quiet1

Unfortunately, statistics say yes - those kids are much much more likely to grow up to be functional and contributing members of society if we support them even if their parents are dropping the ball, which is better for society overall. There was a study done a bit ago looking at something like just providing free pre-school at age 4 and the difference it made in how many kids went on to get good jobs, etc. was startling. There are plenty of people from all walks of life busily reproducing who really shouldn't be, heck knows I went to high school (private) with a lot of kids who were fed well but neglected worse than many kids of parents who spent time with them but couldn't afford to feed them enough. Making babies isn't particularly difficult. I actually think school breakfasts are a good idea in general, though - my housemate can most certainly afford to feed his kid, but the school district does breakfast for everyone (and lunch) and having the meal at school seems to get kids into the swing of the school day better. I guess it acts like a transition period between arriving and classes starting? He's in 6th grade so the teacher/adult assistance required for eating is pretty minimal, not like with little kids who might need more help. So food at school can have a role besides just feeding hungry kids. (Our school district did away with the means testing for meals a couple of years ago - once you figure in administrative costs apparently it works out cheaper for us to just feed everyone free than to have people chasing around to make sure kids who need it are signed up, and other kids pay, etc. And the social workers and case workers are now free to focus on serious issues like kids showing signs of learning difficulties or major home problems.)

... now I want some cornmeal mush and maple syrup, darn you all.

I find the attitude very dismissive of the other factors. To be fair, I am deeply skeptical of the entire 'fitness and nutrition' lobby. The idea that a complicated issue like obesity or diabetes can be attributed to just one Big Bad Food like sugar is hard to swallow, particularly in light of the history we have of declaring something the newest Big Bad only to decide later on that no, it wasn't the problem at all really. (Fat, sodium, carbohydrates, now its mostly refined carbohydrates and specifically sugar, dietary cholesterol.) I have an auto immune disease, and the more research they do, the more it seems like they find out they don't REALLY understand what is going on. I mean, a recent drug trial got canned because it was possibly making people suicidal even though they didn't see any potential mechanism for it to have any direct influence on mental health and brain chemistry. (The expectation was that sure, being sick might lead to depression and getting better might change that, but the drug itself wasn't expected to do anything.) The same thing seems to happen with other health issues - there is some thought that obesity may be related to gut bacteria populations, for example. And I believe someone else found a possible link to viral infection. Heck, the human body is complicated enough that it is entirely possible there is more than one thing causing the same symptom (weight gain) - there's more than one autoimmune disease that causes joint pain, and some of them look VERY similar if you don't know exactly what to look for. That makes it very hard for me to say that it is okay to make things worse for people who are already in a bad place just because we want to believe that sugar is the Big Bad and if we get rid of soda pop everyone who gets SNAP will be healthier and no longer overweight. (Never mind that being poor is stressful which we know is horrible for your health and leads to elevated levels of hormones like cortisol which do have a role in encouraging the body to store fat.) In any event, my housemate poses a question - if Coke is not allowed, what about fruit juices?

'It seems like sometimes you can find foraged stuff that's not nearly as far out in the middle of nowhere as you'd think, which is mostly what I meant. The photos need not be of grand sweeping picturesque vistas to be interesting - the edge of a stream or a close up of a tree trunk can be just as effective at reminding people what is around them.

I'm thinking the photos would be in addition to whatever is actually in-house. You create the feel with the in-house stuff and build curiosity, and then the photos feed the curiosity about the ingredients that aren't in-house. But the glass walkway would be an issue for people - fear of heights, and, as pointed out, if you're wearing a skirt you might be quite uncomfortable walking across, especially with someone in the room underneath.

The way Lidia does polenta is extremely tasty.

From limited experience using a portable induction unit and talking to chefs using portable units at events, between normal electric and induction, I'd go induction in a heartbeat. Just do some research to make sure you get a decent model, same as you'd do with any major appliance, and make sure enough of your cookware is induction-friendly. (You can get a plate of metal to put on an induction burner to allow the use of non-ferrous pans, but of course that loses all the control of the induction. Still, it'd be easy enough to store so I'd pick one up if you do have pots and pans you use occasionally that won't work on induction. For example, the plate method would be perfectly adequate for plopping a large aluminum stock pot of water on top of, if you don't want to replace your stock pot, or for heating the bottom of an aluminum roasting pan so you can deglaze it to pour into a saucepan for sauce or gravy. Those sorts of things.)

I was wondering the same thing. I'm now also wondering about using some technology in the design and decoration in the sense of digital photo frames or similar that are easily updated so they could routinely be changed to include photos from recent foraging outings or closer photos of the activity in the basement rooms to allow guests to get a bit more up close and personal with the ingredients and the season and so on? I'm not sure if you'd actually want them to be able to display information about the ingredient also, perhaps only on request? (I'm picturing something where these are placed so that people seated at tables can still see them clearly and reach to interact if so desired.) Dunno, just a thought. I do feel like in a city, some degree of visual aids as to the season in the 'wilderness' may help build a connection between the guests and the seasonal foods - many people don't know or forget what it looks like off the beaten path just a bit, and are used to seeing the seasons reflected in manicured lawns and the condition of streets. That does also require someone taking photos and preparing the material, though. (I know you don't necessarily go trekking into the middle of nowhere to forage, so wilderness is relative.)

'That doesn't address any of the social or psychological points. It briefly mentions them and then just blows past to a position of "you have to be careful how you make the laws, but restricting must be good!" approximately.

This, pretty much. I've been trying to cook more as my health is better, especially since it is extremely difficult to find tasty prepared or restaurant food that isn't loaded with sodium and my mom has to watch, but it does depend tremendously on all kinds of factors that are hard to control or predict.

'I used to have to make a little dish of them for my FIL for special dinners because he would not eat anything else. So stuff like Christmas dinner we'd have a lovely spread, all carefully sourced ingredients, well-prepared, and then... his peas. Sigh.

Honestly at this point, enough stores have decent in-house food prep that expanding SNAP to cover those items might do more to improve nutritional intake than banning anything in particular. It isn't as cost effective as some of the processed stuff you can buy, but it's closer to properly cooked, and is about as easy to pick up and take home as frozen stuff. Heck, some of those microwave packets Rotus posted photos of from his local place looked really quite respectable, and all you do is stick it in the microwave. We have programs now around here so farmer's markets take SNAP (or whatever it's called locally) - if we could figure that out I feel like other changes to make it easier to buy better food (instead of harder to buy junk) should also be possible. (As I understand it, the city also subsidizes farmer's markets in some neighborhoods where they'd be otherwise unprofitable. I don't think they pay the sellers as such, but I think the city does something like covers the cost or part of the cost of the infrastructure and organization, something along those lines so the sellers can afford to sell even though the number of sales isn't as high as in other places. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but we have a local farmer's market when it is warm enough due to the program, and it's been there for a few years and seems to do pretty good business these days because people have gotten used to having access to it. I think that is an issue, too - it takes time for people's buying habits to change when different things do become available. Why get used to stopping by a farmer's market if it's only going to be there for one summer and then vanishes again, you know?)

Beef stew made in the IP.

People who can't cook (due to time or ability) are not going to magically start being able to do it if you prevent them from buying the processed "junk" food that they live on now. It just doesn't work that way - the magic wage fairy does not increase the hourly rate they make at one job so they can afford to drop the second one and have time to cook. The landlord fairy is not going to come and make them have a place to live (if they are homeless) or make their appliances all work. The grocery fairy is not going to plop a decent supermarket down the street so they have sensible access to groceries on a regular basis and can get fresh produce. All it does is mean there is less useful they can buy with the benefits that are supposed to help them, so the money they do have from other sources has to go further which generally just makes things worse. I mean, there is a reason why many food pantries now stock pet food or work with a group that supplies pet food to the food pantry users - turns out lots of people with pets will do whatever they can to keep the pets fed too, and that meant they were feeding some of the food from the food pantry to their pets and not getting proper nutrition themselves. (Elderly folks in particular were a problem in this regard, apparently.) Provide food for the pets, and the people eat the regular food from the food pantry. Same concept - things have unintended consequences. The other thing is that junk food is usually cheap per calorie, which is the way a lot of poor people shop - if $2 buys you either 500 calories of junk food or 250 calories of fresh produce, the junk food looks like a much better buy, especially since it is usually shelf stable and easy to prepare.

Larger, more complicated problem than just slapping more restrictions on what benefits can pay for, for sure. But generally people like to obsess about restrictions, not bigger picture problems.

The amount of fraud in any of our benefits systems is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of financial waste in other areas, so focusing on some small number of people gaming the system is a waste of time - frankly I'd rather accidentally pay a few people than risk people not getting help who need it. Our local school district recently went to free meals for everyone in part for that reason - it's easier to make sure all the kids get fed that way, no one slips through the cracks because their parents didn't sign up for assistance. It apparently also reduces bullying and teasing since kids are no longer singled out as needing help to pay for meals. And as @Anna N pointed out, food that doesn't get eaten isn't nutritious no matter what it is. This is true if it isn't eaten because it tastes bad, or because it goes rotten before it gets cooked due to time constraints. Nutrition classes don't make up for lack of time, and mandating a nutrition class is basically punitive and makes people feel bad for needing assistance because it's saying "we are assuming because you are poor and need help, you are also stupid and don't know how to select food." Many many people who need assistance are not stupid, a surprising number are quite well educated and just fell on hard times. The solution to SNAP issues is to get it so people don't need SNAP in the first place, not to make people who need SNAP more miserable and discourage people from using the help when they do need it. This is like the people who lose their minds if someone who is on SNAP dares to buy any 'luxury' foods ever - nevermind it might be a special occasion they saved up for carefully or someone at home may be ill and need to be tempted into eating. (My late husband was chronically underweight and when he was feeling under the weather the standing orders from his nutritionist were basically anything goes as long as it gets calories in. So yeah, I would've gotten him a steak and eaten just vegetables or rice myself if we'd been on food assistance and the only thing he wanted to eat was a nice steak.)

Lots of people complain about the limits on WIC foods. Is the goal to keep people from starving or is it to control them and punish them for being poor? There is a long list of reasons why people who are low income buy crappy food, ranging from access to storage concerns to time issues to psychological stuff (junk food tends to be high in things that make us temporarily feel good, like sugar, it is designed that way) and unless you address those issues, imposing restrictions because you can is just punative and won't do much to make diets better, it just makes people more miserable and stressed. Being poor sucks. People who are poor already know that society looks down on them and thinks they're horrible for needing assistance, they don't need someone putting more limits on how they can do things because people in government have decided that poor people are also too stupid to know they're buying crappy food. Personally, I think the time/energy aspect is a big one. Due to my health I struggle to make good meals with fresh ingredients every day just because of the amount of time I'm able to spend in the kitchen, and I can imagine it is much the same for someone working multiple jobs. It simply takes some time and energy to turn ingredients into a meal, and while there are ways to make that process quicker, the quickest and easiest thing is still going to be to shove something prepared into the microwave, or grab something off a shelf and open the can/jar/box. If you're trying to juggle cooking against other demands on your time, what do you do? Better to help your kid with homework, parental involvement in that stuff is crazy important. Heck, even just sitting down for 15 minutes to watch some stupid TV show - people burn out with no downtime or fun time ever, it's a mental health thing. If that 15 minutes or one episode of a show helps recharge the batteries so you can get up and go to work again tomorrow and keep the rent paid...

You brown the meat first, so my plan would be to add the cider and bring it up to temp while getting all the nice fond off the bottom, then add anything else and seal. That would cook off some of the alcohol.

Our vague thought for redoing the kitchen at one point was an induction cooktop with an additional two high powered gas burners for times when you want gas. We probably won't actually do that due to probably going with a range versus separate cooktop and oven (I don't like any of the induction range options) but I still plan to have space for at least one induction unit (probably a portable one) because I feel better about leaving something on induction overnight or with less supervision, and I do find induction useful for things like the above mentioned pancakes. I actually find induction fairly nice to cook with, it's just the combination of features I want and need doesn't seem to exist.

Hey, I buy soft drinks for medicinal purposes. (One of my meds upsets my stomach - slightly de-fizzed ginger ale helps a ton. Ginger tea has too much bite for me.) ETA: Given the calorie content of most junk food, technically it is also nutrition. Just not very good. But I knew kids in high school who would have a can of soda for breakfast because there wasn't anything at home to have for breakfast and soda keeps. Then the school district started doing breakfasts at the school.

Oh, for topping green leafy salads I just do thin-ish strips across the grain. (How thin depends on how lazy I'm feeling and what preparation is on the chicken - sometimes I grill chicken breast with fajita seasonings and that I slice thicker so the slightly crispy charred grill areas still stand out as a different texture.) If I don't care as much about presentation and just want easy to eat, I tear those slices in half or in thirds as I add them, so they're more bite sized. I hate having a plate of leafy stuff with a huge unwieldy chunk of chicken hanging out in the middle. You need a knife to make the chicken manageable but then you end up chopping up and crushing the greens, too.

That's what I'm considering, or maybe a bit of red wine when I reheat it? I'm waiting to see how thick it is tomorrow, too - if I need to thin it out a bit if I use some stock that should also help dilute it a bit without making it taste watered down. As an ingredient I think I'd try the Apple juice or cider again, actually - I can see how it adds a nice element to the stew, it's just too much as the only liquid. Or perhaps next time I'd use something like half and half hard cider and beef stock, since hard cider isn't as sweet to start with, and personally I think alcohol helps get flavors out of ingredients so they can blend, as you want in a stew.

I'm inclined to suspect the induction unit is crappy - ours isn't super expensive but I don't recall having that problem with it. In fact I tend to use it over the gas stove when making pancakes because it behaves itself better with keeping a nice steady temperature. (I hate our gas stove and am jealous of everyone who is managing to do a kitchen renovation because our kitchen needs to be redone before I can justify a new stove.)

Neither? I don't like long strings but it also kind of creeps me out to have neat cubes of meat in salads, so I usually cut the chicken into thick slices across the grain and then break those up by hand so I get cube-ish pieces that aren't too neat and tidy.

Finally got around to trying the IP out - the recipe my mom wanted to use looked a bit gloopy for pressure cooking so in interests of being cautious to start with, I used the IP on sauté and slow cook instead of using any of the pressure settings. Still worked pretty well - I was quite impressed by how well it browned the meat, especially. The stew is for tomorrow, so apart from a taste (it's oddly sweet - it called for Apple juice instead of water or broth which seemed odd but worth trying once, but I'm not sure I like it, any ideas how to take the sweetness down a notch if it doesn't settle down some over night?) I just pulled the inner pot out, stuck a cover on it (one of those silicone ones) and put the whole thing in the fridge. Plan is to stick it back in the base in the early afternoon and just let it heat up and then keep warm until dinner. If that works well I think we will be in the market for an extra inner pot, so we can use the pot even if one inner is full of chili or stew in the fridge. Or carnitas.