Your background is fascinating, @inthegarden, and helps give context to your posts. Nothing to say sorry for.
I do wonder however how much situational types factors come into play though in rural Africa vs. poverty in America - settings that are food deserts yet have easy access to junk foods and soda, exposure to heavy marketing,etc.
@doschicos, I’m sure you’re absolutely correct about situational factors. And, sometimes I think there could be more stress and discouragement in American poverty in some ways than in (peacetime) rural African poverty in some traditional village settings where there is a strong community of shared culture and social support but you really can’t generalize. In American life, everyone is expected to work problems out as an individual, regardless of whether a proposed solution to a problem is impossible because of other disjointed things going on in the situation (like good food stores and jobs being too far from affordable housing to make them accessible. There are huge problems in Africa too of course, but at least, traditional places have evolved some group/societal solutions over eons (even though those solutions sometimes oppress a segment of the population, and now recent changes in the environment, economy, etc. are causing big changes in traditional settings.)
A funny story that relates a little to your point, doschicos… In Sierra Leone Maggi boullion cubes (MSG-laden, but I digress!) were very popular for flavoring rice. They were sold in individual cubes in village marketplaces. People doled out precious coins to buy one (which might be split up for several meals.) A “Two-Maggi Chop” meant a meal fit for a big-man or VIP. One day, an older man who had taken me under his wing like a father (the village chief actually assigned him to keep an eye on me) showed me his secret cache of edible mushrooms that he was cultivating. These mushrooms would probably cost a fortune at Whole Foods, but he told me mushrooms were commonly called “Poor-Man’s Maggi” …if you could not afford the cube, you were stuck with the mushroom for flavor!
I wish I had had the confidence and self awareness in my 20s to undertake what you did in the Peace Corps, @inthegarden.
So typical when a store bought product is considered superior to a handcrafted or grown product which is really much better quality. Stories like yours, plus the talk on misguided government advice on nutrition, remind me of how many generations were convinced that their babies should be fed formula instead of breastfeeding and its benefits.
@austinmshauri Thank you for the interesting link to the Food Stamp Challenge. The sample meals look healthy, but when you cannot add smoked paprika, basil, or anything I imagine those dishes pale in comparison to KFC 21 spice chicken.
In regards to the affordable cookbook recipes upthread I often made crustless quiche in college with the ‘last chance’ vegetables available at the store. I plan to make the Spicy Green Beans recipe later in the week. I have a jar of sambel oelek in the refrigerator but that would violate the rules of the Food Stamp Challenge.
I’m starting to think Penzey’s Mural of Flavor would be a good addition to my food bank donations.
Well, I really had no confidence (Got paralyzed with anxiety thinking about my college friends at home applying and entering jobs…“how do they know what to do and how to act?” Overseas I was comfortable because I knew no one knew how a young American woman was “supposed” to act and I knew I would be forgiven my faux pas and lack of “normal” skills. Which I was! Like some irritating but always entertaining pet! I would try to take a nap sometimes and find children standing at the open window just gazing at me sleeping, lol! The best “TV” in town! As for self-awareness, you have a LOT of introspective time to develop that! I decided to join the Peace Corps when I was a clueless and dreamy ten-year-old and that was always my biggest “career” aspiration. All downhill from there, LOL! No regrets.
@inthegarden no apologies needed! Thanks for sharing your experiences. I didn’t mean to imply that different people who had walked the walk couldn’t come to entirely different conclusions. I think my issue is with people I’ve known in my life who have never walked the walk or made an attempt to understand those who have, but still think they have all the answers. I have never walked the walk, but I know I don’t have the answers and don’t pretend to. I do make an effort to understand, though.
As someone who has never had much of a sweet tooth and doesn’t drink soda at all, I have a hard time understanding people’s addiction to sweets and soda, but I LOVE anything sour. My beverage of choice is either lemon water or ice tea with no sugar and lots of lemon. The one candy I love is those sour Jolly Ranchers. As a kid, when other were asking for candy, my big treat was a bottle of concentrated lemon juice that was all mine so I could drink it right out of the bottle. 
Other kids wanted an orange and I wanted a lemon. I tell people I love sour things because they match my personality. :))
Funny, @1Dreamer , I love bitter flavors. I say it’s because I’m already naturally sweet 
@Marvin100, Ehrenreich’s book was an excellent read. It can be very eye opening for those who haven’t experienced what it’s like to be poor in America.
D3 lives in Washington DC and is a program analyst for the SNAP program. We’ve had many discussions about issues raised in this thread. Prior to this job, D3 has served in the Peace Corps, worked in a community food pantry, and volunteered long term in a daytime homeless shelter. She has had extensive interaction with the population served by her current position and thank goodness for that as she can relate her work to real people. Some of the recent innovations in the SNAP program like those involving farmers’ markets are exciting and help to address nutritional needs and expand accessibility. Limiting SNAP coverage for only specific items would, for one thing, increase costs of the program which would carry over to consumers. I think it would be demeaning to tell people what foods they are allowed to buy with SNAP benefits. Better nutrional education will lead to better food purchasing decisions by both those with SNAP benefits and those without said benefits. The floor space in our grocery stores occupied with processed and zero-nutritional value foods indicates that many people in our society are not making great nutritional choices.
The larger issue isn’t government recommendations so much as the absence of quality research on nutrition. The studies are all over the place either because they have methodological flaws(observational studies vs RCTs, inadequate sample sizes), test in small population subgroups, or use very narrow measures of healthcare outcomes. Going back to the original topic, I don’t think nutritionists ever recommended people drink soda, except sparingly.
Not only working, but often working some of the most tedious, laborious, thankless, and yes…stressful jobs for very little pay.
And they may be working more than one full-time job without the benefits due to limits on hours mandated by each employer. Many such folks were parents of elementary school classmates while I was growing up in my old NYC neighborhood.
You win best info,@Hoosiermom.
being poor is one of the most expensive things you can be.
(i’m not poor, and i am surely privileged in this context)
to illustrate–i was too lazy to drive to the big grocery store the other day and needed a few “staples” so i combined errands at my closest drugstore.
i bought eggs, the smallest container of folgers and a 1/2 gallon of 1/2&1/2.
Walgreens:
Eggs-$2.49
Folgers-$5.49! (i almost fell over)
1/2&1/2- $2.49
The grocery store:
Eggs-$.99
Folgers-$1.99 (it was on super sale that week)
1/2&1/2-(idk, probably around the same price.
someone who is poor may not have the the time, the ability to drive or take public transportation to the big grocery store and may depend on the nearest store on an everyday basis. my wags example is probably in line with any corner type store.
and as far as i know, that store doesnt sell ecomony sized bags of rice or dried beans at any price. they definitely dont sell fresh produce or meat. you know what they do sell? frozen pizza, chips, candy, and soda (oh, and they do sell bologna in the package but i’m not positive they sell bread).
and fwiw, not all poor people live in cities with easy access to ethnic stores or buses or big box grocery stores. for some, that closest store is the only choice they have.
the discussion is way more than just make better choices.
The closest store that sells any food items near my home in the suburbs is a 7-11. I suspect all their items are considerably more expensive than the grocery stores I shop at and I have no idea how fresh any of the limited produce they carry is.
There used to be a regular supermarket but it was replaced by a church when the church bought the property. The gas station was remodeled to add the 7-11.
Food deserts and non-walkable neighborhoods (some without sidewalks) with poor public transportation is a problem in many suburbs as well, though it is alleviated if folks have time, ability and resources to drive. It is definitely a big barrier to successful aging in place.
When I was on SNAP in college, I was able to go to the local farmers market and get double bucks (I don’t remember the exact name). So say I paid $5 from my snap, I get another $5 worth of food.
But the farmer’s market was only open limited hours and was not really accessible by public transportation. I was lucky to have a flexible schedule and a car to get to said farmers market. That was a privilege and not everyone has that.
Yes, being poor is one of the most expensive things that can happen to you in this country.
The headline in the local newspaper is about how they are going to raise rents for the low income housing, 3, 5 and up to 10% since there haven’t been any increases in a decade. It’s very tough for those living there, since most of them appear to be on fixed incomes and those incomes haven’t risen much over the years, even though expenses have. The rental rates are WAY below HI market rates, so if they lose their housing, they will become homeless and add to our growing homeless/houseless population. It is probably toughest to be old, disabled and poor, since everything will just get more expensive and your assets will continue diminishing.
There was a time (and that time probably still is) when Walmart was derided and blocked from opening stores in certain localities. Something about driving the mom & pop stores out of business, eradicating that local flavor that made neighborhoods unique.My experience, from grocery shopping wherever I happened to be passing through, was that mom & pops fleece their customers, much as Walgreens does to those who convenience shop there.
First: Walmart, along with most grocery chains, will take anyone’s money. They don’t care whether it’s earned or whether it’s off of the SNAP card.
Last: Food deserts, however many there might actually be, exist for an entirely different reason than a lack of paying customers. Fixing that problem is a lot smellier job that bemoaning the fact they exist.
YMMV.
^^ this post reminded me about another recent article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/realestate/new-york-city-small-supermarkets-are-closing.html?_r=0
Apparently, food deserts are not only a problem for the poor / end of sarcasm /
The old Dr. Pepper bottles used to have a circle with a 10, 2, and 4 on them, the idea being that you should have one at each of these times. If you play poker you may have played “Dr. Pepper,”: where tens, twos and fours are wild (now that is a crazy game). In any event, this was back in the 1950s, so soda was clearly being marketed as more than just a “treat.”
A big difference, though, was in the size of the bottles. I’m 56, and I remember as a kid going into restaurants and ordering a Coke and always being served a 6.5 oz. bottle. They recently started selling 8 oz. cans, and even though they aren’t very cost effective, I frequently buy these for my kids. They don’t drink a lot of soda to begin with, but I would rather they drink a smaller portion.
If you like a store that’ll run a tab, stay out of CVS.
If you want a mess of collards for the same price that someone pays in the next zip code, next city, next state, shop Walmart.