Ok. She comes from successful people and has been food-privileged her whole life. I don't think we need to stand and wonder about how she didn't know beforehand how difficult it was to feed oneself on the cheap--she has simply never had to do it. It's one thing to know what you know--and (I know this is an awkward way of saying it) it's really hard to know what you don't know. Unless you grew up knowing from dollar stores, discount bins, the brilliance of cheap meat slow-cooked and used as flavoring, and the necessity of eating lots and lots of noodles, where exactly do you go to find this out? Because some of us learned from our mothers and grandmothers--how to turn $3-4 worth of chicken thighs and a smattering of cabinet staples into meat you could do for dinner one night and sandwiches a time or two later, or why the basis of casseroles and hotdish all over the country begin from essentially, macaroni and cheese. That cookbook is word-of-mouth, not necessarily available at any store.
She didn't know. She has been about healthy eating and didn't know whole food eating is costly. Cheap food is prepared foods sometimes, and also pretty starchy, salty, and sugary. She wouldn't have known to compromise.
Poor eating isn't necessarily the healthiest eating, and it does often involve doctored-up prepared foods. There's ways, but they come from time and experimentation, and just because I can make three quarts of chili (the bastard East Coast version with beans) on a shoestring that goes for miles over rice, doesn't mean everyone is born turning bottom-shelf provender into quality eats. So, I am going to give it to her that she tried, and she learned how crappy living on a shoestring is, and how much work it is, and how not exactly healthy some of that eating can be. And if that means she contributes her voice later on to correcting our national issues regarding food scarcity, more power to her.
(And this was a SNAP challenge--but here's a new one: see if anyone wants to try and live under Kansas' welfare laws. You can get a gun, but not see a movie. On an ATM limit of $25 a day, I don't know how one is saving up for a gun. But really-no vino? Cigarettes if one is currently an addict--a lawful product in any other event. Bail bond company? TANF recipients can't post bail. Video arcades. This is a bill written by and endorsed by people with an aggressive dislike of poor folks. And it shows. Nota bene also:
Any person convicted on or after July 1, 2015, of a felony involving controlled substances or their analogs is disqualified permanently from receiving food assistance.
Individuals are eligible for food assistance if they enroll and participate in a drug treatment program approved by the Secretary. Individuals must submit to drug testing, if requested by DCF pursuant to a drug-testing plan. Failure to submit to a drug test or pass it results in ineligibility for food assistance until the individual complies with the drug treatment plan approved by the Secretary. The drug treatment plan exception does not apply to any individual convicted on or after July 1, 2015, of a second or subsequent felony involving controlled substances or their analogs.
You want to eat? Don't be poor and know anyone who does drugs. And expect to be piss-tested at sometime.)
2 comments:
Hi Vixen, I think Gwyneth is being smart. My view is that her whole Goop blog and the publicity she gains from this food stamp deal is a way of setting herself up in a second career.
Jane Fonda developed a second career as an exercise guru. (Sometimes they would release a video 2 years after they filmed it so that purchasers would think My God, look how young this make Jane look!) Raquel Welch released a book on hatha yoga, and I was amazed, because she really was very adept. Victoria Principle got into the exercise business briefly. (She did a couple of porno movies in her youth.)
I think Gwyneth sees the possibility of parts slacking off as she gets older, and she will have installed herself as a kind of hipper Martha Stewart in certain areas of food and style.
So I don't think she's quite as fatuous as some think.
Here's a riddle. Who is most representative of the ordinary middle class woman in America? Hillary Clinton? Gwyneth Paltrow? Or the Duchess of Cambridge?
Answer: Kate Middleton.
I would only reveal this under the cover of anonymity, but I actually prefer Yankee chili (if you tell anyone, I will deny it.)
Here's a question for you. I prefer my marinara sauce and bolognese sauce to be made without sugar. However, a large school of thought insists on sugar. What's up?
I think it might make sense when starting from raw tomatoes--especially if they aren't the ripest, to balance out the acidity. (My in-laws had vines and their friends often did, but I always had bad luck trying to grow tomatoes.) But using canned, there just isn't as much acidity, so I never really found use for added sugar.
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