I thank the universe or whatever might exist for food

[Naturyl]

It's the beginning of the month, and my check is in, which means I'm eating. I have a frozen pizza in the oven, which smells like heaven and is an indulgence at the exorbitant price of $3.00. Weeks 2-3 it will be macaroni and cheese, and week 4 will be who knows what. This may very well be the month the local food bank comes into play - provided there even is one.

And yet, I still have it better than so many others. But rather than making me feel self-satisfied, this fact pains me. How is it that many people have it worse than I do in the world's richest nation? Why do we allow it? And even if all of us in America were doing okay, there would still be the third world, where living conditions make mine look like the Waldorf-Astoria.

When will we learn to embrace humane values and resolve to care for all our fellow travelers on Spaceship Earth? When will we grow up?

Oh well. I'm off to eat some frozen pizza, which I am thankful this primitive world allows me.

[elocs]

1. I understand what you are saying, but even for $3 I could do a whole lot better than frozen pizza

and it would be more nutritious. I am on food assistance and I know how to stretch a dollar for meals. I know how to cook some basic meals and don't often eat processed foods. I can make some hearty and good tasting meals and they had better be because I'll be eating them for a few days. I've got to say that I eat well and even if it is macaroni and cheese I will add tuna to it as well as some broccoli. I've had a frozen pizza in the fridge for a month and haven't touched it yet.

Yes, this nation needs to do a better job in feeding the hungry, but also in teaching them how to prepare healthy food for themselves.

[peacefreak]

2. While it is important to stretch our meger funds

we still have to feed our souls. If a $3. pizza is giving OP a little joy, so what? I'm in a very tight situation also, but every once in awhile I just have to feel like every one else.

[elocs]

4. Like I said, I'm on food assistance and I have a frozen pizza in the freezer.

I could get a pizza every week, but I choose not to because to tell the truth it's not just that healthy for me. I make myself some very good food that not only feeds my soul in the eating of it, but also in the making of it. I don't feel deprived in any way in what I eat or choose to eat. Considering what and how most Americans eat, I don't want to feel like everyone else in that respect.

[Naturyl]

3. Frozen pizza is a treat.

Early in the month, I treat myself to a $3 meal. Call me self-indulgent, I guess.

Later in the month, I eat whatever cheap crap is left in the cabinet. Because I am disabled and a "non-contributor," I don't deserve to eat luxurious, extravagant $3 meals all month long.

[elocs]

5. Well, I'm on food assistance and I don't eat crap and don't have to eat crap.

I can eat pizza if I choose, but I choose not to because it's just not that good for me. I do have pizza once in awhile, but I don't consider it a luxury. I eat well and in no way feel deprived, but I can tell you that if choosing to eat pizza would force me to eat mac and cheese for weeks I think I would skip it.

There really is no excuse to eat crap.

[peacefreak]

6. Good for you.

why be so judgemental? It is so hard to do without so many of the things that people take for granted. I feel like I am on the outside looking in, in so many ways. I applaud your ability for money stretching good nutrition, but how 'bout cutting the rest of us a little slack. Hey, I'm only human. If i want that ring-ding, pizza, diet coke, bottle of wine, or whatever, who am I harming? Believe me, I know the rest of the month is going to be beans & rice, mac & cheese (from scratch), tuna (but that is getting very expensive). We are all just trying to get by the best we can.

[elocs]

7. I'm not being judgmental, but there is no reason that a diet even on food assistance

needs to be based on crap. Yes, I have pizza, soda, and other goodies, but in measure and my eating of them does not deprive me of eating good and satisfying and nutritional food the rest of the time. I eat a lot of beans and rice, but I know how to make tasty dishes out of them. I can get a low sodium box of mac and cheese for 50 cents and add a 79 cent (expensive?) can of tuna and along with some broccoli (I can usually get fresh broccoli here for under $1 a pound) and from that I can get at least 3 servings.

The bottom line is that I try to get along the best I can and I think I am doing it well without feeling deprived at all. It can be done, but it requires an effort. But if you choose to eat too much junk, then don't complain about what you have to eat the rest of the time. It's all about choices.

[M155Y_A1CH]

8. I'm not sure if...

beans and rice are so much better for you than mac and cheese? Both are high carb and low protein. Why are your choices so much better?
:shrug:

[elocs]

9. Rice and beans together provide a complete protein, although most Americans, even vegetarians,

are in no danger of being protein deprived. Rice is probably a staple of most of the world's population. Making dishes with rice (brown rice) you can control the amount of sodium that goes into while most of the cheap boxes of mac and cheese you buy are relatively high in sodium. There are many ways to prepare simple and inexpensive dishes using unprocessed food that is also better for you and can be very nutritious as well as tasty.

Anyone who is willing to do a little cooking and with some good shopping can eat well and cheaply. For instance, last Friday I got a can of salmon bisque soup that had been marked down to 99 cents (it is regularly so expensive I wouldn't consider buying it). I added a can on salmon ($1.99) to it as well as 2 cups of brown rice and some frozen peas. Cooked it on the stove and I have meals for 4 days that cost less than $4. I added some fresh broccoli to the meal (89 cents a pound) along with cauliflower ($1.43 a head) and have a very good and nutritious meal.

Mac and cheese may be tasty and simple and cheap, but it is not the best of meals. Like I said, I look for a low sodium box and then add a can of tuna to it as well as some broccoli and for me that is an inexpensive and tasty meal. Nobody has to eat crap and there are many, many good meals that can be made cheaply with rice and beans.

[M155Y_A1CH]

10. It's the box that makes it crap, really

Perhaps The mac and cheese would be prepared from scratch with cheese as poster #6 does. That is what I assumed because you can't really make a meal out of the boxed one's. I think of the boxed as a carb side dish for 4 people + a vegetable side about the same size + a 4oz. cut of lean meat, fish or beans You don't want to eat too much of what my dad always called empty carbs. The starchy carbs don't contain very much protein, vitamins, or minerals per calorie for dietary needs unless they are enriched by processing. Macaroni is made with enriched durum wheat, I'm not sure about rice though. Rice does have more fiber.
:hi:

Sure hope the OP can keep eating healthily. I fear it may not be possible on limited means.

[elocs]

11. Usually when people talk about living on mac & cheese it's doing it on the cheap

with the boxed stuff. Certainly you could make a good mac & cheese from scratch using good ingredients like a whole wheat macaroni and limiting the sodium (usually processed foods are high in sodium). The initial outlay for the dish would be higher but it would be of better quality and probably a greater quantity although the making of it would require some thought, effort, and work in preparing the meal as opposed to the box stuff. It would be worth it though.

[M155Y_A1CH]

12. I agree with your advise

:fistbump:

Just want to add that the cost is very nearly the same because plain old macaroni can be very cheap and your proportions could be altered to have more of the mac per cheese. Water can be used instead of milk with either boxed or scratch to temper the cheese, and butter can be omitted with real cheese.
Either one could be prepared on a single burner if necessary but the larger bulk mac would take a lot longer.

I was thinking about it this morning and I believe I may be inclined towards mac and cheese because we had a "macaroni casserole" once a week as the main course for dinner when I was a kid.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[bobbolink]

17. It sad that so many "progressives" are more judgemental than the RW, isn't it?

THIS is the shit we get when we apply for assistance, and when we have to ask for our needs to be met.

No wonder so many would rather stop breathing.

Now, prepare for more condemnation.... it comes so easily to some.

Listening with compassion? Naw... that is soooooo "hippie".

[Name removed]

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[undeterred]

14. I get most of my food from a food pantry.

Those of us on unemployment don't always qualify for food stamps.

I buy a few fresh things because I can't count on getting it at the pantry. A lot of what I get at the food pantry might be considered crap. There is always dessert or candy. Potatoes and onions. Lots of cereal, pasta, crackers, rice and ingredients for baking: sugar, flour, cooking oil etc. They occasionally have frozen pizzas. Other times you get meat- sometimes a choice of brats or chicken. It probably saves me $30 a week. It may not be the healthiest diet in the world, and I may choose something differently if I could go to the grocery store instead. But right now lots of us can't.

A frozen pizza is one less meal I have to buy somewhere else. Its food and its free. That's what matters when you are in need.

[tango-tee]

13. elocs, I don't think it is so much about the three dollars for the frozen pizza

in contrast to your ability to concoct something a lot more nutritious for the same amount of money.

It is about Naturyl's delight in this damn pizza, as it is in the oven bubbling away and smelling like heaven. A treat. A little joy. So please don't go pissing in his wheaties (or on his pizza), will you?

[bobbolink]

15. .

:applause:

[tango-tee]

16. Luv ya

:hug:

[Name removed]

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[Glassunion]

19. I think I will do what no one else here did. I will give you my answers to your quesitons.

But first, I will say thank you for your post. You brought me right back to a place I almost forgot. I must say, I am a bit choked up. Not sure why, maybe just my own memories.

I’m relatively new around the DU, and this was actually my first step into the Poverty group. And this was the first post that I opened.

I think everyone should be hungry at least once in their lifetimes. Some should be hungry more than once if they have a thick skull. Hunger is the mightiest and intolerant of teachers. She does not discriminate and she does not care. She just teaches what it is like to be unfortunate. She is also teaches us to be compassionate. But it is a compassion on the level of honest and sincere empathy. I never regret being hungry. It taught me too much.

“How is it that many people have it worse than I do in the world's richest nation?”
I hate to say it, but enough people don’t care. I would suggest that we reach out to our representatives. The more we out it in their faces, the more we hold them responsible for how they are spending this countries money, the more that will be done. How many people could we feed on what we spend in one day of either of these two wars that we are in? Sickens me.

“When will we learn to embrace humane values and resolve to care for all our fellow travelers on Spaceship Earth? When will we grow up?”
Can you imagine what it would be like if we could get our representatives, from all the way at the top to those all the way at the bottom, actually working on what is good for this nation, and not what is good for their career? All we have to do IMHO is fire enough of them, just to remind them who is the boss and who is the employee.

As far as growing up. I don’t want to. I enjoy my cartoons, having snowball fights with my wife and playing in the woods on the weekends. Not gonna do it, and you can’t make me. :P

Forget everything that was posted before. You enjoy your pizza. I understand it and I applaud it.

May those that doubt spend but one day knowing true, gnawing hunger, so that their eyes and their hearts may be opened.

Nothing is too good for those in need. And that’s just about what we give them.

[cutlassmama]

23. I hope you enjoyed your pizza! Just a quick protip to people if you don't

already know...the dollar store usually has food and they have canned and boxed food for $1.00 or less.

[Naturyl]

24. 4 appearances of "name removed" in a thread about being thankful for frozen pizza.

What does that say about the reality of "progressives" in regard to poverty?

[Glassunion]

25. It says a lot...

I read most before they were deleted, and it was truly disturbing.