From Feb07, 2010 PostSecrets
This person would be happy to know that I get about 200$ in FS every month, and always run out before the next month because I blow it all on healthy food. And I mean healthy for me and the environment, thus you too. Nothing makes me more excited than my card being recharged, allowing me to hit up the nice stores like Harris Teeter, or Whole Foods, preferably Trader Joe's if I can bribe a ride, and buy quality organic food. The food stamps are a great supplement to have a healthy diet free of cheap, processed foods that taste like cardboard. Also, vegetarian alternatives can be quite expensive. But I rather pay the price for the food now, than pay for it in mine and the earth's health later. I don't want foods with modified DNA doused in toxic chemicals and processed to an unrecognizable degree devoid of any real nutritional value. Sure they may fulfill your caloric needs, but nutrient deficiencies cause serious physiological, cognitive, and emotional problems.
Here's what I wrote on the PS forums:
[quote]
I often wonder what the checkers think of me buying organic, fresh and healthy food with my Food Stamps.[/quote]
Everytime I make a big purchase at the grocery store with my food stamps, and its as organic and healthy as possible, I feel guilty. I feel like I should really be buying as cheap as food as possible to maximize my stamps.
But I've come to see it as a supplement to me eating healthy which I think is what the author of the secret was trying to get at. Poor people are very unhealthy. Nutritional deficiencies lead to physical, cognitive, and emotional problems that are detrimental to a person's quality of life. It's not fun being tired and depressed all the time, and then being too poor to splurge on any exciting activity (which is why you do have people using food stamps to buy pounds and pounds of filet mignon, it brings us a very rare pleasure - one that affluent people easily take for granted.. not everyone can go to a restaurant every night and order whatever they want).
Think of the people who spend all day working in a factory, then all night working as a waitress trying to make ends meet to raise their family. That takes a lot of energy and strength. They don't have time to buy the cheap, fresh ingredients and make everything at home. They have to buy convenient, easy-to-make meals.. and these meals are so processed and made with such cheap ingredients that they lack the nutritional value (its not just about caloric intake - you can eat all the calories you want, but if you don't have the nutrients to assist in the uptake and conversion in metabolic processes, then what's the point?) to provide a nourishing meal. Vitamins and other nutrients are essential to all of our body functions, and without them, we are weak and unhealthy.
Ideally, people should use the foods stamps as a supplement to buy healthy foods that provide a completely balanced diet. This avoids having preventable health problems like fatigue, depression, dementia, diarrhea, insomnia...the symptoms are wide and varied due to the variety of roles that each nutrient plays. Appropriate nutrient uptake is also a way to prevent certain cancers and heart problems (the top killers in the US). Can people on food stamps afford to go to the doctor to find out what is wrong with them? No. If people realized how important a balanced diet is, that would not matter as the cure to most problems is not some big pharma pill but just eating the right stuff. Buying healthy food (including organics- free of toxic chemical residues) is the best health insurance you can have.
Unfortunately, we don't live in the ideal world. And for many people, food stamps can be all that they have that month for food and thus they have to maximize their dollars and cheaper, less nutritious food is the way.
Why don't you judge everybody that comes in there and buys junk food the same way. Anyone can be as poor as the next person.
What they need in addition to just handing out the food stamps is education. In my county when you go to apply, you spend hours sitting in a cramped room waiting for bits of the process to get done. There is no educational material in that room about a healthy diet. Not even one single pyramid poster. Everyone is just sitting and staring at each other. Why can't we be staring at posters or movie clips telling us how to eat healthy and cheaply?
Everytime I make a big purchase at the grocery store with my food stamps, and its as organic and healthy as possible, I feel guilty. I feel like I should really be buying as cheap as food as possible to maximize my stamps.
But I've come to see it as a supplement to me eating healthy which I think is what the author of the secret was trying to get at. Poor people are very unhealthy. Nutritional deficiencies lead to physical, cognitive, and emotional problems that are detrimental to a person's quality of life. It's not fun being tired and depressed all the time, and then being too poor to splurge on any exciting activity (which is why you do have people using food stamps to buy pounds and pounds of filet mignon, it brings us a very rare pleasure - one that affluent people easily take for granted.. not everyone can go to a restaurant every night and order whatever they want).
Think of the people who spend all day working in a factory, then all night working as a waitress trying to make ends meet to raise their family. That takes a lot of energy and strength. They don't have time to buy the cheap, fresh ingredients and make everything at home. They have to buy convenient, easy-to-make meals.. and these meals are so processed and made with such cheap ingredients that they lack the nutritional value (its not just about caloric intake - you can eat all the calories you want, but if you don't have the nutrients to assist in the uptake and conversion in metabolic processes, then what's the point?) to provide a nourishing meal. Vitamins and other nutrients are essential to all of our body functions, and without them, we are weak and unhealthy.
Ideally, people should use the foods stamps as a supplement to buy healthy foods that provide a completely balanced diet. This avoids having preventable health problems like fatigue, depression, dementia, diarrhea, insomnia...the symptoms are wide and varied due to the variety of roles that each nutrient plays. Appropriate nutrient uptake is also a way to prevent certain cancers and heart problems (the top killers in the US). Can people on food stamps afford to go to the doctor to find out what is wrong with them? No. If people realized how important a balanced diet is, that would not matter as the cure to most problems is not some big pharma pill but just eating the right stuff. Buying healthy food (including organics- free of toxic chemical residues) is the best health insurance you can have.
Unfortunately, we don't live in the ideal world. And for many people, food stamps can be all that they have that month for food and thus they have to maximize their dollars and cheaper, less nutritious food is the way.
Why don't you judge everybody that comes in there and buys junk food the same way. Anyone can be as poor as the next person.
What they need in addition to just handing out the food stamps is education. In my county when you go to apply, you spend hours sitting in a cramped room waiting for bits of the process to get done. There is no educational material in that room about a healthy diet. Not even one single pyramid poster. Everyone is just sitting and staring at each other. Why can't we be staring at posters or movie clips telling us how to eat healthy and cheaply?
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