Comments on: Mayor Cory Booker: My Organic Food Stamp Challenge https://food4healthybones.com/blog/my-organic-food-stamp-challenge/ Irma Jennings Fri, 30 May 2025 03:13:13 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.5 By: SassyZen https://food4healthybones.com/blog/my-organic-food-stamp-challenge/#comment-54 Mon, 21 Jan 2013 13:43:26 +0000 https://food4healthybones.com/?p=1638#comment-54 In reply to MargeBilheimer.

@MargeBilheimer You're not running a restaurant, Marge...People who live in your home have to get on board and eat what you serve...or don't eat...

]]> By: SEMartin https://food4healthybones.com/blog/my-organic-food-stamp-challenge/#comment-51 Sun, 20 Jan 2013 23:42:11 +0000 https://food4healthybones.com/?p=1638#comment-51 I like the idea of this however long term it seems difficult to substain a necessary calorie & fat count. Especially because I rely on certain staples too; butter, flour, honey, etc.  These alone would "eat" up $30 to purchase. Thanks for reminded me that a good meal doesn't have to be an expensive one and to appreciate what we have!

]]> By: WendyBlackburn https://food4healthybones.com/blog/my-organic-food-stamp-challenge/#comment-50 Sun, 20 Jan 2013 23:24:41 +0000 https://food4healthybones.com/?p=1638#comment-50 This is brilliant. Thank you for sharing. I cooked like this for many years on a food stamp budget.
 
Women who are pregnant and have children under 5 also qualify for WIC (Women, Infants, Children), which helps supplement food stamps. The mother gets coupons for protein-rich foods for herself while pregnant and breastfeeding. Coupons for produce, canned tuna or salmon, beans or peanut butter, brown rice, bread, cereal, eggs, milk, and cheese are given for children. California provides coupons for certain baby foods. I also took up urban foraging (picking fruit from publicly available fruit or asking neighbors if I could pick fruit from their trees), I learned to can and pickle, I grew a garden, I raised my own chickens for eggs, and I went to food banks. I built my chicken coop from free scrap wood, purchasing only the wire mesh and did have to spend about $50 on chick raising supplies. I figured out pullets (adolescent hens who don't lay eggs yet) would have been a better investment for my money than raising chicks by hand. Our hens' diet was heavily supplemented by kitchen scraps and bugs and grass they found on their own when allowed to roam around the yard. Anything that the chicken's couldn't or wouldn't eat went into the compost bin to feed the garden. As a meat eater, I did buy meat, but I only purchased entire animals - cod or salmon on special or whole roaster chicken - and used every part of the animal, including the bones for bone broth. Butcher counters at stores also sell bones very inexpensively. The bone broth got used for soups and was used instead of water in cooking rice and other grains. If our finances had finally not improved enough to go off food stamps, I would have slaughtered our chickens for food, hopefully after I had been able to replace the hens by getting a broody hen to sit on and hatch some purchased fertile eggs.
 
I think what should be added to your article is a discussions of:  (1) how to connect low income people to growing their own food or access to high quality fresh low cost or free food, either through space in community gardens or through programs that that help low income people to establish and maintain gardens or build chicken coops of their own; and (2) how to teach easily accessible meal planning, cooking, canning, and preserving skills to low income individuals.
 
A menu like you created for yourself is only available to someone who knows how to cook. CSAs are really only viable if they accept food stamps. However even then, the produce provided is worthless if the recipient doesn't know how to prepare it for eating.
 
To everyone readings, I say also encourage your CSA to accept food stamps and ask them to include detailed recipes for the food it provides each delivery. Encourage your local farmer's market to accept WIC checks and food stamps and to teach free cooking classes; to locate themselves where there is easy access to them by public transit. Advocate for community gardens and support organizations and programs that connect low income communities to healthy food and skills for making use of healthy food: gardening programs in public schools, especially where garden output gets used in school lunches;  programs to help low income residents start and maintain their own gardens; help advocate for improved food standards and accessibility for WIC, and increases in food stamp benefits. Bring your excess tree fruit or garden produce to a food bank and volunteer to teach recipients how to cook, can, or preserve it. Ask your neighbors for their excess tree and garden produce to take to your local food bank. While knowing that healthy nutritious food can be had on $4.40 a day is great, the goals should be improving food access from there, as eating on such a budget is stressful at best and insufficient at worst for growing bodies, which are the most vulnerable to inadequate nutrition.

]]> By: MargeBilheimer https://food4healthybones.com/blog/my-organic-food-stamp-challenge/#comment-47 Fri, 18 Jan 2013 23:02:46 +0000 https://food4healthybones.com/?p=1638#comment-47 I really appreciated your sharing this experiment.  I am one who does live on food stamps and have not been able to do what you did.   I still need Almond Milk and organic butter and all kinds of greens.......it doesn't work over a long period of time......can't sustain the effort of planning and the time for food prep.   Also don't have the support person to help.....in contrast, my son who lives with me won't eat this type of diet.  Still it's great to know you did it and that with limited choices it can be done.        Marge

]]> By: MargeBilheimer https://food4healthybones.com/blog/my-organic-food-stamp-challenge/#comment-48 Fri, 18 Jan 2013 23:02:46 +0000 https://food4healthybones.com/?p=1638#comment-48 I really appreciated your sharing this experiment.  I am one who does live on food stamps and have not been able to do what you did.   I still need Almond Milk and organic butter and all kinds of greens.......it doesn't work over a long period of time......can't sustain the effort of planning and the time for food prep.   Also don't have the support person to help.....in contrast, my son who lives with me won't eat this type of diet.  Still it's great to know you did it and that with limited choices it can be done.        Marge

]]> By: AnaMelikian https://food4healthybones.com/blog/my-organic-food-stamp-challenge/#comment-45 Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:52:14 +0000 https://food4healthybones.com/?p=1638#comment-45 Congrats Irma! I enjoy a lot reading this post. So much good information. Love the recipes.

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