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An even bigger challenge for buying fresh produce on a food stamp budget than farmers not accepting plastic is the cost of the produce itself. And I'm not just talking farmer's markets or even New York supermarkets, but everywhere. One of the government officials who took the challenge quickly realized he couldn't afford fresh produce--or sufficient quantities of milk, for that matter. Clearly, change needs to happen.

i don't mean to sound too insensitive, but some of the folks on food stamps should take the Norplant & a Job Challenge.

For an interesting look at this same topic, check out "The Man Who Ate Everything". It also gets into the politics and lobbying that goes on...very interesting and the rest of the book is great too!
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Ate-Everything/dp/0375702024

It may be much more expensive in NYC than in Boston, but when I was a student a few years ago, I was eating for $20/week for awhile. Basically, it required making everything from scratch, and buying large quantities of stuff at once (hopefully on sale) to make a giant pot of food that I ate all week (plus cookies or fruit or whatever else I made for snacks, and cereal for breakfast). Perhaps it helps that I'm vegetarian, since meat tends to be expensive, but I felt like I ate fairly well. I made things like veggie enchiladas w/sweet potatoes, black beans, tomatoes, etc. in the filling, or caramelized onion, lentil, and Swiss chard with brown rice. I would often make my own hummus using dried chickpeas too. It honestly wasn't that bad, but it certainly took time (shopping around to find the best prices, lots of cooking).

well, a big problem, too, is that there are "food deserts" in low-income neighborhoods, where you might not have a store that even sells fresh produce for miles. if you don't have a car and public transportation is bad, you're not going to be able to even get to the store very often, and instead you'll have to shop at local convenience stores. new york and boston have decent public transit, but in nashville, where i live, it's abysmal. and if you don't have childcare, you have to take your child(ren) with you, and if you can't afford the fare for the whole family, then you don't get to go to the store. it's really a mess.

i believe this is the mostivation for several inner-city community garden efforts in major cities these days. it would be great to somehow get the schools on board...

It's true that if public transportation is poor, people will be stuck with expensive stores that have few produce options. That is a real problem!

The community garden efforts in big cities are really great to see...at least during the warm months, people can try to grow some of their own food. I think that there are some inner city schools that are partnering with community garden groups...I believe Alice Waters started this up in the Bay Area, and the Boston Natural Areas Network runs a bunch of community and school gardens in the city, many in poorer neighborhoods of Boston. Also, in Boston some vacant lots have been transformed into gardens, and the produce is given to homeless shelter/soup kitchens or sold to CSA members.

There's also been a comparison that the food available in poor neighborhoods is substandard. So not only are you paying money for food that you can't afford, it's food people in wealthier neighborhoods would pass over as not fit for consumption.

Stereophonik, until you have the direct statistical data of who is on food stamps, and why, I think comments like yours do *not* belong in this discussion.

Speaking as someone who works in social services, it's nice to see that so many people are aware of the challenges faced by low-income families. The hope, of course, is that as general knowledge about these issues grows, so will compassion (as evidenced by Stereophonik's wildly inappropriate post, which clearly reveals neither knowledge nor compassion) and, eventually, solutions.

When you factor in the issue of transgenerational poverty or neglect (including, for example, not learning about nutrition and cooking from parents the way that so many of us take for granted), it's even more difficult. There are resources available, but people have to know that they're available, and have the means to access them (and many do not).

These are extraordinarily complex issues that won't be solved by just putting more money into social assistance (though that's a crucial piece, and we Canadians struggle with it, too). Solutions have to include education starting at the grade-school level about nutrition and budgeting, so that as children become adults, they actually have household management skills, whether or not these were modeled appropriately in the home. Frankly, it wouldn't hurt the average middle-class child to learn something about cooking and budgeting as well.

i don't have to present statistical data so that i may have the privilege to make an "inappropriate", or rather un-PC, statement about people abusing the system.

perfectly capable people receive gov't support. some people continue to churn out children, while they are obviously incapable of supporting the ones they already have. people trade food stamps for drugs and alcohol.

wildly inappropriate, indeed.

Stereophonik you need to read some books and educate yourself, NO ONE is on welfare because of all the free money that's given out! And the amount of those that abuse the system is extraordinarily less than those who need genuine help.

Myself included. I'm 29 with a BA in Economics. I got sick when I was 20 with chronic, progressive illness, was able to finish college with disability services, and many a compassionate persons' help and unable to work after school because of the progression of my illness.

I was then kicked off my parent's private health insurance and have medication costs that exceed $4000 per MONTH. (When I'm allowed those medications and not being lied to and told I don't meet the regulations for the meds because the gov't won't admit it's the cost of the medication they don't want to pay for, as I've done nothing but fight, with energy I don't have, for medication since Medicare Part D).

I am given $630 per MONTH from my gov't for being born sick and couldn't work enough credits into the system to get what I need out of it, but I admit, I desperately need the health insurance.

Should I take your Norplant (which I would never pass on my DNA to an innocent child) and Job services advice?? Is having 2 types of muscular dystrophy that cause heart, neurological, digestive, cognitive and more symptoms than I can write on this post, mean that I'm also abusing the system?

Could you live on my income? I am eligible for food stamps but because I live with my parents, their income is included, and they are fortunate, so want to know what I would get to EAT? A grand total of $28 per MONTH. I do not take the money so it goes to more deserving people as my parents can take care of me, but without family I would be in an extremely sad situation, and most likely homeless, to be very honest without my medication, no doubt I'd be dead.

I have no idea how old you are, but can you imagine what it's like for a woman in her 20's to have her whole future ahead of her, then lose it all? Can you imagine seeing all of your friends move on, and grow up, and not have that opportunity because you will forever rely on the help of others? Then can you imagine dealing with all that, plus illness, then not getting the help you need from the goverment that you loved so much?

If you want to trade places with me anyday, give me a call, until then step out of your bubble, there are MILLIONS of people like me in this country, and we're not popping out babies and hanging on our porches all day by choice!

"the goverment that you loved so much?"
Why did you love the government so much? Love your family instead!
I am going to support stereophonik here. The trouble with the govt is that in the end more money gets spent on the huge bureaucratic machine supposedly "necessary" to distribute it than what gets to needy people. And I also agree that welfare is sonehow self-perpetuating, i prevents you from getting out of the hole you're in by making changes unnecessary or even uneconomical. Obviously not in your case, bobcatsteph3, but your case involves an illness which is completely out of the ordinary.

I know dozens of families that feed their family (with multiple children) on less than $25 a week. How? Coupons. And no, they aren't living on overly packaged-processed crap.

I think you'd be surprised, Sofia, at the number of cases that end up looking a lot more like bobcatsteph3's situation than the stereotypical welfare-queen-with-12-kids, once you actually take a look at the details. What you're describing as "completely out of the ordinary" really isn't. Families end up on social assistance for a variety of reasons, and those that abuse the system are fairly rare.

bobcatsteph3, i understand that you are sensitive to this issue. and i believe that your situation is very common. i've known several people that were disabled (physically and mentally) that received gov't benefits. i think some socialist ideas are great, and i think that our gov't could learn alot from Canada and the UK. that's not what i'm talking about. that's why, in my original post, i said "some folks". yet, i get knee-jerk paternalistic reactions as if i had condemned everyone on welfare.

as far as living in a pampered bubble, i too qualified for gov't support when i was younger, on my own, in school, and working minimal hours at a crap job, but it never crossed my mind to even look into it taking hand-outs. i've lived on less than $25 a week for food. it's not the high-life, but it's not impossible.

"we're not popping out babies and hanging on our porches all day by choice!" actually, i think you'll find that popping out babies is a choice, and one that many women on welfare choose to make as if they're getting paid for having more children! ...oh wait, they are getting paid for it.

and regarding the "stereotypical welfare-queen-with-12-kids"... stereotypes don't exist in a vacuum. generally speaking, there is atleast some truth to them. and that's all i'm saying.

this whole idea is politically charged. it's purpose is obviously to bring attention to some people's idea that we need to be giving more gov't money to people receiving food stamps. i say that if these "haves" are willing to try to exist on what the "have-nots" do, then maybe some of the able "have-nots" should try stepping outside their ruts, stop introducing more children into poverty, take on a more productive role in society.

i personally think that anyone receiving gov't benefits should be required to be on contraception, and i know i'm not alone on this. you can cry "reproductive freedom" all you want, and you can have it, but not on my dime.

Wow, I'm saddened by this conversation. I don't know all the statistics but my instinct is to give people the benefit of the doubt and the benefit of a few of my tax dollars (better that than the war machine). And it frightens me to think that if stereophonik had his/her way, I would never have been born because my parents started out, like many other young couples, very poor.

The "welfare queen" stereotype is an old and well documented myth. Ronald Reagan used the phrase in a speech in 198? and like all catch phrases, it stuck like glue.

I won't even go into the loathsome ideas presented by your statement "that anyone receiving gov't benefits should be required to be on contraception," - eugenics anyone?