Posted on 11/10/2013 4:30:29 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
McAllen, Tex. — They were already running late for a doctor’s appointment, but first the Salas family hurried into their kitchen for another breakfast paid for by the federal government. The 4-year-old grabbed a bag of cheddar-flavored potato chips and a granola bar. The 9-year-old filled a bowl with sugary cereal and then gulped down chocolate milk. Their mother, Blanca, arrived at the refrigerator and reached into the drawer where she stored the insulin needed to treat her diabetes. She filled a needle with fluid and injected it into her stomach with a practiced jab.
“Let’s go,” she told the children, rushing them out of the kitchen and into the car. “We can stop for snacks on our way home.”
The family checkup had been scheduled at the insistence of a school nurse, who wanted the Salas family to address two concerns: They were suffering from both a shortage of nutritious food and a diet of excess — paradoxical problems that have become increasingly interconnected in the United States, and especially in South Texas.
For almost a decade, Blanca had supported her five children by stretching $430 in monthly food stamp benefits, adding lard to thicken her refried beans and buying instant soup by the case at a nearby dollar store. She shopped for “quantity over quality,” she said, aiming to fill a grocery cart for $100 or less.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Is being poor what causes obesity and health problems (which is the point of this article)?
Or is being unmotivated - nurtured by the welfare state what causes this?
I remember "home economics" (we learned good nutrition and how to cook at home too) - why not bring that back?
Fast food (on every corner and more in between) and grocery stores are meeting a demand - not causing the problem.
And of course the NYT focuses on Texas, minorities and government programs BUT this is a national problem.
For almost a decade, Blanca had supported her five children, where is the father or fathers? He is probably living with her and working a job if not dealing drugs. Rat policies in action, the encourage it and we support it so they can get the vote. These people are street smart they know how to survive and get over it’s generational.
I could healthfully feed these kids on that much, and that would include packed lunches to replace the “free” meal at school.
Running late - again - and again - and again.
Maybe she needs a little more structure in her life.
Food Stamps are not the cause - Food Stamps are just one of many enablers.
She allowed herself to have five kids because she new the Government would pick up the tab. Had she been on her own, she would have been much more careful.
Honestly, I’ve come to the conclusion that companies have come to love welfare too. Why? Because it creates consumers to buy their stuff. The fact that these people buy their stuff with Government $$ does not bother these CEOs one bit. $$ is $$ to them—the moral hazard is not relevant.
Just anyother whipping post story. Why aren’t the evil productive not produces more the unproductive?
An other...
To be very blunt, this welfare wench needs to learn to cross her legs.
I honestly tried...I did. I read pretty far into this piece. A bleeding heart litany of egregious excess in government entitlements supporting slothful habits. In the case of this article, words like emigrate and other cute euphemisms are used for the [ooga-booga] word, “illegal.”
The prime character, a 40 year old woman with diabetes and a $430/month grocery/junkfood card. NO mention is made of the other entitlements I’d bet my paycheck she has like Section 8 housing, TANF or SSDI, or WICs if any of her children are under 5, and of course, that whopping big several thousand dollar EITC check every year. I didn’t see to see where a husband, or a baby daddy was in all this either. You see, it makes a better case for the above if he’s not around.
The point is, these articles focus on children and what their parents are doing to them and trying to make out like it is our problem - that WE are the cause. The real problem is that the children were not taken away from her and her ass deported back to Mexico if she cannot prove she is a citizen.
So here’s a cue for articles like this. when they mention SNAP, just picture a big ole wagon wheel. That SNAP is only one spoke of that entitlement wheel the subjects get that rolls them effortlessly throughout their subsidized lives at our expense.
> For almost a decade, Blanca had supported her five children, where is the father or fathers? He is probably living with her and working a job if not dealing drugs. Rat policies in action, the encourage it and we support it so they can get the vote. These people are street smart they know how to survive and get over it’s generational.
Have seen this type of thing in the field for years - a mother collecting lots of entitlements who doesn’t report that her husband or boyfriend is employed or that he earns money dealing drugs or being involved in other vices. Some of those drug dealers pull in heavy money a night too. Its not uncommon for them to sell $750 + a night
“Running late to go to a doctor’s appointment”.
Well, I will never have that problem, as i can’t afford to go to the doctor.
But I am PROBABLY paying for her to do so.
“cheddar-flavored potato chips and a granola bar”?
What happened to bread and eggs and real cheese? Those items are covered under food stamps. So are Cheerios and bran flakes, cereals w/o sugar. So is milk. Milk, cheese, and bread are free at a food bank.
One of the problems is WHAT they buy with their food stamps—this is what causes obesity and health problems. Better food can be obtained, such as dried beans and peas, for less money than the junk food. No one wants to go to the trouble of making their own stuff...easier to buy the junk food w/the chemicals, sugar, fructose, etc.
,y youngest boy aged 10 said the other day.
“Dad, why are most on food stamps and poor really fat?”
An African guy years ago summed it u0p best and he said” People who are poor are fat here but in my country the poor are thin because they don’t get enough food”
,
Being poor today in this country means A/C, mobile phone, rood over head, car, big screen TV and lots of junk food.
“stretching $430”
Stretching. Remember, that is just for food alone. No paper products or cleaning supplies.
anyone obese should be refused food stamps as they clearly have enough food.
I didn’t read anything here that is not the result of making poor choices. Including sugary cereal and chocolate milk. Same money could have purchased Cheerios, 2% milk and a banana. Jumping in the sack for 10 minutes of fun and spawning 5 kids when a condom costs $.50. Of course to a liberal, all this adds up to needing us to pay more taxes so this family can shop at Whole Foods.
Ohhhnoooo, she put LARD in her refried beans? What did they want her to put in it, gasp, Crisco, also known as trans fat? You’re supposed to put lard in refried beans, obviously the writer isn’t a Mexican, or even a Texican, to try to use this info to tug at the heartstrings.
I fed four people on $600 a month for food. (Another $200 bought cleaning supplies, etc)
And we ate well. Eggs, milk, real butter, cheese, meat, rice, fresh fruit, frozen veggies. We couldn’t afford lobster, salmon, and other expensive stuff, but we did have steak once a month.
Lots of hamburger and chicken. Spaghetti sauce, ‘burger, and rice. Some ice cream for a treat. Spices.
It was boring, but the kids had nutrition. Fresh veggies were harder because there was too much waste.
That was with a gluten-free diet. (Both my kids are diagnosed Celiacs and my son’s a T-1 diabetic, so carbs had to be kept reasonable.)
$450 is more than enough for three people, especially without special dietary needs.
The problem’s that the mom doesn’t want to actually cook. She’s not going for cheap. She’s going for instant, prepared foods. If she made her kids a big plate of scrambled eggs with a little cheese, a single slice of toast with real butter (or a small amount of pre-prepared rice), a glass of milk, and a 1/2 of a piece of fruit, it’d cost one hell of a lot less than the crap she’s feeding them now and she’d have enough to get them chewable vitamins.
Granola bars cost more than $1 each!
I plowed through all that. I found interesting the politician (who’d great hopes going in) realized he couldn’t fix this. Which got me to thinking. As usual the Left and big government ALWAYS screw things up, then keep digging that hole, bigger and bigger.
Instead of sex education and all the time schools spend in massaging Susie’s and Tommy’s (and Maria’s and Pedro’s) victimization, social justice, non-violence triggers, we should demand that schools return to the basics.
I know. I know.
The lard is actually good for them. Everything else they’re eating is crap, including the “free” school breakfasts and lunches they get 180 days a year.
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