Increasing numbers of Americans are hungry...

Yep. And even if you have the money for those "cheap staples" what are you going to do with them when you have nowhere to cook them? I spent a while "living" in a weekly rate hotel because I didn't have enough for a down payment on an apartment. Some of those types of rooms have a fridge and microwave, most don't. What are your options then? I "cooked" rice by running the hottest water I could out of the tap.

Sometimes people are too poor to do the things that save money, like cooking large batches of things to freeze or buying extras when things are on sale or cooking with staples.

Do I have that problem now? Not at all. But I have certainly BTDT, like ladycat, and know that what is "common sense" isn't always possible when you are truly poor.

Kayleigh

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http://kayleighjeanne.blogspot.com

I run into those- elderly people who either don't know the ropes, or unable to to access. Foodstamps are no help, since many of them can only get max $10/mo in FS (I've never figured that one out). And they have no way to get to a Church pantry to stand in line (we deliver).

There are also younger people who fall in the cracks or for whatever other reason unable to get a hand up when they need it. For example:

One family had *just* moved wayyyyyyyyy out in the boonies. They were going to have a garden and raise their kids in a healthy atmosphere. Then the husband left. With the car. The lady and her several kids were left stranded with no money, no food, and no transportation.

We kept them fed until she could arrange transportation and get a job, which took her a couple of months. If we hadn't helped them, I don't know what would have happened, but it would have been bad.

I can tell so many stories of people who have gotten into terrible binds through no fault of their own that we've helped get back on their feet.I've been in similar situations several times. Food on hand but no way to cook. In my case, it's been because I didn't have utilities.

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Well.......I remember having no food. I remember once picking shards of glass out of the one thing I had to eat.
Hunger is a huge charector builder. I believe everyone should experience it.
When my son went off to college there were times he had little to no food. Now some momma's would have gathered up a care package and rushed to his side.
Not I. I would not rob him of this learning experience.

BTDT, only through my own bad decisions at the time.

"O"

Wrong! Might want to look up the stats in your state. That might help the ignorance.

I was quoting from the stats in my state. Since I am ignorant and you are so intelligent can you explain to me why, if there are hungry people in American, why we landfill thousands of tons of good food every day or why we have idle food producing acreage or why good food producing acreage is used to produce fuel for cars that uses more energy to produce than is created.

I am a little slow witted, so explain in easy, simple to understand terms.

"O"

Now of course I went to an apartment with a kitchen and had some cooking gear once I moved out, not a weekly rent, but no one ever taught me to cook. I read stuff in Joy of Cooking or Betty Crocker or Fanny Farmer and try it out. Even now still learning or at least trying. No offense to the master cooks (and I am not one) but mediocre cooking is NOT imho so difficult as farming that if parents haven't taught you you can't do it. I expect if you have been raised to eat from the packages and to go boxes though you haven't the HABIT of cooking. And I certainly only cook a few types of things over and over and see no need to eat 3 squares a day- smorgasbord or sandwiches are often our meals with cereal for breakfast.

Me I am lazy: many of the things I do cook are because I can't get them as well prepared elsewhere. If I had topnotch local options I wouldn't be making Indian food every few months or baking my own bread- though might end up doing so to save money.

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

Because many hungry people do not have enough money to buy the food.

Turn it around. *Maybe* there would be a teensy bit less hunger if they didn't do those things!

Judging from your posts, you seem to continue to disbelieve that there are hungry people in this country.

I could tell a few TRUE horror stories (experienced as well as first hand observations), but you wouldn't believe them.

And why do you keep signing "O", that's creepy.

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I'm a self-taught cook. Mom is a wonderful cook, but we could never share a kitchen. Let's just say I'm an impatient student and she's an impatient teacher. When we got our first microwave oven I was captivated by the "easy cooking" cookbook that came with it so Mom let me do my thing. Being a stubborn teen, I didn't want her help and so I made a lot of mistakes but most were edible. After I became pretty good at microwave cookery, I started experimenting with "conventional" methods. It's been decades since I actually cooked anything in the microwave, as I grew to prefer the slower ways, but it IS possible to learn to cook on one's own. There are many, many cookbooks written for people who have never cooked. It might be worth checking out the library to see if any of these are available. I also imagine there are plenty of websites that provide the same information.

As for why obesity is such a problem with the poor; I've seen and read a few stories that were quite eye-opening. In poorer neighborhoods profiled in these stories, there are no grocery stores and so the people don't have much access to healthy foods. In these areas most of the food-buying opportunities are in the form of convenience stores, where healthy choices are limited and prices of such items are high but fast food options are cheap and plentiful. One news story profiled an organization that sells produce from the back of a truck in such neighborhoods, and is reporting that sales are going up in such a way that they are looking to expand their offerings.

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Ever tried? Ever failed? No Matter, try again, fail again. Fail better.

- Samuel Beckett

AMI: USDA - U.S. Hunger Rate Highest In Nearly Two Decades

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/AMI--US...spx?oid=941620

This was posted yesterday


Here's another from The Oakland Institue

http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/?q=node/view/104

Another on Hunger in American
http://www.frac.org/html/hunger_in_t...ger_index.html

See how much real information you can find with just a few clicks of your mouse? Amazing eh?
Now, I have heard that your local food bank needs donations and/or your non-judgemental help - O

Perhaps an attack is a good thing for you. I think you need to be knocked out of your fog that somehow this is not in any way your fault. I am not trying to be mean to you, but make you see that your personal choices are what are putting you in the situation you are in and you need to take personal responsibility to make changes in your own life. Take for example this choice of a frozen pizza. I don't even let that kind of garbage into my house. Why do you?

Do you really understand what a "staple" is? Frozen pizzas are NOT staples. Things like flour, sugar, beans, rice, and salt are. Do you have those kinds of things in your house? Even if you buy these same things at Walmart, you can still make nutritious meals from scratch at a fraction of the cost of a frozen pizza.

The money is in YOUR pocket, so you dictate to the store what YOU want to buy, the store doesn't dictate to you WHAT YOU can buy. You are the one making the choices. I have to say that you are not making good choices and you have to do better. You need to put an end to this conspirital mentality that the corporations are herding you. You need to make the right decisions about how you are going to feed yourself.

This is total nonsense, and another example of you not taking responsibility for your own life. As I said before, I love Chinese food, and also Middle Eastern. Do you think I traveled to China or Egypt to learn how to cook? NO! I learned how to cook these foods from books! You can do the same thing. Go to your public library and find a beginner's cookbook. It's free! It's your choice as to whether or not you want to go there to learn to cook. You can do it if you WANT to do it.

At the library you can get the books to learn anything you want to do. When we first bought our own land I had no carpentry experience at all. No-one taught me to be a carpenter, but I got the books I needed from the library to learn how to put the whole roof on our cabin. If I can learn how to build a roof from books, you certainly can learn how to cook. You just have to try. If you say you can't do it, you've already failed! If you say you can learn, you're already half way there. Now go to the library and learn!

What is your problem. Loquisimo is obviously trying to turn things around and learn, and you keep attacking as though s/he is sitting on a lazy butt and not trying.

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Google is wonderful ain't it, do you believe everything you read? Since the only comment that was yours and not some statistic, I'll address that. I am retired and I volunteer at and contribute to the local food bank, my younger sister also volunteers, and has for over 30 years, there as an administrator. If we have a food shortage someone forgot to tell us, we send to landfill a lot of food that goes out of date. In addition to the local government sponsored food bank there are eight local private charities that provide food or meals to needy.

"O"

The hungry I have seen are mostly elderly people and children with crummy parents who spend their money on booze and cigarettes. I have seen people though that were so proud that they wouldn't take a hand out.

I know why most poor people are fat. The cheapest food is also the most fattening. Also in the case of the urban poor I see folks who don't have a car that wander on down to the local whateverMart convenience store type place and buy a box of Little Debbie snacks because for one it packs a lot of calories for the price and secondly it doesn't have to be cooked.

Food is the cheapest it has ever been. This cheap food is squeezing out farmers everywhere and I know this may not be a real popular viewpoint but I think food needs to cost more if we have any hope for locally grown food. The reason why there are huge farms is because that is the only way for the farmer to make money. It takes a mega-farm to make the same amount of money one could 70 years ago farming with horses on a much smaller plot of land.

There will always be hunger, it is something that has existed since the beginning of time. Same thing with poverty.

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http://www.xanga.com/shackman A blog about whatever

As I said before, the food *IS* there. That does not mean that the poor can buy it.

Those do seem to be the majority amongst the hungry.

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Nobody said there was a food shortage. The point being made is, there are people not getting enough to eat.In THIS county there are 2 places that give out food on a regular basis (monthly). They are both in the county seat. This county is very large land-area wise and neither of the 2 places deliver. There are many many people with no transportation who live far away from the county seat.

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I can't for the life of me figure out how anyone would be hungry except by choice. Period. I've had lean times. Sometimes very lean. Growing up a latch key kid in a semi-urban area, with a single mom that made time for us and not money. Things were tight to say the least. But we always had food. Even if the phone or electric would flicker. One must have priorities their life. If they can't, maybe that's what Darwin was talking about.....

If they are starving... I mean really starving. They should move. It's counter to sense to support stupid choices.