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Nobody who craves cheap comfort food will willingly give it up. But if over-processed, over-refined food and junk food were to become expensive while healthy fresh food became cheap — the opposite of the case today — people would be forced to eat well. This could be done through taxes or subsidies. Alternatively, you could ration unhealthy food.

Communism underlies it all. Of course, they proceed on the false premise that hiring a cook (in the form of buying prepared/processed food) is cheaper than cooking for yourself. That is silly, like saying that houses are cheap, and lumber is expensive.

Don't these people have a pot? A chicken?

I don't care is "food" is expensive. It's the INGREDIENTS that are cheap.

I actually hear this argument from highly educated liberals, and they are never able to offer a response when I ask to see the food budget and (over-refined, junk food) choices made by poor fat people, and let me offer a far healthier alternative at half the cost.

Somebody please tell me, what junk food is cheap? Sure, a greasy fast food burger and fries costs only a couple bucks, while fine dining from fresh ingredients can cost a fortune. However, the comparison is not between McDonalds and fine dining, it's between McDonalds and grilling your own. It's between the Colonel and sticking a chicken in the oven.

If these governmentalists want to persuade me that more government is needed, it would be in having qualifications to receive food aid. You have to prove you are qualified (or submit to training) to responsibly shop and cook.

Let the commies stop giving money to the poor. Let them offer a food bank, government selected menus, with instructions on how to cook each day. (Here's your chicken, here's your beans, here your salad, your corn, your tsp of garlic powder, etc. - here's a video showing how to cook them.) It would be CHEAP to do, feed people well, and TEACH them how to live like independent humans.

How about having the welfare mommies show up for a month of kitchen duty, where they cook lunch for themselves and the kids in a group with supervision, taking turns watching the kids. They would learn how to cook the essentials, and then could be left on their own to cook with (here it comes:) ...INGREDIENTS!

I have helped a friend cut her family food budget nearly in half this summer by teaching her how to make some of the family favorites (like lasagna) at home instead of buying frozen ones.

I took the amount of money she was going to spend on frozen lasagnas and purchased meet, cheese, pasta, onions, and tomatoes and a couple of disposable foil pans. We then spent a day putting together the pans of lasagna she then put in her freezer. The same amount of money she would have spent on 3 meals of frozen store-bought lasagna provided her family with 9 meals of homemade.

Let the commies stop giving money to the poor. Let them offer a food bank, government selected menus, with instructions on how to cook each day. (Here's your chicken, here's your beans, here your salad, your corn, your tsp of garlic powder, etc. - here's a video showing how to cook them.) It would be CHEAP to do, feed people well, and TEACH them how to live like independent humans. How about having the welfare mommies show up for a month of kitchen duty, where they cook lunch for themselves and the kids in a group with supervision, taking turns watching the kids. They would learn how to cook the essentials, and then could be left on their own to cook with (here it comes:) ...INGREDIENTS!

Interesting ideas.

I've thought for years that food stamps and WIC should be replaced with government soup kitchens for the truly needy. A healthful gruel of lentils, whole grain and a vegetable with a piece of fruit and a glass of milk would be offered to all comers. Recipients would be required to work for an hour on the premises doing some kind of piece work or assembly or whatever to offset the cost. The point is to save the misfortunate from starvation, but eliminate abuse and leave incentives for work. The main dietary problem of the poor is not hunger but obesity, so the current system of subsidizing junk food is the worst of all worlds.

If I remember, in the eighties Newt proposed soup kitchens and was of course demonized as heartless and cruel. But since then we've had the success of welfare reform and the obesity wave, maybe it's time for another try.