Increasing numbers of Americans are hungry...

I once was the only person in a household of 4 who qualified for food stamps. I kept all 4 of us well fed on the food stamps intended to feed one person.

Of course I could very seldom get any kind of meat or fresh fruits and veggies, and yes, the meals were high in starches, but I'm a creative cook, so I kept the diet as varied as possible and there was enough to eat.

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DW's cousin had a baby a year ago. She would go to her cousins' and help four or five times a week. For two months my wife would take over the extra food I made for her when cooking for our family. The cousin NEVER had any food in her house accept chips and frozen pizza. The excuse was that she didn't know how to cook or shop for food. For christmas last year we gave her a cookbook and offered to take her shopping for groceries. When we took her to the store to "try" and show her how to shop, she refused to get anything other that frozen food/prepared food. You can't always "teach someone to fish", no matter how hard you try. Since we quit suppling the cousin with food (she is on food stamps now), we almost never hear from her. This is society today.

I'm just flabbergasted by the original message of this thread.

It's good if people are self suffcient, know how to get their own needs met, and so forth. I'll agree with that.

The rest - I'll just let it be. I think Michael K said things pretty well.

--->Paul

Same story with the cattle here. All the way up until they get sent to the feedlot.

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I freely admit that I don't know how to truly cook. I can boil eggs, and I have a little electric grill that I use to grill chicken breasts and steaks, and of course I have a microwave, but that's about it. I eat a lot of stuff out of cans. I hate it, and one of the reasons that I'm looking to homestead is to get some real FOOD into my diet. I have FINALLY gotten rid of the fast food in my diet. Next to go is the deli food. I'm doing this in stages. I know that when my grandfather grew veggies, I LOVED them. I can't STAND the stuff in the store by comparison. MY mom and dad didn't know how to cook either, so I never learned. My mom's mom, she could cook, but she's been dead for many years. It just goes to show you how skills, if not taught, can be lost quickly.

The art of cooking has been lost to many, so if they can't afford fast food, they go hungry. Our suburban culture makes it far too easy to drive out and grab something quick instead of actually taking the time to cook. I was in the Wal Mart food store yesterday, and I noted the lack of actual food INGREDIENTS. They had a little produce section, and a little meat section, and some flour and whatnot, and the rest of it was prepared food, frozen food, lots of candy, and stuff like that. And Wal Mart is putting actual grocery stores out of business! It's sad.

Ladycat - I think we priced out the meal we ate that particular evening which did not include any meat and we could have easily made the meal which fed four of us and had leftovers for under $12. In addition to the prepared leftovers, there would have been some bulk ingredients left as well - that was for pricing of top-quality ingredients including fresh vegetables and raw milk cheese - I'm talking the "good stuff". What was shown in the movie was purely an excuse not to cook.

Loquisimo - I agree that the art of cooking has been lost. I'm incredilby blessed to have a wife that loves to cook (I love to eat, it works out well ...) and is always trying out new stuff. She has well over 100 cookbooks and uses them!!! If you're starting down the road of cooking and want to be healthy, I'd recommend any of the "Cooking Light" cookbooks. They are nice, hardbound books and go by year - so the "Cooking Light 2009 Annual Recipies" book contains all of the recipes that appeared in their magazine (we don't get it, my wife just has the cookbooks). You can cook good meals that are healthy. They are not hard recipes - if you can read, you can cook. I've prepared many meals from scratch using her books - not hard to do at all. It's also a lot of fun. There is some movement called the "slow food" movement - all about reviving home cooking and using fresh, locally-produced ingredients. You might see if there is a group in your area that has any activities.

http://www.slowfoodusa.org/

PS - It should also be known that I do the dishes on most nights - I really appreciate the meals my wife makes for the family and try to help out by being in charge of clean-up duty. Just so none of you think all I do is sit around and eat everything in sight without helping out!!!

Sometimes they're just stupid. I freely admit that in the '80s I, a supposedly smart married Ivy league college student, went off to a summer job. I was saving money by staying in a sorority house at cheap rent (paid in advance) and not in the dorms (with meal plan) that was offered with the job (and which would eat up so much of the pay I wouldn't have the right amount for tuition that fall). So my first time away from home my parents' or my husband's and mine or the college dorms and free or already there food.

First weekend they wined (well sodapopped) and dined us. 12 course Chinese with a pheasant made out of chicken WOW! Then, having foolishly thought I would get my paycheck the week I arrived instead of at the end of the month, I had nothing. (It was also my first job away from family or school.) I sold plasma- maybe twice can't recall- and bought bread peanut butter and jam on a bike borrowed from another girl staying at the sorority. I went out to dinner a few times with some of the professors supervising our fellowship program. (They were single and looking for wives- I disappointed being already married.) In three weeks I got the big paycheck and was fine. But for those weeks I was hungry a good part of the time.

Funny same thing had happened to my D1H when he'd gone off to college a few years before. I am a lot more careful I hope with preparing my kids. I tell them about my and others' troubles.

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US Army veteran, military retiree spouse, and military; civilian; British NHS; and VA doctor.

I suspect that's how they came up with the numbers in their "study", by counting anyone who said they "suffered" for any amount of time.

Then they used some creative extrapolations

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Another sign of the pending food shortage:

From: http://www.latimes.com/business/nati...,4878935.story

$12.00 for a meal, heck I can make 10 gallon of soup for $12.00 and my wife and I can eat for two weeks on it. We do have soup almost every day at lunch and dinner and we make it in 10 gallon batches. Keep one gallon out to eat, can half the batch, and freeze the other half. We usually have 50 gallon on hand at any one time in six different varieties. Darn good nutritional economical eating.

I even made soup for breakfast this morning, from scratch. The wife was gone and I came in from the barn around 8:00 pretty hungry. I dumped a long pint of milk in a saucepan, added some salt and pepper, a tablespoon of butter, and chopped up some ham scraps. When this was about to boil I dropped in three eggs and poached them in the milk. I dumped this all in a bowl, shredded some cheddar cheese on top, and a couple slices of homemade bread and jam and I had a meal better than any restaurant could fix for around .50 cents.

"O"

OMG! No Eggo's?? What will we do?!?!

Haven't bought those things for ages.....I like my waffle iron. And I usually make extras you can freeze then pop into the toaster.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons...for you are crunchy and good with ketchup!

MK - cut Loquisimo some slack - everybody has to start somewhere.

As for Walmart, the Super Walmart near us actually does sell quite a bit of food and even has a small, but growing, organic section of food. I never would have thought it true, but it is. As an aside I view it as a positive thing - Walmart will respond to the market, so if even they are starting to stock fresh fruits/vegetables and organic food then there must be a growing demand in the market for it.

Look, I'm gonna be real honest here, and say that you have done nothing but attack me for the whole thread. I shop at Wal Mart because I do not have the money for a proper grocery store, like Raley's. They can charge three times what Wal Mart does for staples. Yes, I hate it too, but when you're living on SSI like I am and trying to start up a business to get off it, you have to shop at the cheapest place. I don't think people SHOULD get all their food at Wal Mart. I would LOVE to patronize Raley's and Safeway exclusively. Unfortunately, I simply can't. I don't have the money.

How come I, and millions of other Americans, don't know how to cook? Simple, we were never taught. One can NOT learn how to cook by watching the Food Network! Cooking is not a spectator sport! It used to be that this sort of thing was passed down through the generations. Mothers and fathers taught daughters and sons how to cook, sew, can, farm, hunt, raise livestock, and all the other skills necessary for survival. Then humanity moved to cities, and decided they could get others to do it. I read how Chinese who are the sons of farmers, and who left the farm at 21 for factory jobs, have forgotten how to farm! Yep, they are the first generation to leave the farm, and when the factories shut down they returned, but they couldn't farm! Knowledge is easy to lose and hard to get back.

Actually, I DO know where the produce section is at Raley's. Curiously, it's in grocery Siberia next to the pharmacy at the opposite end of the store from most of the rest of the food! It seems that few people go there, and it appears to me that that is by design. The profit margins are slim on produce, so into exile it goes, while the candy is right next to the door. I'm not blaming the grocery store, but I'm not stupid either, and I know that a grocery store is meant to push profitable foods front and center while hiding those that aren't.

Now will you stop attacking me, twisting my words into something they're not, and focus on the issues, namely that millions lack the skills to prepare healthy meals, and if they can't afford frozen pizza they just do without?

I noticed my state of Oklahoma is one of the black states. But I wonder, "How could that be".

Here's some stories that has been on the local t.v. news or in the local paper within the last year.

1. Oklahoma is one of the leading states that has a obese problem. (How could that be if we're starving?)

2. Oklahoma is not feeling the recession as bad as other states and our unemployment rate is much lower then the national rate.

But here lies what might be Oklahoma's problem.

1. Families are going hungry due to gambling problems. Gambling addicts are gambling their paychecks away and are not paying their bills or buying food for the household. Gambling addicts have been on the rise since the pass of indian gambling casino's, where the majority of the customers are from the low income families.

All these stories have either been on the local news or newspaper.

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r.h. in oklahoma

Raised a country boy, and will die a country boy.

I have no idea why anyone would eat an Eggo anyway.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

I volunteered at a food bank for years and true hunger in this country is hard to quantify. If you live in an urban area there are food banks and doo gooders everywhere tripping over themselves to help those in need...but...many elderly who cant get out, dont understand whats available etc. and many people in extremely rural areas do experience hunger IMHO.

The worst for me was the elderly; I did outreach as part of a volunteer effort with the foodbank and we found old people who were dirty, had little to nothing to eat in their homes, and in some cases the utilities were cut off etc. These people qualified for assistance and a foodbank was located in their community but they lacked access or knowledge.

Good point about gambling too, up here its pull tabs.

As far as cooking goes, I have been cooking since a young boy and taught my wife, and all 5 kids to cook. They are all grown now but half the calls from them I get are about what to do with this veggie or how to cook this piece of meat. Just jump right in there Loquismo, cooking is my relaxing at the end of the day and it doesnt have to be elaborate.

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www.salmonslayer-simplelife.blogspot.com

I don’t understand the notion that one must be trained throughout their youth in order to cook, or have much money. While single in apartments at college, here’s what I figured out without any special training.

Breakfast:
Turn on the stovetop, and set down a frying pan. Take an egg and crack it and put the egg in the frying pan. After it cooks for awhile, turn it over.
You can also take a potato and slice it up in little pieces with a knife and put it in the pan, turning occasionally.
Put ketchup on the potatoes.
Or after egg cooks, boil a cup of water in the pan and throw some oatmeal in it and cook.
Drink milk.
Eat a banana along with it.

Lunch:
Take two slices of bread. Put peanut butter on one slice, jam on the other. Put the two pieces together. You can also do tuna fish mixed with mayonnaise, or sliced meat or bologna with mayonnaise and mustard. Drink milk while eating.
Eat an apple. Eat a carrot, with salad dressing if you like.

Dinner:
Boil water in a pot. Throw in some spaghetti noodles – let cook a little while. Then throw in some hamburger and let cook a while, then throw in mixed veggies and cook briefly. Then drain water, put in plate and apply ketchup or tomato sauce.
Drink milk.

Edit: It says alot about public education when people graduate without knowing how to make a sandwich.

so what are you doing to improve things?

My husband is manager of the local community garden. Garden plots are available, seeds are available, there are volunteers who will teach someone to garden thier own 4'x8' plot.

There is also someone available to teach to prepare veggies...

in addition to individually borrowed plots, over 13,000pound of veggies were donated to the local food bank from the community garden. this is the gardens first year and it is a lot of hard work but very worth it, if we can be teaching those in need how to raise some of thier own food.

We were pleased with the participation this year and expect next year to be better...

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obesity comes from the fact that top ramen and boxed mac and cheese are much cheaper than apples and oranges and fills those empty spaces...

Hunger and starvation if it exists in America is not because of the lack of decent food, so why not call it what it is.

"O"

The thing to do next is to boil fresh or frozen vegetables.

Read the ingredients to see if there has been any salt added: They taste better if there has been.

PEas, corn, and carrots can just be boiled until barely tender.

I prefer broccoli WITHOUT salt: just boil until a sharp knife goes in easily.

Green beans, I find, taste better if they are boiled WITH a fair amount of salt: much more so that the other veggies.

You already grill meat: I think you are well set up to cook at this point.

OH! If you want to start baking bread, start with frozen dough. Spray Pam in the pan to prevent sticking, spray Pam on the frozen bread, and when you think it has risen enough bake it. If you are not certain if it is done or not, turn it out on a cutting board and tap the bottom of the loaf: if it is done it should sound hollow. Use a SERRATED knife to cut it: you will have a less-squiched slice as hot bread is very tender! And, once you smell it, you will not want to wait!

My sister, by the way, went hungry because she was too proud to tell us that she was. Her husband had trouble keeping a job and she could only find part time work.

Also, unemployement is high right now. When we went on unemployement many years ago the unemployement only paid the mortgage and HALF of the utilities. We had good credit so we ran up the CC in order to eat.