STOP WHINING! LEARN HOW TO COOK!

I saw a link to this story over on Facebook- with the typical liberal doom and gloom “Oh My God! The Poor are going to DIE!” bs.
Our Family will lose $44 in Food Stamps
Well it’s CRAP! The family of four adults gets $800! Yup EIGHT HUNDRED dollars a month in food stamps! And this lady can’t make it through a month? Get REAL!  $800 is PLENTY to feed a family of four. PLENTY! (And as to why her pregnant adult daughter can not watch the baby of the OTHER adult daughter so she could get a job? THAT is another post!)

Yup- I could do that. Years and years ago I fed my boys and self on food stamps when my benefit for the 3 of us was $205 a month. And I did it. Was it easy? No. Some strategies were necessary. Starting with NO JUNK. No sugary cereal. No store-bought cookies. No soda or chips or candy. No prepared foods like spaghetti in a can or canned soups. Absolutely NO brand name things unless you have a coupon that brings the price below the store brand. Snacks were perhaps carrot sticks, an apple, celery with PB. Raisins. A big treat was plain nacho chips with block cheese grated over the top and popped in the oven. Gee- my house was THE go to home for good eats for my boys friends; they LOVED those nachos lol. Tuna casserole. Eggs- cheap and nutritious protein. Home made oatmeal cookies. Oatmeal – NOT instant in individual packages. Very nutritious and filling. Chili.  A chicken would make AT LEAST three meals. Who needs Bisquick? Make your own and save a LOT of money. Keep a good basic pantry with flour, baking powder and baking soda. Yeast. Make your own bread. Purchase seasonal items. Potatoes and rice- always filling and potatoes are chock full of vitamins and minerals. Try to get yourself and your family in the habit of eating the skins too. Waste nothing. Watch for sales and buy in bulk when possible. For example- if chicken is on sale- buy extra and freeze it. Do not pay extra for cut up chicken-check the price. If whole chicken is cheaper- buy whole and cut it up yourself. Same with pork and beef. Buy big and cut it down. Save the ends of celery and carrots in a bag in the freezer for stock. DO NOT take children with you to the grocery store. Shop only twice a month. (I had a milkman back then so it made it easier but milk can be frozen and there is always powdered milk.) When apples are cheap in the fall- buy a lot and make your own applesauce and apple butter. Make up apple pie filling and freeze it. Same with pears. Same with peaches. Get it while it is cheap and learn how to preserve it. Most vegetables freeze very well. Buy vegetables in season and learn how to blanch and freeze. Watch price differences on fresh vs frozen vs canned. Not a big fan of canned vegetables- too much salt- but if it is the cheapest per pound go for it. Many times frozen vegetables price per pound is cheaper than fresh and just as nutritious. On the subject of frozen- milk can be frozen too. How about powdered or canned milk? Is it cheaper per gallon?

Popcorn. Regular old plain popcorn. NOT microwaveable in a bag portions of popcorn. Why pay extra for convenience and packaging? While I’m at it- let’s make SNAP like WIC- ONLY nutritious food. NO soda, chips, cookies or other junk. It is supposed to be a NUTRITION assistance program.

Could I do it today? I would say I probably could. I still shop only twice a month and average $48 per trip. Husband shops at the alternate stores weekly and spends about $35 a trip.  We have the luxury of having an Aldi’s and a bent and dent store in the area. When I go to the store I head first for the marked down produce. I can often get oh luxury of luxury! Mushrooms at half off. Last shopping trip there were five packages of bananas marked down from 59 cents a pound to 39 cents a pound. I bought four packages. We ate one, I made a big batch of banana bread mini loaves- we ate one loaf and froze the rest for holiday giving. I froze the rest of the bananas for later baking and smoothies.

We save all year to buy a whole hog or lamb at the 4-H market auction in August. This year we got a whole hog for $2 a pound. That was $440  for the animal and then .45 a pound for the local processor to get it ready for the freezer. After processing and loss from the processing we paid about $3.66 a pound for pork. Pork enough for us for one year and some to give to church.

A few years back a CNN producer took the food stamp challenge– and bought chicken breasts? Lady are you kidding me? Chicken breasts? See the above- you buy a WHOLE chicken. Unless the chicken breasts were marked down to less than the cost of a whole chicken or less than legs and thighs.

Quit with the boo hoo bs before you start on me about food deserts and all that BS. Every city I know of has a farmer’s market and most all accept food stamps. Why not pitch in together on gas and get to a grocery store? God Forbid I should suggest that perhaps churches and other organizations could maybe run a van out to the grocery stores a couple of times a month? When I was on hard times my friends and I would chip in together to buy big bulk packs and split them up at home. Can the current recipients get together and do the same?

Quit enabling people to feel sorry for themselves and pointing out how life sucks for them. Teach them how to succeed with what they have and how to strive to make it better. Stop trying to make people who CAN afford a more varied diet feel guilty. Stop trying to frighten people. And forget about trying to make ME feel sorry for them. I believe we should help people out- OUT of poverty. NOT leave them there with no skills. And helping people out does not mean they get everything the working class or wealthy people get.

Oh and the lady in the CNN story lives in Florida. How about planting a garden lady? How about giving up some of those lovely potted plants and putting the pots to good use growing FOOD?

And quit with the BS of Congress people and “journalists”  not giving the whole picture. It serves nothing but to promote an agenda.

I challenge ANY journalist or Congress critter to come here and I will show them how it is done and done well. I challenge the “journalists” to state FACTS- ALL of them- not just the sensationalized agenda promoting ones.