Nearly 100% of items that make their way into our household are free or second hand. From time to time, I share some of our thrift and free scores here. To check out past free scores, look here. Second hand stuff…go here.
Three of my Little Preppers went on a walk along the creek in back of our house the other day to hunt down some ramps.
(I don’t know if “Little” would be the correct way to describe my older kids. They’re not so little anymore. One is actually an adult. So, I haven’t quite figured out a better thing to call them yet )
Ramps are pretty awesome. Some people call them wild leeks and they are close to real leeks but not quite. For one thing, ramps are much easier to clean and prepare. They grow in wet ,woody places, usually near streams or ponds and lakes. In the springtime , you’ll be able to smell them before you see them usually. They have a garlicky -oniony scent. To harvest, you just give a yank and they come right up out of the ground.
They’re really pungent,actually. My whole kitchen reeked for a day or two after the kids brought them home. There’s a festival in Pennsylvania celebrating ramps that’s called “Stinkfest”. Not hard to smell why.
In my area in upstate NY, local restaurants that feature local,in season foods love the springtime and ramp season. You use ramps in dishes just like you would onions or leeks but it does have a distinctive flavor of it’s own.
If you’re lucky enough to know where a huge patch of ramps is, you can make some nice extra income in the Spring selling your harvest to local restaurants.
There have been some problems in some places due to over harvesting and environment destruction. In Maine, Rhode Island, and Tennessee, ramps are on the “special concern” list . In Quebec, ramps are a protected plant species and you can only harvest a limited amount.
If you can harvest ramps where you live, it’s worth exploring woods and clearings to find them. Obviously not on private property but I didn’t really have to say that,did I?
They’re high in Vitamin A & Vitamin C and also a good source of selenium and chromium. Selenium is one of those super helpful antioxidants that may be helpful in relieving symptoms of asthma,cystic fibrosis…and dandruff. Chromium helps metabolize fats,carbs ,and insulin.
To use ramps, all you need to do is clean the dirt off of them and trim the bulb from the stem and roots.Use the bulbs as you would onions. You can use them fresh or store them in airtight containers in the freezer. I’ve never tried it but I do know that you can also use the leaves to make pesto. Some people also pickle and can them.
After publishing my last post about obstacles to gardening when you’re poor, I realized there were maybe one or two points I missed…but then I read my emails and discovered there was more than just one or two things I neglected to mention! Thank you everyone who shared their individual experiences and gave feedback.
More Obstacles To Growing Your Own Food
I’m feeling like a lot of these points are reasons all people,regardless of socio-economic status might not garden.
Water -
I can’t believe I missed this one. I lived in a house without running water for awhile. Rain collection barrels helped but it was a pain in the ass.
In drought-afflicted areas, there are tight water restrictions. People who have to pay for water aren’t able to justify using large amounts every day . Rain collecting doesn’t work where it doesn’t rain and some states now prohibit rain collection now.
Pests
Sometimes there is no other way to combat animals that eat your garden other than building a fence. Building a deer proof fence…it’s not cheap.
Food Storage
One reader told me, “We managed to grow quite a bit but I ended up giving a lot of it away which seems to defeat the point.I filled my tiny freezer. I didn’t have money to buy a canner, which was too bad since I have enough mason jars to get me through doomsday ,if I could have just filled them with food! I don’t know how to can anyway….”
I can completely understand this. We scored an upright freezer at a yard sale years ago for only $30 and my Faux-MIL gave me a pressure cooker one Christmas. Both are really helpful when you do manage to grow any food in quantity.
“Gardening is fucking HARD!”
Thanks to Melissa for lending me that quoted headline right there. Add to this Shantay’s “Mother Nature sucks sometimes.”
Many readers shared their experience of spending money they did not have because they felt they needed to provide for themselves only to battle with surprise snow storms, bugs,hail,kids,animals,poor soil,plant disease,mildew,drought,flooding…. you know…pretty much every bad thing that can happen when you garden.
Once people have a horrible,no good,very bad experience with gardening, they aren’t likely to venture back into it,especially when they didn’t get a return on their investment the first time.
You can buy seeds with EBT? Who knew!?
It turns out a lot of people on food stamps didn’t even know that. Some people who did know that and had tried to buy seeds using their EBT said that they found limited gardening places that would take EBT and they weren’t interested in GMO seeds at the grocery store. Seed saving from store bought produce only works if you’re absolutely certain of the seed heritage .Most are hybrid and aren’t going to grow right (some won’t produce anything at all).
This part of the program is fairly new ,so perhaps the USDA has more plans to expand upon it .Maybe by offering gardening classes for SNAP & low income people?
Community Garden Plots Cost Money
True story. So do memberships to CSAs…although in my area, there is one CSA that has a sliding fee scale based on income and has a few shares reserved for SNAP recipients.
I received an awesome email from a reader who cannot grow her own food because of several of the original points I mentioned. Her email was long but there was one point I wanted to share:
“Even when I say to someone all the reasons I can’t garden, they throw WHERE THERE’S A WILL,THERE’S A WAY at me. I have will! I WANT to grow my own food! Hand to God cannot do it right now. Otherwise I would! I’ve ALWAYS had a garden and I’m good at it. My will & knowledge isn’t the problem here and it just makes me feel like a giant piece of dog shit when someone lays the guilt trip on me that I’m not doing enough to help feed myself because I don’t have enough will. “
Yeah. The “Where there’s a will,there’s a way” thing is getting old for me,too.
Ok, on to our weekly link round -up…
This is tomorrow. Leave your non-perishable food with your mail carrier and they will donate it to your local food pantry. If you miss this, consider donating directly to your food pantry. Food Bank Directory
Every Can Counts – a video from the Utah Food Bank featuring some of their food banks and the hungry people they serve.
Feeding Cities iTunes Course- This looks pretty amazing but I haven’t had a chance to check it out. Course description says: Food security is one of our biggest global problems. It is a commonly used, but often misunderstood, phrase that encompasses the availability, accessibility, safety, and security of what we consume. Every night nearly 870 million people go to bed hungry, an increasing number of whom live in cities. At the same time, another billion urbanites suffer from obesity-related diseases that the World Health Organization reports will be the number one killer of poor people globally by 2030. In fact, these diseases now cause close to 60 percent of all deaths worldwide. Surprisingly, nearly 80 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries
.While these food-related issues may have different manifestations in different parts of the world—urban, rural, developed, developing—they are particularly worrisome for today’s and tomorrow’s burgeoning urban centers in Asia and Africa. These centers are experiencing annual urban growth rates of two percent and three percent respectively. This sprawling urban expansion comprises miles of slums or golf courses and gated communities that displace the agricultural land that once supplied those cities with food. It also challenges weak transportation and logistics systems, which now must strain to bring food to market, and adds to existing inefficiencies that contribute to rising food prices, which contributes to undernutrition, overnutrition, and malnutrition. At the same time, the developed world also exhibits health crises, most evident in pockets of deprivation where access to healthy foods is limited and, more broadly, where obesity is epidemic. So what can be done?
Rochester Food Bank Garden -the produce from this church garden feeds the community’s senior citizens and supplies the food bank.
South Carolina Senate budget: Ban junk food at Governor’s mansion -I’ve given South Carolina Gov Nikki Haley a shoutout before for wanting to restrict junk food. SC Sen. Darrell Jackson is like, “Hey, that’s cool but then you can’t have any either.” (Not an exact quote)
It seems pretty simple. Having a hard time eating? “Grow your own food!”, they say. “They” are usually well meaning and coming from a place of only good intentions, otherwise I’d be whipping out my, “Honey, you better check your privilege!” speech. Which I guess is what I’m doing right now but I want to try to do it gently, in more of a pointing things out kind of way and not the tongue lashing kind of way. People living below the poverty line often feel that the ,”YES, you CAN grow your own food!” sentiment is just another way some people make poor people feel bad about being poor and blame them for not doing more to help themselves.
Growing your own food is undeniably one of the best ways to get fresh, nutritious food economically , and bonus points- ethically & eco-friendly. When someone suggests that a person struggling with food security just simply grow their own food, they’re making the following assumptions:
The person has access to land,space , and the soil it takes to grow food
They are able bodied.
They have time to devote to a garden.
They have a budget to acquire seeds & supplies for starting a garden.
They know how to do it.
Digging deeper (that pun was not intended but it does seem like I didn’t try to hard to avoid it), I want to talk about each assumption separately.
Land & Space To Grow Food
Americans who live in urban areas are more likely to live in poverty than those who don’t live in the city.217 million people receiving food stamps live in urban areas compared to about 62 million in rural areas. Typically, the economically disadvantaged neighborhoods are not the greenest places on earth, which contributes to the food desert clime. In urban areas, the best places for growing food would be balconies,window boxes, fire escapes and rooftops. Not everyone has access to those spaces. If they do have an area they can claim as their own, they may have to consider getting permission from the building owner (who unfortunately, more often than not, is going to give the idea a thumbs down) . Is their hard work only going to be vandalized or destroyed? Is it practical?
I’m an avid gardener but I haven’t always been able to garden, even in rural small town America. I once lived in an apartment building that had a beautiful yard that I saw as potential edible gardens. The owners did not and tenants were only permitted to have small flower pots on the outside stoop. In the house we rent now, our Grey Gardens is A LOT of work for low yield. I’m mainly able to grow all herbs,greens and a few veggies but it’s not nearly enough to put a dent in the food needs of my 7 person family.
Community gardens and CSA co-ops are an excellent solution to this problem but as Novella Carpenter’s experience with her Ghost town Farm ,and other city farmers like the people of LA who founded The Garden can tell us, space in the city is coveted and premium. Meaning, to create sustainable food sources in food deserts, communities need to raise money to own a space to call their own or a benevolent property owner will have to see a reason to give a gift of land to the community.
Ability
photo via eartheasy.com
There’s a strong connection between being a disabled American and being impoverished. Roughly 30% of all disabled people fall below the poverty line. Disabilities is a broad term but a fair amount are physical and even disabilities not considered a physical disability could inhibit someone’s ability to garden.
Under this category, I would also include elderly people…and sadly, the statistics for the number of elderly living in poverty isn’t so great these days.
It isn’t impossible to garden with disabilities or once you reach old age but there are limitations and accessibility issues. Raised garden beds that are wheelchair accessible are a fantastic solution. Community organizations could help fill the need by contributing supplies and assisting with labor.
Time
A common misconception is that poor people don’t work, especially people who receive assistance like SNAP. For example,30% of food stamp recipients are employed full time .This isn’t a reflection of all people in poverty, since many do not seek assistance or make just barely over the qualifying limit but still live below the line. Some work part time and are full time students.It isn’t uncommon for a family living below the poverty line to be a two income household or a single parent household working 2 jobs. Underemployment is just as dangerous a place as being unemployed entirely. Time and energy are already being spent on working and/or raising a family in many cases.Gardening? ”Ain’t nobody got time for that”.
Resources
There’s a popular homesteading page on Facebook that promotes growing your own food as a way to solve your economic hardships. After several posts with the “Poor people should just grow their own food!”, I felt the need to raise some questions, starting with ,”How?”. The response was a very simplistic: People who get food stamps can use their EBT to buy seeds!
Oh. Problem solved!
Except… if a person on food stamps is buying enough seeds to actually provide fully for their family, that’s a huge dent in their food stamp allowance. Many people are not going to be able to put off food they can eat now for seeds. Many food budget decisions are short term when you’re poor because that’s the way it has to be. The creation more of seed banks and seed exchanges would benefit poor gardeners a lot more than their EBT card.
You can’t buy topsoil or potting soil with food stamps. You can’t buy garden tools with food stamps.
If the person has to resort to indoor gardening, EBT isn’t going to buy grow lights. Planting containers… nope, not those either.
It’s fantastic that the USDA allows people to use their EBT to buy seeds but to help people be self-sufficient food providers, there has to be incentives and programs that offset start-up costs for gardening. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime. But you still have to give him a fishing pole.
Knowledge
Some people don’t know the first thing about growing food. That’s not just a poor people thing. There’s a gap in our American modern culture that has a huge disconnect with where our food comes from ,and with nature in general. The bright spot in this deficit is the huge upswing of food education and ag-curriculum programs in schools. My children’s schools all have some type of food education and gardening program. These programs need to be in every school, not just for the gardening knowledge but for the nutrition education. It takes work,parental involvement and community support but it can happen.
The nice benefit that comes from community gardens is that the organizers pass on their knowledge to any adult interested and willing to learn and do the work. Peer education is an incredible free learning tool.
I’m not trying to rain on everyone’s real food parade here by pointing these things out. I’m just trying to raise awareness to the complexities of growing food. It isn’t as simple as just doing it. If a person CAN do it, then I am their loudest cheerleader. I’m just saying, not everyone can, so let’s just stop with the sentiment that says they can. If they really can and want to, everything should be done to cheer them on. If they can’t, so be it. Don’t keep preaching. It doesn’t help. Grow some extra food in your garden and donate it directly to a family or a local food pantry . That would be an excellent way to help.
Communities everywhere should facilitate and encourage gardening and community supported agriculture to solve their local hunger and food security problem. I have asserted time and time again that we already CAN feed every single human being with the food that is wasted in the U.S. . Politics prevents this from happening. With that in mind , it might seem like gardening is a moot point. If there’s already enough food ,why not just focus on managing that correctly and putting it in the people’s mouths? Why garden at all? The great thing that community and home gardens would accomplish is an end to dependency on corporations that grow and distribute the not-so-great food that’s in our system. Bringing food back into local communities and putting the power into people’s hands is best for everyone but everyone needs to work to make this happen. Poverty and food insecurity isn’t going to be eradicated by putting all the responsibility on the people in poverty. Becoming self-sufficient is a huge privilege and the obstacles to achieving it need to be kicked aside by those who already have the possibility of that privilege .
Jessica from Alternative Mommies loves coconut oil. Seriously, she talks about it ALL THE TIME. In an endearing sort of way, I swear! Jessica is also a reader of this blog who also has received SNAP and feeds her family on a tight budget. Since one of the most popular searches to this blog is “Can I buy coconut oil with food stamps?” , I thought it was time to give coconut oil it’s very own post here and thought Jessica was exactly the right person to do that.
It’s been less than a year since the first time I purchased coconut oil, but it would be an understatement to say that I’m mildly obsessed with it. I use it for damn near everything.
This post is specifically about how using coconut oil can help for those of us who have to live on a tight budget. I’m absolutely confident that once you try it you’ll understand my obsession! It is seriously one of the most versatile products I’ve ever encountered. It is a food product so it can be purchased with SNAP. I actually knew whenever my SNAP benefits were ending so I bought four jars the last month we had benefits. (Yes, I did get a funny look from the cashier. Too bad she didn’t inquire as to why I was buying it. I genuinely want to share the wonders of coconut oil with everybody!)
If you aren’t familiar with coconut oil, it is a solid at room temperature. It melts at 74 degrees Fahrenheit. When used topically it melts pretty quickly from your own body temperature. There have been two situations where I found it necessary to melt the coconut oil before I could use it: baking and using it in smoothies. I’ve tried a few ways to melt it. The microwave is convenient, but you run the risk of zapping out all the healthy stuff. I do use the microwave if it’s just a small bit. For larger amounts I just heat it in a small saucepan or cast-iron skillet on the stove.
In the kitchen coconut oil can be used to replace butter or pretty much any other oil in any recipes. I substitute an equal amount of coconut oil for the butter/oil I’m replacing. Just make sure you melt it if using it for baking! It can also be used for sautéing or deep frying. I’ve completely eliminated the need to purchase any other cooking oils. Coconut oil has also helped to drastically cut down the amount of butter we consume. You can add a tablespoon to a smoothie for an energy boost as well!
The uses for coconut oil definitely do not stop at the kitchen! This is where the money-saving benefits really come in! I no longer purchase shaving cream, lotion, moisturizer, eye cream, or lip balm. In the shower I just rub coconut oil on as if it were shaving cream. I was a bit nervous because I have super sensitive skin. If I shave with just soap and water I always get razor burn. Then one day I ran out of the ridiculously over-priced “natural” shaving cream I had. Enter coconut oil. Now I’m hooked. Bonus: your skin will be very well-moisturized whenever you’re done. After the shower, just apply all over as you would with baby oil or lotion.
Coconut oil is even great to use on your face. This was another situation that I was skeptical of. It seemed to me that putting oil on your face would just make it oilier. I could not have been more wrong. Apple it to your face daily just like you would with moisturizer. My skin looks so great now that I don’t wear any foundation or powder. Your skin will look and feel so good, and you can be happy that you don’t have to waste money on unnecessary products or slather a bunch of unpronounceable chemicals on your face. Go ahead and rub some on your lips too to keep them moisturized!
Coconut oil can be used in place of diaper rash cream as well. In this case I always use organic expeller-pressed coconut oil. It is a bit expensive, but I only use it whenever I feel like I need to have the highest quality. This is definitely one of those situations for me. To use it for diaper rash, just rub it liberally on the affected area. You should notice the symptoms going away within the first or second day.
Coconut oil can be mixed with other cheap SNAP-accepted ingredients to make deodorant and toothpaste. I don’t do anything fancy to make the deodorant. I put coconut oil on my armpits then use a powder puff to put cornstarch on over it. I haven’t had any problems with sweat or odor. Making toothpaste is almost just as easy. In a small container mix equal parts (I did 2tbs) baking soda and coconut oil. Add around 10 drops of peppermint oil to freshen breath. The taste isn’t great, but I’ve read that you can add stevia to sweeten it. I haven’t personally tried this though.
I know this is starting to get long so I’ll wrap it up, but I could seriously write a book on how amazing coconut oil is. In addition to the things I’ve listed above it can also be used to make hair treatments and sugar scrubs. My advice for you is to go buy yourself a jar of coconut oil, and start to implement some of the ideas I’ve written about. It won’t take long for you to understand why I’m raving so much about this product! Its uses are absolutely not limited to what I’ve had time to share so I recommend doing a Pinterest or Google search if you want more ideas.
I really hope this was helpful! Feel free to comment here or e-mail me at thealtmommy@gmail.com to let me know your thoughts and how you use coconut oil to help stay on your budget!
The point of this video is to talk about how the U.S. drone strikes aren’t killing who they’re supposed to be killing but Lee Camp inserts a nice bit I appreciate in the spirit of “Food Not Bombs!”.
This is Tom Hiddleston. Yeah, I know…he’s fucking adorable but THAT is not why he’s awesome. Well, I suppose it could be one reason but not the reason I’m pointing out today.He’s also an excellent actor
but that’s not why either.
Tom recently became a supporter of UNICEF in the UK and traveled to West Africa . He blogged about the experience :
Last week he also began the Living Below The Line challenge. It’s like my SNAP challenge here but even more challenging. It’s £1 per day for food ( $1.54 US).
Now, we’ve discussed here before whether or not these food challenges actually have merit, especially when a high profile person participates. It’s true that segmenting a portion of living expenses does not give someone a fair assessment of what it’s like to truly live in poverty but I tend to think when you’re focusing on the food part of it, you get a scary sense of what the rest of it might be like. Food scarcity is a HUGE part of poverty. It affects how you are able to relate and cope with every other aspect of life and in the grander scale, impacts your entire health and well being.
So, while there are some who dispute the value of food scarcity challenges,I tend to lean toward it being a positive thing. I think it shows that the person participating is a person who gives a shit about human beings and wants to raise awareness on behalf of those human beings who have less. And I really like it when people give a shit.
So, in a nutshell, Tom Hiddleston is an awesome person because he gives a shit and he would like others to care,too.
The above tweets were all from the start of the challenge. You can read the daily updates here.
I have other evidence of awesomeness. This and this:
I started doing this little Awesome Person thing elsewhere but decided I’d rather do it here on the blog. But you can see the others here.
Last month I watched 2 whole seasons of Extreme Couponing on Netflix instant . I took a lot of crap for it,too. I had tried to instate a house rule awhile ago that no one can judge or make fun of someone else’s viewing and everyone should be respectful of what makes others happy. They did not observe this rule during my viewing binge.I understood. It was difficult to not be snarky when a certain man I live with was watching The Vampire Diaries.
I tried to explain to them that I was watching Extreme Couponing for research! It’s true. I’m writing a book about post-apocalyptic living and I wanted to determine if it’s worth getting to know an extreme couponer now so you have access to their hoard when the shit hits the fan. There was another reason extreme couponers intrigued me,though. Of all the criticism I receive about my writing here about poverty & hunger, the most surprising is that from people who classify themselves as Couponers.
From what I understand, they (the select few, not ALL of Couponers collectively) believe that people who get SNAP are rather spoiled . They manage to feed their family of 5 on $50 a week just fine! Or nothing at all! Why can’t the rest of the poor folks do that instead of mooching off the government, whiny babies!
Now, that’s fantastic for them, if that’s how they want to eat. I’ve tried to use coupons but for the way my family eats, coupons were relatively pointless. We don’t eat pre-packaged foods or sugary drinks and we don’t use disposable paper products (except toilet paper), which seem to be the bulk of couponing hoards. It’s hard to find coupons for items we actually use. Fresh produce, especially. So, honestly…I wasn’t convinced these extreme couponers are eating very well.
I think I’m right about that, unless they have a huge garden they’re using to supplement the crap food hoard they’ve amassed, they’re not eating very well. My point feels validated. Sorry,couponers!
BUT here’s something that happened a few times during the series…something I felt incredibly conflicted about : Sometimes, these couponers would get $1,000 or more worth of stuff and using coupons, pay NOTHING for the entire cart loads and then…THEY GAVE IT ALL AWAY.
All of it, just gave it away! Sometimes to food pantries or shelters but there was one woman who gave it to teen moms. And ya’ll know how I feel about helping out my teen mamas.
Yeah, I cried. It’s beautiful when people try to do their human duty and care for others. But then…wait….all that stuff is crap. Don’t give them crap! But… isn’t some crap better than having no food at all? Yes. Yes,it is. Goddamn it. How am I supposed to feel about this?
I still don’t know how I feel about it. I get that any food is better than none. I understand how turning up my nose at the processed ,cheap food is seen as privilege. And I do totally and completely recognize that we need to make sure people have food period . Yep, I get this. Maybe it’s because I have experience locally with an organization who rescues thousands of pounds every single week from supermarkets and distributes them to low income families I’ve seen and received some of this stuff. We’re not talking about sugary drinks (aka Diabetes in a Bottle) and boxed tuna noodle casserole (aka Hypertension in a Box). We’re talking about bagels, artisan loaves of breads,cheeses, every kind of fresh produce you can think of…even bok choy. We can feed people good food , real food.
It CAN be done. We don’t need people to spend 20 hours a week clipping coupons from weekend circulars and then spending 8 hours at the grocery store to do it. It touches me tremendously to know there are people who care enough to bother and that does count a lot but we don’t have to do it. 40% of all food in America is thrown out and less than 40% of Americans say they struggle with hunger. Math is not my strength but… even I can figure this one out.
We also have politicians who are idiots. Oh, like… Mayor Bloomberg ,for example. In March, the NYC Mayor prohibited any donations from being made to homeless shelters. Even bakery made bagels and deli soup. Food that will be thrown in the garbage otherwise. Perfectly good food. Why? Because if people just randomly give the homeless shelters any food, it’s too hard for the city to monitor the food for sugar,salt, and fiber content. Really? In this case, the food under scrutiny can provide food to fill a hungry person’s belly AND it’s good food. We can do both. Evidently, we just need politicians to stop making it harder to do so. Defying common sense, feeding homeless people is being banned in cities all over the country.
Can I get a very loud and outraged , “What the fuck?” over here?
Wait. Hold on to your what the fucks. You’re going to need another one.
Give poor people food? Nah. Let’s throw it in the garbage!
My Faux-Hubby works at a grocery store. The corporate policy is to not allow people to dumpster dive for produce because they’re afraid someone will eat something bad and then they’ll have a lawsuit on their hands. Instead they tend to donate most perishables to the food rescue program I mentioned and whatever is left, they compost. I get companies wanting to avoid lawsuits but in this case, all this food thrown away by the bank was non-perishable, not expired. Perfectly good food that could feed people. Economically, it’s in every company’s best interest to have less food waste as possible.That’s common sense. If you’re feeding people, hey…that’s a great plus. You save money AND get to not be an asshole.
It was going to be given to a church to distribute to low income people. Instead, the low income people showed up ,cutting out the middle man. Why was it so hard to just give the people the damn food?
What the fuck,right?
Thankfully, this has a happy ending ,thanks to the company hired to remove the food from the premises. Thompson Building Wrecking sorted the food and rescued what they could and donated it to a local food pantry. It wasn’t their job but they did it. They shouldn’t have had to. The people should have been given the food directly in the first place.
Why is this so hard for companies & politicians to understand? Just feed the people, for fucks sake.
This can be done. I know it can. Let’s get our shit together, ‘murica. Make it happen.
The first time I experienced true hunger, I just went with it and hoped the answer to having no food would fall in my lap. Something would change. I was not about to go beg for help. I was raised knowing what kind of people got free money from the government. Lazy,good for nothing,waste of space kind of people. I was harder on myself also because I heard all the voices back from when I had a baby when I was just a girl myself…the ones that said, ‘You’ll never make it. You’re going to ruin your own life and that baby’s. “. Realistically, I should have been proud of the fact that I raised that baby until he was 5 without help from anyone, family or the government. A 35 year old single mother had just as much chance of being the one who found herself suddenly without a job and no new prospects, struggling to avoid eviction and keep the lights on and food in bellies. I just didn’t see it that way then. I saw myself as the conservative naysayer’s prophecy come true. I honestly believed asking for help made me less of a “strong woman”.
I fed my kid what there was to eat and if there was leftovers, I’d eat that. I was naturally petite, weighing only about 110 pounds at my heaviest winter weight. Before long, I started to lose my curves and people noticed. At first, it was, “Wow, you look great!” , until I didn’t look great anymore and I just looked sick. I weighed 85 pounds before someone I barely knew made me call DSS and apply for food stamps & cash assistance. I was ashamed and embarrassed, which was only made worse by the way people treat you when you’re getting assistance but the world didn’t end and we ate.
That was the first time.
The second time I was really hungry, I had taken myself, my son, and newborn twins out of a horrible situation and moved into an apartment.It didn’t take long to feel like I had just gone from a dangerous place to another dangerous place. I was working full time, paying more than half my paycheck to daycare, not receiving any child support or assistance from anywhere. As soon as I caught myself rationing food and making sure the kid ate before I did, I recognized that it was time to apply for help. I did and I was denied. I made $110 too much, according to the income eligibility guidelines. $110 too much yet not enough to actually make it. I applied for a program that would pay for my daycare, freeing up that money to pay the bills & eat but there was a 6 month waiting list. That’s a long time to wait when you’re hungry. I went to food pantries and bought cheap & gross food. The apartment I lived in had no place for me to grow food. Then the daycare center I worked at as a teacher went bankrupt and closed. That saved my ass. No longer making anything, I was approved for food stamps and we could eat again. I don’t know what would have happened if the place I worked for hadn’t closed and I had stayed employed. I had already started not eating at home and looking forward to the free meals served at the daycare.Afterward, living on unemployment & some food stamps, I found myself in the odd predicament of being afraid to find another job and getting stuck in the same situation.
That was the second time. There wasn’t really a third time. Even though we receive food stamps right now, I didn’t let it get to that point where I was truly hungry. I think you’ve probably figured out that when I’m using the word hungry here,I’m not talking about the little pang you feel between meals. I’m talking about a consistently empty and unfulfilled feeling in your stomach. The kind that makes you tired and slow, physically,mentally,spiritually. I never let it get that far again.
There are millions of people in the US who are eligible for food stamps and don’t even apply. There are a lot more who have applied and were denied because they made “too much” . Making too much to receive help is sometimes just as bad as being in that place where you won’t go apply for whatever reason. The system has a lot of illogical rules and doesn’t serve everyone who needs fed. In most states, the amount someone is suppose to receive as court ordered child support is counted as income….even if child support is rarely received. There are readers of this blog who are in that situation and not just a couple. Single parents living on one income, not making ends meet at all yet can’t qualify for help because on paper, their income is some figure based on what some slacker is supposed to pay but doesn’t.
People have told me their reasons for not applying. The shame & fear of being judged is an overwhelmingly huge factor. From what blog readers have told me, the way you’re treated at the social services office by caseworkers varies greatly. Some are compassionate & helpful. Others are cruel & judgmental.The people who have had experiences in the past with government employed social workers who can’t dish out anything but contempt for the people they’re required to help won’t ever go back to apply again. Humiliation is powerful enough to keep people from getting help to eat. That’s a damned shame. I wish the employment process for these workers could measure a person’s competency in offering human decency.
It isn’t just the fact that a trip to the DSS office feels like Judgement Day that prevents people from applying. In some states, people take one look at the application and get confused or intimidated. …especially those who are elderly,undereducated, or foreign-born.There are some states that make it super easy to apply and reapply, some even let you do it online or over the phone. It’s unlikely that a lot of people know that,though. We’ve received SNAP for quite a while now and I had no idea that my state was one of them. We’ve missed recertifications because of transportation and work schedule conflicts , going without benefits for a period of time and we didn’t have to! But no one ever told us that, so how was I supposed to know? Someone on the Internet told me. Not a case worker, nothing in the paperwork or any pamphlet.
There are information sessions for people looking to apply for SNAP or already on SNAP…but only in some places. They cover everything from exactly how to apply to your rights and responsibilities as a recipient. A few readers told me that there are sometimes people at food pantries who do the same services. I wish this was a thing everywhere , so more people could be helped without feeling like the process is just another huge obstacle in their life, one more thing holding them back.
More people really need to be on food stamps and it needs to be easier to make it happen.Food is a right, not a privilege. I wish I had understood that 20 years ago. I wish I had understood that it didn’t matter why I had no money to feed myself and my child, I still deserved to eat just as much as any other human being with money in their bank account. I don’t care how unpopular that opinion is. I don’t express the opinions I have to please those people. I have them to show I care about people who need someone to give a shit about them and because I’ve been there myself. The people who gripe about there being too many people on food stamps ”living high on the hog” as it is and all that bullshit about welfare fraud need to get a dose of reality. More than half the people on food stamps work, they’re just underemployed and half the people also receive them for less than 1 year. Being anti-food stamps because of rampant welfare fraud or other misconceptions is like saying that a lot of women lie about being raped. It happens so rarely that it makes the issue irrelevant.Of course it’s wrong but the percentages do not warrant an entire argument and raging stigma to be born from it. I’m not here to talk about how bad welfare fraud is. I’m just here to speak for the larger numbers of people who need help. Living on food stamps is no picnic but it beats the hell out of not having them at all.
The welfare stigmas and stereotypes need to die. I don’t know how to make this happen except to keep speaking up for the majority of people who do not fit the stereotype and myth. I encourage anyone who really needs help to go get it and refuse to give a shit about the people who will judge you.No one should ever get to that point where they weigh 85 pounds and are still too embarrassed to ask for help. If you’re treated unkindly, point out that decent humans don’t act like that. Compassion is a sign of great intellect. If they’re not showing compassion, it proves their stupidity. If you happen to be one of the unsympathetic beings reading this, don’t get all bent out of shape because I just stated that you’re stupid. Just try to open your mind a bit and let your perceptions change a little. Remember this: Shit happens and it happens to the best of us. Someday you could be the one who needs help. Do you really want to be treated like a parasite because of it?
Last week I had this brilliant idea that I would make 2 things every week that I’d seen pinned on Pinterest – one recipe & one crafty thing. Me and my brilliant ideas. I actually felt pretty confident about this since I tend to not fuck things up too terribly. I figured this shouldn’t be too hard to pull off.
This is what happened when I attempted to make them:
What the…? How the hell does someone fuck this up this bad? It was supposed to be EASY. Easy, it said!
I’m really stubborn and was not going to be bested by a recipe labeled “Easy”. I cleaned the waffle iron and tried again. SAME.EXACT. FAIL.
Finally, I balled up the tater tot mash & made patties in a cast iron skillet and I had the same thing but without waffly squares in it. Bah.
I have no idea what I’m doing for a crafty thing this week. Every thing I say, “Oh, that’s cute!” about, a kid comes to look over my shoulder and with rolling eyes says, “That’s stupid,Mom.” I need to stop talking out loud to myself so much, that’s the solution here. So, stay tuned for some stupid crafty thing I will probably fuck up anyway.
To accompany today’s Food Stamp Food post a video about a kid trying to escape a neighborhood where the food is killing everyone…..over-refined, processed,GMO, pesticide -laden CRAP.
economically disadvantaged neighborhoods are not the greenest places on earth, which contributes to the 
poverty & hunger, the most surprising is that from people who classify themselves as Couponers.
