A Cookbook to Help Food Stamp Recipients Cook Cheaply Becomes a Massive Viral Hit

[PoliticAverse]

I think anyone who cares about food realizes that we’ve started to engage, as a society, with problems of unequal access.

There are conversations happening all over the country about “food deserts,” about farmers’ markets and urban farms in neglected neighborhoods, about making sure that healthy and sustainable isn’t just a thing for rich people. Ethical foodies, as the brilliant Mark Bittman wrote recently, understand that really caring about food has to move beyond personal pleasure to embrace social fairness as well.

But imagine for a moment that everyone who wanted good food—organic produce, humanely raised meat, ethically sourced fish, fruit picked by properly paid labor—could easily get to somewhere where it is sold. The problem of equal nutrition wouldn’t yet be solved, because the budgets of some people buying food are very small. The 40 million people in families that receive food stamps—technically, the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—get an average $133 per month for food.

That’s about $4 per day, for three meals, for a family, though it’s less than most of us spend by ourselves for a morning coffee. To eat well on that tiny amount, you have to be canny and creative. Most of all, though, you have to know how to cook—not showily, Food Network style, but thriftily, from dried beans and root vegetables and the bony bits of meat. It’s the sort of thing that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers knew, but that most of us never had to learn.

Read the rest at: http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/01/a-cookbook-to-help-food-stamp-recipients-cook-cheaply-becomes-a-massive-viral-hit/

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Direct download link for the free book:
https://8e81c55f4ebf03323905b57bf395473796067508.googledrive.com/host/0B2A2SnkA9YgxaHdzbEhGSmJOZDg/good-and-cheap.pdf

[sakabatou]

1. A book that every person must read

[BrotherIvan]

2. Gorgeous!

What a brilliant idea. Making inexpensive food look incredibly appetizing and healthy. This cookbook is great for anyone.

[SunSeeker]

3. K & R

[easychoice]

4. Try the Corn Soup. My great Grandmothers best

I add some shrimp right before I eat it.It cheers up cold rainy days.Some bread and butter fits right in there.

[spinbaby]

5. It assumes you have a kitchen

I can feed ourselves cheaply because I have a kitchen. Many of our poor don't have such luxury. Here's a great little article I found this morning about these challenges:

What I Learned After Taking a Homeless Mother Grocery Shopping

http://www.babble.com/best-recipes/what-i-learned-after-taking-a-homeless-mother-grocery-shopping/

[Scuba]

6. Excellent! Thanks for posting!

[greatlaurel]

7. Great post. Thanks.

There are so many issues for people without money to being able to feed themselves well. The very first thing is how are people supposed to cook without access to pots, pans and cooking tools even if they live somewhere with a functional kitchen. Most schools have eliminated home economics classes so young folks have no place to learn basic food handling skills if their parents do not know and are willing to teach them. Furthermore, the Extension Offices that used to do adult education have all had their budgets slashed to the bone with many offices closing and consolidated.

The impacts of the budget slashing anti tax people is the another example of the penny wise and pound foolish mentality. By cutting all the budgets for food stamps years ago, the folks who knew how to cook could not pass on their knowledge to young people due to these ridiculous government policies.