more than paid for themselves. So I wouldn't call them crap.

Elizabeth, that plan provides for three hundred dollars for an adult couple each and every month. My fiance and I shop at Whole Foods Market, drink bottled water, and go out to a sushi buffet every Sunday afternoon, and we don't spend more than three hundred dollars a month on food. I suppose this is largely because we are vegetarians (apart from the sushi), because I am a very efficient cook (we love leftovers), and because there is no grocery tax here. But we make no special effort to be frugal.

Here is an article in the Scotsman: "A new generation of children is growing up as 'life incompetents', unable to sew, care for their clothes, or even realise that potatoes are boiled before being mashed....Research published yesterday, after a three-year study by Stirling University, revealed youngsters today fail miserably in 'Mrs Beeton’s skills' - the basics of cookery, cleaning, repairing and money management, which their grandparents took for granted."

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=21112005

It certainly includes the middle class as well...but of course, who is more able to buy new clothes frequently, compensate for stupid money management, and afford lots of prepared food?

It really is mostly a matter of *practical knowledge and skills* that lots of people no longer have - but it's hurting the poor far worse because they have't got the extra money to cushion their lack.

Re the USDA plan - yeah, that's nearly £200/month at the current exchange rate, about £2,300/year. Well, for several years my husband and I ate quite happily on £780/year (£15/week). That was *before* I started bulk buying and cut it even more, below £500 a year - and I could cut it even more if we were really broke. What the hell are they eating on the "thrifty plan" - steak and caviar????

Maye we need a compulsary class on "food shopping" and budget managing at school.

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