Monday, October 25, 2010

Enough with the rice and beans

So Feministe puts this very interesting post linking to a New York Times slideshow about what $1 will buy you. It's interesting and sad to see that you can buy a crappy meal with processed food or you can buy...ten organic blueberries. Should be eye opening for folks to see how your money goes and how badly supported non-conventional farming is because they need to charge that much.

BUT THEN....the comments. Oh the comments. The first comment brings out the tired tired tired point that rice and beans are cheap and nutritious. I just have to say. SHUT UP ABOUT THE RICE AND BEANS. Fine they got you through that two week stretch between paycheck entitlement asshole but please, once you got paid, I'm sure you went out for sushi or the Whole Foods salad bar. Because seriously, noone's gonna live on rice and beans for the rest of their lives. And condemning poor people to a life of rice and beans is a pretty asshole move.

There were time where I did live on a food stamp budget and I ate really well. But few people were in my position. I lived in a group house where we shared food. We shared chores so the same person shopping for groceries was not the person cleaning toilets. We had a list that the grocery person check the fridge and pantry to see what we were missing. Most of the folks had a car we could use to get the groceries. AND the prices at the Chevy Chase Safeway was like 30% cheaper than the SE Safeway.

For people of privilege to give these rice and beans prescription to low-income folks is just insulting. Folks may be poor but they deserve more than rice and beans. Oh and by the way, as a diabetic, rice and beans suck because they are high on carbs. So suck it clueless people.