I mean, this is an obviously crazy-impractical half-assed undercooked sorta-half-idea that someone threw in there as an “innovation” that couldn’t possibly be enacted (for one thing, grocery chains will have a FIT), but let’s focus on how cartoonishly evil this is:
Under the Trump proposal, which the Agriculture Department has dubbed “America’s Harvest Box,” all households receiving more than $90 per month in benefits — 81 percent of SNAP households overall — would begin receiving about half their benefits in the form of government-purchased, nonperishable food items.
Those foods would include shelf-stable milk, juice, grains, cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned meat, fruits and vegetables, according to the USDA. The department estimates that it could supply these goods at about half the cost of retail, slashing the cost of SNAP while still feeding the hungry.
No fresh fruit or vegetables for you! No more actually choosing the food you eat, dietary requirements be damned! We hate poor families this much!
You really have to admire the mental gymnastics lefties like OP are capable of pulling off by arguing that literally giving poor people food is the exact same thing as making them starve to death. That type of impressive athletics is something you’d only imagine seeing at the Olympics.
Hi!
I’m a disabled person whose family literally receives SNAP right now. Why we receive it or the circumstances under which we receive it is nobody’s business but ours: the social safety net is here for us because we fell on hard times. One of my disabilities? Celiac disease. And yes, that is an ADA disability.
I cannot simply eat a box of food that someone gives me. Canned foods often use glutenated substances as preservatives, making them literally poison for me. I must very carefully choose my foods. A restricted diet is the only treatment for my life-threatening disease.
So, yes, handing people like me a box of food absolutely is asking us to starve, because most canned meats, canned vegetables, and cereals are not edible by me, nor is it safe for those items to be eaten in a kitchen used to feed me; gluten adheres to porous surfaces such as Tupperware, plastic bowls, and non-stick cookware. That food cannot be eaten in my home without making me sick, so no one in my family can eat it either.
Now that’s leaving aside entirely the fact that I have a hard time, due to my disease, with absorbing nurtients from food, so I must carefully choose what I eat to maximize my nutritional absorption. Hint: canned foods have much lower nutritional value and would not meet my needs either.
The article – had you read it – makes very clear that those proposing this hadn’t considered how to handle people with food allergies or celiac disease. So we could go with this massively-expensive, incredibly invasive, paternalistic, infantilizing and ineffective system that would leave someone like me not only hungry but sicker, making more use of the Medicaid that I currently receive because I am permanently disabled, and thus more expensive…
… or we could keep it the way it is, not waste all that money setting up a ridiculously bad system that will make people sick, and trust poor families to know how best to feed themselves for their specific needs.
Oh, but wait! There’s more! This plan would take money away from small mom-and-pop grocery stores and farms who currently accept EBT and supply a lot of the food stamp needs for rural working poor.
It requires an awful lot of mental gymnastics to justify taking money away from small business owners and also giving poor people food less-nutritional food that a lot of us can’t even eat. It takes absolutely none to say ‘gee, here’s your food money, you know better than we do what your individual needs are, sorry life’s kicking you right now, hopefully things get better, I hope this system is here to help me if I need it.’
But, you know, go off, I guess.
Except it is my business it is my business because you being on snap costs anyone who pays taxes money in the form of taxes. So yes it is my business and you shouldn’t be on it.
Now that means, get a job, make money and take care of yourself so you aren’t on this program is fine with me.
And before you get offended at me even suggesting such a thing, is this not what you want? To be independent and self sustaining?
Oh but it’s hard. Still doesn’t change my position. Work is hard difficult and at times dangerous but if we want this world of ours to keep spinning it must be done.
So don’t sit there and tell anyone it’s not my or anyone’s business that you use this system that costs people money, because it is. And your job as a being with the ability to reason, is to self improve. So improve yourself and gain your independence.
My being on SNAP costs you less than a hundredth of a penny a year. So you may have exactly a hundredth of a penny’s worth of concern about my circumstances.
That said, I have a job. I own a business, as a matter of fact. You’d know that if you took so much as a cursory look at the header of my Tumblr.
Let me rock your fucking world: most people who receive SNAP have at least one job. Most of us (like me) have two or more.
Let me rock your fucking world again: I could be eligible for disability, but I choose not to seek it for as long as possible, if ever. I am permanently, multiply disabled, which you would know if you had actually read everything that I wrote. I am literally doing everything within my power to be as independent as possible for as long as possible.
I work hard. I work as hard as my body will allow me, and sometimes more than, causing myself to become sick, to require hospital admission, because I seek again the kind of independence that I used to have before a tumor was taken out of my spine, permanently scarring my spinal cord, and setting off a chain reaction that left me at the mercy of a body that would no longer obey me. I went from having a hefty 401K, a job in the finance industry, and significant savings to starting a business that I’d be able to run around the restrictions of my body because I can no longer work a traditional 9-5 job. I physically cannot do it. I continued to work my finance job for 4 years after my tumor was removed, as my health has slowly deteriorated, until my job was eliminated. I will never be able to work a 9-5 job again, because I will not have FMLA protection for my unpredictable flare-ups. That is not my opinion: that is the assessment of four different doctors. See also: I could seek disability and probably get it, but choose not to do so for as long as I can.
Let me rock your fucking world yet again: I have paid more in to the system than I have ever gotten out of it. You haven’t paid a fucking penny to me, because I paid in to the system for my entire working life, from before I was even an adult.
But even if none of that were true, even if I’d never been able to work a day in my life, even if I never had worked a day in my life, even if I didn’t work my fucking ass off as much as my body will let me, even if I weren’t constantly turning out new products for my business, new writing for my patrons, making as much money as I can, you still don’t get to have a fucking opinion about why I’m on SNAP, you know why?
Because the right to food is recognized in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25) as part of the right to an adequate standard of living, and is enshrined in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 11).
Food is a basic human right, as recognized internationally, and understood by everyone who isn’t a solipsistic jackass.
I know it’s really scary to think that you, too, might suddenly be unable to adequately provide for yourself, and acting out of that fear makes you insist that everyone who needs help must simply not be working hard enough, because the alternative is that our economic system is broken and that, G-d forbid, you might suddenly, through no fault of your own, be at the mercy of the same system that you purport works for everyone. You might not be able to provide for yourself if you got sick, or if something went wrong, and that’s scary. I get that.
But I’m under no obligation to pat your bottom and reassure you that you’re right, golly gosh, if I worked harder I wouldn’t need any help, and so your deeper fears that you might find yourself in my shoes just aren’t true, because you’re totally in control of your situation with all your hard work, and an uncaring universe would never do you dirty the way it’s done me.
So fuck off, bro. And leave everyone else who needs a little help alone.
People will really go out of their way to blame poor people for being poor and disabled people for being disabled.
It’s honestly heartbreaking that so many people feel that way about SNAP. Like. They don’t care for their fellow man enough to feed them when they’re hungry. Hungry kids? Also not worth helping, apparently, as like 75% of SNAP recipients have kids in the household.
I’m infuriated that this seems to be a common sentiment. How selfish and cruel do you have to be to tell someone who is less fortunate than you that they aren’t working hard enough to deserve to eat? All because you pay a few dollars in taxes per year? I’m just. So disappointed that so many people are that selfish.
Someone’s reasons for needing assistance are their own. If the Health and Human Services department deemed that someone is eligible for benefits, that’s the end of it. No one deserves to invade on a person’s privacy. SNAP recipients are actual human beings who DESERVE RESPECT.
As usual, I would quibble with some of the details. But, interesting piece.
Also, one thing I was very surprised the author didn’t go into, along with the other relatively recent changes to the milling process? All the flour used to be made from hominy. Besides the significant flavor/texture differences, not knowing to treat the grain properly is how you get pellagra. Eliminate that extra treatment step, and you just aren’t going to get the same results at all, besides possibly very sick if you don’t have a well-enough balanced diet otherwise to make up for the reduced nutritional value.
(It also works really well, IME, to use part masa harina instead of other flours for better texture and flavor with the standard commercial roller ground meal. Without adding gluten where it never belonged.)
This seems to be a fairly mild outbreak so far. *fingers crossed* Though of course it still feels kind of like shingles are supposed to. That hand/wrist and up the inside of the arm is not the only place it’s shown up this time, but the easiest to get even a bad photo. Unlike the back of my neck. The edge of the armpit patches that popped up early on have started to calm down some, and I’m sure nobody wants to see that regardless. 🙄
I was hoping it was “just” more fun with eczema or contact dermatitis, which will usually go away a lot more quickly. But, not with this symmetrical pattern in weird places with no apparent connection plus the burning. Maybe a week ago, I did feel like I had maybe been glutened, with no idea from what. Looking pretty likely, yeah. May have been from not handling wheaty fish food carefully enough. Hadn’t eaten anything unusual within that timeframe.
The dermatitis herpetiformis bumps usually take several days to heal (during which time new bumps usually appear nearby)
Another giveaway that it’s probably the DH again, yeah. More spread helped clue me in. It’s been probably a couple of years since the last DH outbreak, and I don’t tend to think of it immediately.
Glad it’s not looking like nearly as bad an episode as I used to get before figuring out the celiac, at least. About time to get some hydrocortisone on it and try to get a nap. Didn’t sleep very well earlier with the skin badness going on.
If you work in a movie theater and you do this I have no respect for you.
My younger brother is Type 1 Diabetic.
When we go to a movie theater, we always get him diet soda. If he were to get regular when we asked for diet, we would not give him the insulin he would need for it. If that happens, his blood sugar level could go so high he could go into a coma, go blind, or even die.
If somebody gave him regular soda instead of diet without telling us, that person could be responsible for a nine-year-old being killed or blinded.
Just thinking about that makes me so angry. I get scared every time we take him to a movie in case the people working there saw this picture and decide to do the same thing.
Please signal boost this so people know.
This also applies to baristas
Fun story about the baristas doing this kind of shit.
I am very sensitive to lactose, not Lactose intolerant but because of stomach ulcers that are still healing. A couple years ago I went to Starbucks right after my classes with some friends and asked for a green tea latte with soy milk. The barista, for some reason out of malice and/or hate for her life so she took it out on me, gave me whole milk in my latte.
5 minutes after my first sip of latte, my stomach cramped BAD. Not the “Oh! time to poop!” kind of cramp but it felt like someone had stabbed me with a knife and twisted it. Now I’ve had this happen before so I knew the cause of it. I went up to the barista clutching my gut screaming at her that she put dairy in my latte rather than soy LIKE I REQUESTED. She denied it and called me a “pretentious white girl for wanting soy”and so my friends got the manager. I had to explain that I had stomach ulcers that were still healing and if I were to go to the hospital for this incident, they would be responsible for it.
Manager flipped his shit and the barista was terrified out of her mind. Pretty sure both thought i was gonna sue. Manager actually fired her on the spot because of the negligence. My friends managed to get me home in one piece while I stayed home for 3 days in absolute agony and missed my midterm.
So remember kiddies, if someone is asking for Diet or “Skinny” or “soy” or anything that is not regular, give them what they requested because it may not be them being healthy, but a dietary need that can possibly be life or death
also if they ARE trying to be healthy you should give it to them to!! Its not your decision to police or question others food choices!!!
also im lactose intolerant AND ive had stomach infections/ulcers so i feel this.
I have Celiac Disease, so I’m very gluten intolerant. When I go out to eat at restaurants a lot of people just assume that I asked for my food gluten free because of the gluten free diet fad (which is usually a bullshit diet btw).
Last month I went out to dinner with a friend at an italian restaurant that had a small gluten free menu. I had been there once before and had their gluten free pasta and it was great! I think one of the managers had been there and was super helpful when taking my order to make sure that everything was gluten free for me. When I ordered the gluten free pasta again this time though, the waitress who took my order all but rolled her eyes at me. I didn’t think much of it at the time, because the restaurant was so accommodating before, I just assumed it would be the same this time.
But sure enough, they brought out my pasta, I ate it, and about an hour later I had extreme stomach pains and was throwing up (in a movie theater no less).
Barfing and agonizing pain aside, eating gluten when you have celiac causes a lot of internal damage that’s hard to notice. The biggest thing is that it damages your intestines, preventing your body from absorbing nutrients properly, which can take months to heal.
So PLEASE, if you work at a restaurant or anything with food and someone asks for something a certain way, please listen to them and don’t just disregard someone’s order. It’s not funny and it can have serious consequences.
I will reblog this with every single story about someone getting sick because of an asshole giving them the opposite of what they ordered until it sinks in for everyone.
Recently on the news a 16 year old boy with a dairy allergy had gone to eat at IHOP with his family. The specifically asked if they could make dairy free pancakes and they said yes. Not too long after he had a reaction and was rushed to the hospital. This kid died because the was dairy in his pancakes that they asked for no dairy. His epi pen that his mother had wasn’t enough to help him. I know working in fast food or any job that’s serves food and beverage sucks but not as much as causing someone to get sick over negligence.
My youngest cousin – who is now five, he just started kindergarten – has Celiac’s disease. You would not BELEIVE the amount of times I’ve heard my aunt say she’s ordered something gluten free, only to watch the waiter or waitress’s eyes go huge when she gives it to my cousin – my cousin with the medical id band on his tiny five year old wrist proclaiming I HAVE CELIACS and have to take it back.
Shit like this could kill my cousin. Knock it the fuck off.
I cannot tolerate caffeine–it makes me have chest pain and a racing pulse, and also gives me horrible body pain, so I always ask for decaf if I order coffee when I’m out, and doublecheck with the waiter/ress when they bring it. but instead of saying “is this decaf like I asked for?” I always say “oh, did I remember to order decaf?” I shouldn’t have to act like I’m the forgetful one (because I know damn well I asked for decaf) but it seems to work better than implying that they screwed up when I take the blame on myself like that. and if there’s any hesitation when they answer, I tell them, “if there’s any doubt, please get another one, or just give me water–if this is regular, it’ll mess up my heart” and lots of times when I say that, they look alarmed and go change it or get another one.
but I shouldn’t HAVE to share my personal medical history with strangers just to get my order right! no one should! how is it their business? it makes me really uncomfortable to have to do that. JUST GIVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY ORDER!
I’ve reblogged this maaaany times before but there’s a few new stories on here so i’m doing it again.
cut this shit out
don’t be that kind of asshole.
As a diabetic, this would make me so beyond angry. Skinny doesn’t mean they don’t have a life threatening illness. Skinny doesn’t mean they can process sugar the way you do. People that do this are the worst kinds of people. DO NOT DO THIS!
Me and my family went to a restaurant a few years back and one of the dishes we ordered was made with wine vinegar, which I am allergic to, so we asked the waiter to skip it, and he said sure, no problem, that’s fine.
So my food gets to the table, and I start eating and then my throat closes and I can’t breathe and then I start coughing and throwing up right there in the middle of the restaurant and it was very fortunate that I was with my family and they knew what was happening to me.
I had to be rushed to the hospital, and admitted, and I came damn near close to having my throat cut open so I could breathe through a whole on my neck.
Because they put wine vinegar in my food when I explicitly told them not to, because they were assholes, and I could have died.
They probably didn’t mean to hurt me but they did. I missed class, and work, and, again, I COULD HAVE DIED.
i have cyclic vomiting syndrome and can’t tolerate dairy or red meat. violating my dietary restrictions triggers an acute episode, and i have to be hospitalized and given iv saline, ativan, and anti-emetics to stop the (extremely painful and incapacitating) vomiting. if somebody put regular milk instead of soy milk in my latte and i didn’t notice the taste immediately, i could wind up in the er and then spend several days in bed recovering, eating nothing but saltines and dry toast and clear liquids until my body was able to tolerate food again, unable to work or go out or do anything besides rest. whenever i go to starbucks, i WATCH them make my drink. cvs episodes are horrible and i hate them, and i can prevent them if i do everything right, but that means my damn barista has to cooperate. if somebody decided i was a stuck up white girl and gave me whole milk instead of soy they could put me in the hospital and cost me days of income. give ppl the food they fuckin order. it’s not that hard.
Reblogging because it’s so important. I’m “lucky” I don’t have any food allergies or intolerence, but it makes me mad when people take them not seriously, think you are picky or just following a “white girl diet fad”.
90% of people don’t take my cats and dog allergies seriously when I tell them I’m allergic and wondering if a cat or a dog is present at X place. They think it’s just watery eyes. Nope. Well yeah, watery and itchy eyes, but I start wo wheeze and have trouble breathing. They don’t give epi-pen for those (anyway you have to go to the hospital after) just inhaler. It’s no miracle, specially if I didn’t take other meds before.
When people tell you about their allergies or restriction, trust them!
Reblogging for all the stories here because this is sooo important!
I have a severe allergy to gluten and relate to MANY of the stories above. My daughter has a severe allergy to milk fat, and I have had to hold her hair many times while she vomits on the side of the road because we couldn’t even make it home from the “accidental” whole milk instead of skim.
I’m super lactose intolerant so accidental milk is always fun. Severe diarrhea, stomach cramps, bloating, and gas like you wouldn’t believe. Better than death you might say but, I have other medical conditions, so that diarrhea could lead to vomiting(it’s so bad the vomit comes out my mouth AND nose) and dehydration that in turn becomes low cortisol and adrenal crisis. A bitchy barista can land me in the hospital with an intramuscular shot and saline iv. Hun, it takes no time to listen and follow my order. It takes me at least 24 hours to get out of the hospital. Be nice.
I’m allergic to pork. Legit allergic. I can’t count how many times I’ve had to ask it off my food only to receive it with bacon or ham or something on it.
Please respect peoples food requests. It costs 0.00$ to not be a dick.
I actually have customers who say they’ll only eat at my restaurant when I’m there, because they know I require all policy to be followed, as in “I will kick you the fuck off your shift if you skimp,” if someone says the words “I have an allergy.” I developed our allergy policies, for that matter, because what we had in place before was “I guess you shouldn’t change your gloves … . ?” On my shifts your gloves get changed, that line gets wiped down with a new cloth, paper under EVERY ITEM for the person with the allergy, bag their food separately to prevent contact. If there’s a risk of cross-contamination with an allergen, like tomatoes in the guac because stuff spills when you’re moving as fast as we do, I’ll open a new bag of food. I learned the ingredients in every item we serve so I could advise people on hidden allergens (e.g., there’s a small amount of wheat in our beef as a thickener; we fry with safflower oil). We have a grease pencil to mark special builds and I use it liberally on allergy orders. If all of this sounds like overkill, you’ve never watched a child suffer from anaphylaxis. I don’t play around.
Like, I bitch about my job a lot, but food allergies and special needs are not something I will ever bitch about. Even if you’re a complete asshole I won’t risk contaminating your food. (Although people with allergies seem to be way nicer than the general population, I gotta say.) Don’t do it. If someone’s a petty asshole to you, give them too much ice in their drink. Don’t play with their health.
DO NOT FUCKING SCROLL PAST THIS P L E A S E
Reblogging this again because it is important. Doing the right thing has no cost but doing the wrong thing can cost a person’s life. Don’t be a dick, give the person what they ordered
I have had yet to have allergies but I know what it’s like not to have something seriously because it’s an issue that can’t be seen. Just because a person looks “normal” doesn’t mean that one little action won’t be harmful.
I’d also like to add that for many people with celiac, they won’t get sick right away, like the damage is hidden and there is not an immediate response like an allergy, so if a frustrated server slips something with gluten in their food to be petty or whatever, the person eating it won’t seem harmed right away, but they are.
Wilson died three weeks after a teenage customer at another of Zaman’s restaurants had an allergic reaction that required hospital treatment. She had been assured her meal would not contain nuts…
Zaman, from Huntington, York, denied manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice and six food safety offences. He was found guilty of all charges except perverting the course of justice.
You never know what might happen when you knowingly go swapping people’s food around, but it’s unlikely to be good. Absolute best case? You’re an asshole, and likely to lose business when it comes out you’ve purposely been cutting corners and giving people the wrong food. That’s the soft end.
Wilfully ignoring customers’ requirements is dangerous business, even if they don’t embarrass you by dropping dead directly.
While I’m hardly a fan of the justice system, I still can’t help but be glad that this kind of gross negligence seems to be getting taken more seriously now in at least some places. There is absolutely no excuse for that behavior. Whether or not it kills anyone straight away.
I was reminded by seeing that post from yet another person with both EDS and probable celiac, and yeah.
In particular, unexplained gastrointestinal symptoms, including recurrent
abdominal pain, bloating, nausea, reflux, vomiting, constipation,
and diarrhea, are found in 35–86% of JHS/EDS-HT patients
[Hakim and Grahame, 2004; Castori et al., 2010; Zarate et al.,
2010]…
These findings indicate that, in Italy, CD is 10–20 times more
common in JHS/EDS-HT compared to the general population. The
reason as to why an autoimmune disorder like CD is more common
in patients affected by a genetic condition apparently etiologically
unlinked to the immune system remains unknown…
JHS/EDS-HT is
thought to be caused by mutations in gene(s) coding for components of the connective tissue. Recently, increased Ab titers against
collagens I, III, V, and VI was demonstrated in CD [Dieterich et al.,
2006]. This evidence prompted the authors to speculate for an
increased risk for autoimmune connective tissue disorders among
patients previously diagnosed with CD. In fact, the cross-linking between gliadin peptides and interstitial collagen(s) may facilitate
anti-collagen Ab formation and consequent chronic inflammation
of the connective tissue. On the contrary, a constitutionally abnormal collagen (as expected in JHS/EDS-HT) might uncover an
autoimmune reaction mediated by anti-collagen Ab, which, by
virtue of the gliadin–collagen cross-linking, could facilitate the
onset of CD in genetically predisposed subjects…
This relative high rate of CD in JHS/EDS-HT
might contribute in explaining and, possibly, treating some disabling features, such as chronic constipation, chronic fatigue
(including the chronic fatigue syndrome), and osteopenia/porosis,
which are frequently encountered in JHS/EDS-HT. Further studies
in larger samples with different geographic origins are expected in
order to substantiate this evidence and translate it into the clinical
practice.
Reminded of this again, since almost every health problem I’ve run into seems to be associated with EDS.
(Ones that weren’t directly iatrogenic, at least. Been a couple of those.)
Triscuits are like eating shrapnel from a wicker picnic basket blown up in a tragic salt accident but I still won’t stop shoveling them into my Triscuit Chewer
i like my women with curves. lots and lots of curves. in a sort of spiral shape maybe with ketchup. curly fries. i like curly fries.
Reminded yet again of how much I love the too-common conflation of a GF diet and what some of the food faddists keep doing with that.
“I will base my diet around often low-nutrition commercial analogues of foods which usually contain certain grains” is not at all the same as “I will choose from literally anything that’s not made with these few specific grains originating around the Mediterranean”.
It’s even weirder when the latter describes most of the cuisines across the world, before wheat/barley/rye got introduced. Not everyone had those particular grains at all. It’s like saying you’re bound to get sick if you don’t eat any rice or corn, but way more Eurocentric in its assumptions. (But, what else would someone possibly eat as a major part of their diet?! 😩)
It’s also kinda like framing lactose intolerance as the unusual/pathological state, when adult lactase persistence is the oddity across the world. That’s only going to turn into any kind of problem if fresh dairy is a common part of your food traditions. Again, more unusual than not around the world until relatively recently. People found plenty to eat that didn’t involve fresh dairy before that. And groups that have been exposed to gluten-containing grains for less time also (surprise!) seem to have higher rates of celiac, from what research has been done.
That’s beyond the casting of actual medical reasons to avoid gluten as rare enough to hardly consider. Which is kinda how a lot of us didn’t get the problem recognized until we were well into adulthood and very very “inexplicably” sick from it. (See also: Celiac disease goes undiagnosed in 90% of cases, Canadian researchers find.) I was trying to find something older, estimating that there are about the same number of people in the US who don’t know they have celiac alone as the ones who are eating GF without needing to. But, I couldn’t find the source I was thinking of right now.
The number of people going around with unrecognized dangerous autoimmune reactions would seem to be a much bigger concern than Western food faddists possibly hurting themselves by not showing much sense. If it weren’t that, it would be something else for that demographic anyway. It always is.
It’s also not liable to be great for anybody to rely heavily on, say, bread made largely out of pure potato starch, instead of getting a better variety of nutrients. Many of the explicitly GF products largely aimed at food faddists are even worse for actual celiacs to use as staples, if anything, since we are by definition starting out with multiple deficiencies from not being able to absorb our food properly. So our bodies really need the vitamins and minerals you’re just not going to find in a lot of the commercial explicitly GF starchy foods.
I’ve probably gone on about all of this before, but I just get so tired.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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