Reply #31: When I was a kid, we received foodstamps

[eilen]

and I used to get free lunch tickets at public school. Food prices were not as high-- ground beef and chicken were actually cheap cuts of meat. My parents went to the grocery store once a week, maybe stopped for milk and bread halfway through. We did not get lots of soda. My Mom bought unsweetened koolaid (or the generic brand) and we would mix our own in big pitchers. We ate cream of wheat and my mom would put out colored sugar and cinnamon for us to make it fun to eat (we didn't use alot--they were in shake containers).

Dinners often were pasta (rigatoni with meat sauce) sometimes 2x a week. We sometimes had egg noodles with chunky soup mixed together, tomato soup and grilled cheese, cheaper cuts of porkchops. We actually received government cheese lol and made macaroni and cheese with it. Once in a while my stepfather would get a good buy on steak and we would have that. I hated cube steaks--they were always so tough! When real estate died in the early 1970's, my stepfather got a job managing a slaughterhouse. He hated the job but we always had meat. He had apprenticed when he was young to a meat cutter so could get deals and was able to get this job. He also hunted so we would have venison stew, brisket and ground deer meat. Once in a while we would have popcorn to snack on at night--in one of those popcorn poppers you put the oil in the bottom --before that, JiffyPop. My mom purchased a package of the cheap cookies, a 3 liter soda and a bag of chips for junk food and otherwise purchased fruit (fresh and canned). Those lasted the week, when they were gone-- they were gone and they served to feed a family with 5 kids so no one was getting fat. In fact, no one in my family was overweight. No one ate or drank the last of the "goodies" if they were a kid. We had a serving. We were obviously not low-carb or ate lots of fresh vegetables. There was usually a vegetable serving with dinner. My parents smoked and they drank instant coffee and they were not demons. My Mom ended up getting a job as a secretary (she previously sold real estate too). She could get discounts on health and beauty products at her company store so we had discounts on cold medicine and shampoo. I remember now and then Mom would make a Bundt cake if we were getting company. Big days for candy-- Halloween (we trick&treated as late as we dared), Christmas, Easter. Big days for cake, cookies, pie or ice cream etc were Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Birthdays. In the summer, if we were really bored and driving Mom crazy, the adults would send us to the corner store with a quarter each-- it was good for at least 2 hours of peace for them. A quarter bought penny candy and a candy bar, or a soda and penny candy. It took us forever to decide.

I think some of the problem with today's young and poor is that there is no home economics classes in middle school. Those classes taught us how to plan, cook and budget a grocery list. I used to help my mother when I got home from school by starting dinner and doing housework.

I don't think people need to be told what to purchase with food stamps. Most people make astute decisions on what foods will stretch the best for them through the month.