tryska

mmmm...gravy.

there was a time when women worked full-time if not overtime so they wouldn't have to go on welfare, plus made sure their kids ate well. and made everything from scratch - i still know people like this today. also there are those who are truly indigent, those that are using welfare to get by during a trying time, and those for whom welfare is a lifestyle. And who those various subsets are is usually self-evident if you spend enough time in lower income culture.

my motivations are primarily for my health. i don't do well with hormone and antibiotic treated meats. that meat, dairy and poultry is easy to come by. again, i'm not sure why y'all seem to feel the need to try to dismantle the logic behind my choices. they are my choices after all - and like i said - i have done my research and have reached a happy medium that suits me. you can eat whatever you want to eat - i just may not be joining you on that. and i could spend my time rebutting every point you make with graphic data, but again - why should i? i'll save that for the vegetarians to do.

here's a little ray of sunshine tho..... http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/FMNP/FMNPfaqs.htm and i just found out it's the states that choose what goes on a WIC list - not the Feds.

so you don't have the option of staple items with WIC? that irks me even more, because you are absolutely right - they aren't the most nutritious or economical. a lot of it is what my mom would have considered "a very special treat" in our household. makes me wonder about the process for putting food on WIC approved lists, and how much lobbying and cross-subsidizing goes on behind the scenes. hmm....from the WIC website: 6. What food benefits do WIC participants receive? In most WIC State agencies, WIC participants receive checks or food instruments to purchase specific foods each month which are designed to supplement their diets. WIC food is high in one or more of the following nutrients: protein, calcium, iron, and vitamins A and C. These are the nutrients frequently lacking in the diets of the program's low-income target population. Different food packages are provided for different categories of participants. A few WIC State agencies distribute WIC foods through warehouses or deliver WIC foods to participants. WIC foods include iron-fortified infant formula and infant cereal, iron-fortified adult cereal, vitamin C-rich fruit and/or vegetable juice, eggs, milk, cheese, peanut butter, dried beans or peas, tuna fish and carrots. Special infant formulas and certain medical foods may be provided when prescribed by a physician or health professional for a specified medical condition.

put it in gumbo!

i agree. one thing that truly chaps me is WIC. I stand in line in the grocery store, and as FistFullaRoux said, had to make a decision between having lights or having food. On this particular day the woman in front of me was paying via WIC vouchers - her groceries were juicy juice, sweetened general mills cereal, kraft dinners, and other various major brand, processed items which to my mind are fairly expensive considering the return. I can't blame her, because WIC has a listing of what it is that you can buy, and these items were on her list. She also had about 150 dollars worht of hair and nail treatments, and 2 chubby children in designer gear with little air jordans on. Meanwhile i'm trying to figure out if i buy some generic rice and dried beans, if that will last me til payday. I'm not bitter - but i definitely believe consumerism is aimed at the poor - and that there isn't sufficient education. It also struck me that the government subsidizes poor nutrition in those that are at highest risk for poor nutrition to begin with.

oh god - any ideas on a recipe for this?

it's most likely what it's treated with. of course an experiment to try would be toasting fresh coconut pieces and see if you get the same fumes.

do you know how those products were processed? my beef (pardon the pun) is not with any specific product. My concern is how the product got from whatever animal it came from and onto my plate. if that process involves forced animal containment and overcrowding , antibiotics, hormones, unnatural diets, assembly line meat packing plants where cross-contamination can occur, cross-country logisitics (increasing the disease vector) and the use of underskilled, underpaid, oftentimes illegal workers, then it's not something i can/will financially support. apply this thinking to whatever you want to apply it too, and suffice to say, in this day and age, it definitely limits my choices - whether it be fast food, grocery store food, or even restaurant food.

wait you get it at whole foods? that might be part of the problem - whole foods down here (Atlanta) is insanely expensive, compared to the store they ate (Harry's Farmers Market). Now if i go to the Harry's it's actually cheaper than if i go to the whole foods. But for dairy, i actually just go to publix - they have the organic brands, but like i siad, for 2.39 per half gallon. It still doesn't beat 2.50 per gallon tho.

definitely fresh whipped......the spray kind tastes greasy. as for how i eat it....well it all depends on the situation. hell i've licked my fill off the beaters before.

damn...really? it's $2.39 for the organic valley brand at my local publix. I still wouldn't buy regular milk tho - i'd just come up with a workaround. but that's just me and my factory farming hangup.

oh i understand Squeat - i was typing that actually thinking of people I know who will go to restaurants or bars specifically when soemone they know is on duty to actually get the hookup. that's tacky to me. if i get something comped i usually tip big - at least close to the price of whatever it was i just got comped.

and that's exactly what i'm getting at FG, altho i think i upset heather in the process. and it's not so much getting Big Business to go away and stop being Big Business - just make Big Business do what you want it to do by exercising your power as a consumer.

he sure has dropped off the face of the earth huh? maybe it's severe weather, or perhaps computer problems or something.

hmm...i've got bartenders that take care of me at my regular haunts, and a network of servers that are always willing to give the hookup, but it's not good manners imo to expect people to give you things for free. there used to be Harry's in Hurry (satellite of a what used to be major Atlanta grocery/farmer's market, now owned by Whole Foods) right next to my gym, and i used to go in there everyday. I used to get discounts left and right from their prepared food area. The people behind the counter would put the wrong labels on items, weigh things wrong..all sorts of stuff. I rarely realized it until after paying. I don't know if they did it on purpose or because they didn't care, or if it was because they liked me, or they were trying screw Whole Foods - i dunno.

I sure hope not. This would make for a very sad commentary on life. i see people like that every day tho. that define themselves by what car they drive, or what clothes they wear. the label concious.

but if more people made the choice to not buy the shady stuff, perhaps the price could drop more, and we could actually affect change in the way the big boys do business at the very least. out of curiosity how much more is it per month? not buying free-range organic everything - but if you ensured that meats, poultry, dairy and eggs came from either local sources, or were certified organic? vegetables and fruits, grains and cereals can come from wherever you wanted to get them? actually - who was it that is doing that project now? he just did a blog - i'm curious to see how much more expensive it's been for him. (of course his name is escaping me right now)

You mean if we were having more sex (with more partners?) that we wouldn't be so depressed? Sounds like Wilhelm Reich. *lol* no -actually i was tying the sexual revolution to the "Me Generation"...with...well never mind....it's a lot of typing to connect the dots.

and one other question i have for you i guess heather - and all of those positing that sams club/walmart meat is what you can afford buying in bulk. when you think about the actual quality of the meat that you buy, where it came from, the hormones and antibiotics used in it's "manufacturing" does it seem worth it to feed to your family to save a few extra bucks? i'm not trying to sound combative - or stand on any sort of moral soapbox - i jsut have a tough time reconciling buying shady meat and dairy especially, as my health is the most important thing to me. and to me the way most mass-produced "affordable" meats, dairy and poultry are made, it's polluted, and not something i will eat, or feed to my family. especially when you consider the links between factory made milk and ear infections in kids, the lowered nutrition, the chances of food poisoning from listeria infected meat.... to me buying quality product is a health decision, not any sort of snob factor thing.

I'll remember that as I'm rolling along in my phat Ford Taurus station wagon with the cheerios stuck to the back seat. and i think you missed my point - that was sarcasm.

when i buy i typically am buying for 5 servings at least. mind you i live on ground beef, stew beef, chicken legs, and thin cut pork chops, as well as canned tuna, so it might be skewed a bit, but it still winds up being much more expensive if i bought everything prepackaged.

*lol* your welcome jane. i've used up all my brainpower for the day.

is quality food truly that expensive? i don't mean imports mind you, but fresh, clean, unalduterated foods? i tend ot think not, especially when i compare how much groceries are buying prepackaged crap, and how much they cost if i buy fresh ingredients. even considering that i buy free-range, organic meats, dairy and eggs, it still winds up being not a whole lot more than if i got the lower quality ingredients. perfect example, i mentioned someplace else that i bought organic valley lactose reduced milk. it's a whole dollar cheaper than lactaid. minus the hormones and antibiotics. it takes a little extra work, not much more money, and a lot more education to not blindly buy what marketers want me to, and i think that's what it comes down to. people don't hold what goes into their bodies at as a high a priority then they probably should. so since they aren't questioning, or valuing what's going inside them, suppliers really need not be concerned. it always puzzles me tho when i see someone spending hours poring through consumer reports, trying to decide what's the best, highest-value, top rated car or pc or digital camera or whatever, while eating their Mickey Ds supersized number 2 combo with a diet coke. actually i think it can be boiled down a little more. people's priorities are a bit screwed up in general (especially post-sexual revolution) and we tend to value status symbols more than we do the more mundane, albeit far more life enhancing day to day stuff. So since we don't, on a whole think about it, we tend to be lemming-like in the choices we make. as long as we're rolling in a phat SUV with dvd player and extra cupholders, i guess it doesn't really matter. there's a reason there are more depressed people in the US now then i think there ever has been.