State: Mom who shot kids, self denied food stamps

Published December 06, 2011

| Associated Press

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SAN ANTONIO – A Texas woman who for months was unable to qualify for food stamps pulled a gun in a state welfare office and staged a seven-hour standoff with police that ended with her shooting her two children before killing herself, officials said Tuesday.

The children, a 10-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, remained in critical condition Tuesday. The shooting took place at a Texas Department of Health and Human Services building in Laredo, where police said about 25 people were inside at the time.

Authorities identified the mother as Rachelle Grimmer, 38, and children Ramie and Timothy. Laredo police investigator Joe Baeza said Grimmer had recently moved to the border city from Zanesville, Ohio, about 30 miles east of Columbus.

Grimmer first applied for food stamps in July but was denied because she didn't turn in enough information, Texas Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said.

Goodman didn't know what Grimmer specifically failed to provide. In addition to completing an 18-page application, families seeking state benefits also must provide documents proving their information, such as proof of employment and residency.

"We were still waiting, and if we had that, I don't know if she would still qualify or not," Goodman said.

Goodman said Grimmer's last contact with the agency appeared to be a phone call in mid-November. When the family entered the Laredo office on Monday shortly before 5 p.m., Goodman said Grimmer asked to speak to a new caseworker, and not the one whom she worked with previously.

Shortly thereafter, Goodman said, Grimmer was taken to a private room to discuss her case. She said it was there the mother revealed a gun and the standoff began.

Police negotiators stayed on the phone with Grimmer throughout the evening, but she kept hanging up, Baeza said. She allegedly told negotiators about a litany of complaints against state and federal government agencies.

Despite those complaints, Baeza said it wasn't clear what specifically triggered the standoff.

"This wasn't like a knee-jerk reaction," said Baeza, adding that Grimmer felt she was owed restitution of some sort.

Grimmer let a supervisor go unharmed around 7:45, but stayed inside the office with her children. After hanging up the phone around 11:45, police heard three shots, and a SWAT team entered the building. Inside, they found Grimmer's body and her two wounded children.

The children were "very critical" and unconscious when taken from the scene, Baeza said.

Multiple family members in Ohio and Missouri did not immediately return phone messages Tuesday. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said the agency had no information on Grimmer.

A YouTube channel the family appeared to have created in 2009 includes a profile that reads, "We are Shell, Ramie and Tim. Mom, daughter 10 and son 8. We like turtles, horses, and being outside. The kids have two turtles, an alligator snapper and a red eared slider. We work on naturalizing them and try to give them the most natural setting possible."

There are no videos uploaded. Tagged as favorites are an eclectic mix of nearly two dozen videos, ranging from a solar panel installation to a live clip of the band of AC/DC. The "Hometown" category reads: "We don't have one."

Goodman credited an office supervisor, a 24-year veteran of the agency, for ensuring the release of the other employees.

"He had told her he would try to help her, and that if she would let everyone else leave, he would talk to her," Goodman said.

Goodman didn't know whether Grimmer had a job, or whether her children were covered under Medicaid or the state children's health insurance program. The family had no history with the Texas Department of Child Protective Services.

The family's move from Ohio may have complicated Grimmer's application if the family had no Texas records the agency could check electronically, Goodman said. Grimmer also would have been denied benefits if she was receiving welfare assistance.

Grimmer also appeared to fall out of touch during her pursuit of food stamps. The mother originally applied July 7, but Goodman said Grimmer missed her first interview and didn't call back and reschedule for a few weeks. Her case was closed Aug. 8 for lack of a full application, Goodman said.

How much food stamp money a family receives depends on their income level. The average family on food stamps in Texas receives $294 a month.

Three months later, Grimmer called the agency's ombudsman Nov. 16 and requested a review of how her rejected case was handled. Goodman said the agency found that caseworkers acted appropriately after looking over Grimmer's file, and a supervisor called Grimmer's cell phone last Thursday to tell her the outcome. No one answered and the phone's voicemail box was full, Goodman said.

"The indications she had she was dealing with a lot of issues," Goodman said.

State welfare offices have come under scrutiny in the past for being overburdened, but Goodman said the agency has made significant strides in the past three years. She said wait times are shorter, and that Grimmer was scheduled for her initial interview just one day after applying. Grimmer didn't make the appointment, she said.

Goodman said it's not unusual for caseworkers to confront angry or confused benefit-seekers, but that it's very rare for a situation to escalate to violence.

___

Associated Press Writer Christopher Sherman in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/06/state-mom-who-shot-kids-self-denied-food-stamps/#ixzz1fsjIbdzR

1) What do you think was this woman's primary motivator? Was she simply psychotic, or was she the victim of a welfare bureaucracy that allows some cases to fall through the cracks? Does it matter? Why?

2) Is this woman's response in any way a reflection of the realities of food insecurity? Might responses like this become more common, one day? Is there a chance with this story to examine possible linkages between moving a lot/lack of community connection and poverty/food insecurity?

Why McDonald's Happy Meal Burgers Don't Decompose

(NaturalNews) It's always entertaining when the mainstream media "discovers" something they think is new even though the natural health community has been talking about for years. The New York Times, for example, recently ran a story entitled When Drugs Cause Problems They Are Supposed to Prevent (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/h...). We've been covering the same topic for years, reporting on how chemotherapy causes cancer, osteoporosis drugs cause bone fractures and antidepressant drugs cause suicidal behavior.

The latest "new" discovery by the mainstream media is that McDonald's Happy Meal hamburgers and fries won't decompose, even if you leave them out for six months. This story has been picked up by CNN, the Washington Post and many other MSM outlets which appear startled that junk food from fast food chains won't decompose.

The funny thing about this is that the natural health industry already covered this topic years ago. Remember Len Foley's Bionic Burger video? It was posted in 2007 and eventually racked up a whopping 2 million views on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYyD...). And this video shows a guy who bought his McDonald's hamburgers in 1989 -- burgers that still haven't decomposed in over two decades!

Now, he has an entire museum of non-decomposed burgers in his basement.

Did the mainstream media pick up on this story? Nope. Not a word. The story was completely ignored. It was only in 2010 when an artist posted a story about a non-decomposing McDonald's hamburger from six months ago that the news networks ran with the story.

Check out the video link above and you'll see an entire museum of Big Macs and hamburgers spanning the years -- none of which have decomposed.

This is especially interesting because the more recent "Happy Meal Project" which only tracks a burger for six months has drawn quite a lot of criticism from a few critics who say the burgers will decompose if you give them enough time. They obviously don't know about the mummified burger museum going all the way back to 1989. This stuff never seems to decompose!

Why don't McDonald's hamburgers decompose?

So why don't fast food burgers and fries decompose in the first place? The knee-jerk answer is often thought to be, "Well they must be made with so many chemicals that even mold won't eat them." While that's part of the answer, it's not the whole story.

The truth is many processed foods don't decompose and won't be eaten by molds, insects or even rodents. Try leaving a tub of margarine outside in your yard and see if anything bothers to eat it. You'll find that the margarine stays seems immortal, too!

Potato chips can last for decades. Frozen pizzas are remarkably resistant to decomposition. And you know those processed Christmas sausages and meats sold around the holiday season? You can keep them for years and they'll never rot.

With meats, the primary reason why they don't decompose is their high sodium content. Salt is a great preservative, as early humans have known for thousands of years. McDonald's meat patties are absolutely loaded with sodium -- so much so that they qualify as "preserved" meat, not even counting the chemicals you might find in the meat.

To me, there's not much mystery about the meat not decomposing. The real question in my mind is why don't the buns mold? That's the really scary part, since healthy bread begins to mold within days. What could possibly be in McDonald's hamburger buns that would ward off microscopic life for more than two decades?

As it turns out, unless you're a chemist you probably can't even read the ingredients list out loud. Here's what McDonald's own website says you'll find in their buns:

Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, enzymes), water, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, yeast, soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated soybean oil, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, wheat gluten, ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated monoglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide, soy flour), calcium propionate and sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin.

Great stuff, huh? You gotta especially love the HFCS (diabetes, anyone?), partially-hydrogenated soybean oil (anybody want heart disease?) and the long list of chemicals such as ammonium sulfate and sodium proprionate. Yum. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

Now here's the truly shocking part about all this: In my estimation, the reason nothing will eat a McDonald's hamburger bun (except a human) is because it's not food!

No normal animal will perceive a McDonald's hamburger bun as food, and as it turns out, neither will bacteria or fungi. To their senses, it's just not edible stuff. That's why these bionic burger buns just won't decompose.

Which brings me to my final point about this whole laughable distraction: There is only one species on planet Earth that's stupid enough to think a McDonald's hamburger is food. This species is suffering from skyrocketing rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, dementia and obesity. This species claims to be the most intelligent species on the planet, and yet it behaves in such a moronic way that it feeds its own children poisonous chemicals and such atrocious non-foods that even fungi won't eat it (and fungi will eat cow manure, just FYI).

Care to guess which species I'm talking about?

That's the real story here. It's not that McDonald's hamburgers won't decompose; it's that people are stupid enough to eat them. But you won't find CNN reporting that story any time soon.

1. With the knowledge of the McDonald's burgers and fries not decomposing by people in the health industry back in 2007, why did it take until late 2010 for the mainstream media to be able to talk about the non-decomposition of these "foods"?

2. Is there an ethical issue in McDonald's selling these buns and meats that do not decompose because the chemicals they put in them are not even recognized by animals, bacteria, or even fungi as edible food?

Food Prices and Supply

Kirk Condyles for The New York Times

Updated: April 7, 2011
For the second time in three years, food prices began to soar in late 2010. Some food experts thought the increases could have been a factor in the unrest that swept the Arab world in early 2011.
In 2008, food riots broke out in developing countries around the world, as the prices of staples, particularly rice, jumped sharply. Good harvests and a drop in demand due to the worldwide recession eased those shortages in 2009.
Prices began rising steadily again in the summer of 2010.
In January 2011, a price index compiled by the  United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization that tracks 55 food commodities for export hit its highest level since tracking began in 1990. Countries not dependent on food imports are less affected by global volatility. Still, food prices are expected to rise 2 percent to 3 percent in the United States in 2011.
Four main factors are seen as driving prices higher: weather, higher demand, smaller yields and crops diverted to biofuels. Volatile weather patterns often attributed to climate change are wreaking havoc with some harvests. Heavy rains in Australia damaged wheat to the extent that much of its usually high-quality crop has been downgraded to feed, experts noted.
This has pushed the demand and prices for American wheat much higher, with the best grades selling at 100 percent more than they were a year ago. The autumn soybean harvest in the United States was poor, so strong demand means stocks are at their lowest level in 50 years.
In addition, an ever larger portion of the world’s crops is being diverted for biofuels, as developed countries pass laws mandating greater use of nonfossil fuels and as emerging powerhouses like China seek new sources of energy. But with food prices rising sharply in early 2011, many experts began to call on countries to scale back their headlong rush into green fuel development, arguing that the combination of ambitious biofuel targets and mediocre harvests of some crucial crops is contributing to high prices, hunger and political instability.
Related: The Food Chain: A Series From The New York Times

1.  With the current strain on the economy, do you think the that the price of food would ever get so out of hand the there will be food price related riots? Is there any kind of food price change or increase that you think  you would protest/ or riot?

2.Do you think our efforts should be focused on green fuel development? Do you think this will cause an increase in food insecurity in America? And which do you feel is more important for the governement to invest in: green fuel? or fighting hunger?

Factory Farming

Reasons To End Factory Farming

Thursday, 27 October 2011 Farm Sanctuary

Dairy Factory Farming. Image via Wikipedia.

Over thirty experts from the public health, environmental, and animal welfare movements, are debating the consequences of factory farming at the first National Conference to End Factory Farming. Below are some of the discussion highlights and information emerging from the conference.

Top Five Ways to End Factory Farming

Farm Sanctuary President and Co-Founder Gene Baur: “The best way to end factory farming is to make the system transparent and accountable, and to align agribusiness practices with our citizens’ values and interests. The cruelty of industrial animal agriculture is an affront to basic human decency. It is inefficient, unhealthy and unsustainable, and costs our nation hundreds of billions of dollars every year.”
Whole Foods Market Co-CEO John Mackey: “The best way to end factory farming is to first create more humane alternatives to it in the marketplace.  The great majority of people are very unlikely to become vegans for the foreseeable future.  It is therefore essential to create more humane alternatives that help raise peoples’ consciousness about what factory farming really does to animals by providing strong contrasts to compare against.  Until there are widespread humane alternatives to choose from most people will prefer to remain wilfully ignorant and very little is likely to change.”
Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter: “Factory farming is a threat to public health, the environment, and the rural communities upon which our food system desperately depend. The next farm bill must urgently reverse the policies that have given all of the advantages to intensive farming operations while pushing out the small and mid-sized farms that are the backbone of a system that provides us safe, healthy and sustainable food."
Sierra Club Water Sentinel Lynn Henning: “The best way to end factory farming is to eliminate government subsidies, incentives, and tax breaks for CAFOs [Confined Animal Feeding Operations]. CAFOs are NOT sustainable. We must rethink agriculture to teach the next generation to farm. Family farms have fed this country for generations.”
Farm Sanctuary National Shelter Director Susie Coston: “The best way to end factory farming is to show people that farm animals are intelligent, emotional beings who possess just as much desire to enjoy life as the dogs and cats who we know a bit better.”

Battery Hen Cages. Image via Wikipedia.

Five Things You May Not Know About Factory Farms

John Ikerd, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri, Columbia: “Factory farms are not necessarily more economically efficient than smaller-scale independent family farms. Factory farm operators use their political influence and their ability to manipulate market prices to drive more efficient family farmers out of business. Food prices are no lower with factory farms than with independent family farms.”
Jim Motavalli, contributor to the New York Times, Audubon Magazine, Mother Nature Network and NPR's Car Talk, and author of the forthcoming book High Voltage: “Since the popular image of farms is of old-time barnyards populated by happy pigs and chickens, most people don't even know that factory farming exists. They'd be horrified if they knew how their food is produced, but the industry does an excellent job of keeping them from that reality.”
International Fund for Africa President and Co-Founder Dr. Anteneh Roba: “The one thing most people don't know about factory farming in Africa is that it even exists. The one thing most people don't know about factory farming in the USA is how extremely cruel it is.”
Greenpeace Senior Legislative Representative Kyle Ash: “Public health and animal welfare are inseparable. Forever, industry has tried to divide communities over factory farming, with false claims that industrial food production reduces the need to destroy our air, water and lands. The truth is that factory farming makes every public health problem worse. Shutting down factory farms is a common solution to some of our greatest animal and environmental abuses and we should work together to shut them down.”
Farm Sanctuary President and Co-Founder Gene Baur: “Most people don’t know how terribly animals are treated on today’s factory farms, and that they are legally excluded from basic humane protections.”

Pig Factory Farming. Image via Wikipedia.

Top Five Problems with Factory Farming

John Ikerd, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri, Columbia: The biggest single problem with factory farming is that it shows no respect for the sanctity of life — either the life of farm animals or human life. Factory farming treats feedlots as biological assembly lines, where the animals are simply machines that produce meat, milk, or eggs for nameless, faceless consumers, with no respect for the people who work in them or live in the communities where they operate. This lack of respect for life undermines the ethical and moral fabric of society.
International Fund for Africa President and Co-Founder Dr. Anteneh Roba: “It causes environmental disaster.”
Jim Motavalli, contributor to the New York Times, Audubon Magazine, Mother Nature Network and NPR's Car Talk, and author of the forthcoming book High Voltage: From an environmental point of view, the worst thing about intensive animal agriculture is it's huge inefficiency. It takes five pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat, and a 10-acre farm that could feed 60 growing soybeans would support only two people raising cattle. Reducing American meat consumption by just 10 percent would free up enough grain to feed 60 million people.
Greenpeace Senior Legislative Representative Kyle Ash: “The unnecessary torture and abuse of other animals is one of the worst human atrocities of our time. Humanity's self-aggrandizing misconception that humans rule the world with no moral responsibilities to those with whom we share this planet is reinforced by how we treat other animals, and this ironic view is facilitating destruction of the planet even for ourselves.”
Michael Greger, M.D.: "When we overcrowd thousands of animals into cramped filthy football-field sized sheds to lie beak-to-beak, or snout-to-snout atop their own waste it can present a breeding ground for disease, a perfect storm environment for the emergence of new strains of influenza and other animal-to-human diseases. These so-called factory farms are a public health menace."
Public health, environmental, and animal welfare movement experts are holding the first National Conference to End Factory Farming: For Health, Environment and Farm Animals in Arlington, Va., on October 27-29. For more information, visit www.factoryfarmingconference.org

Anti-foaming agent found in Chicken McNuggets

http://www.naturalnews.com/032820_Chicken_McNuggets_ingredients.html

Mike Adams

June 26, 2011

(NaturalNews) Ever wonder what's really found in Chicken McNuggets? Some of the ingredients, it turns out, seem to belong more to an industrial factory of some kind, not a food retailer. According to the McDonald's Corporation, its famous Chicken McNuggets are made with ingredients including autolyzed yeast extract (which contain free glutamate, similar to MSG), sodium phosphates and sodium aluminum phosphate. But that's not the freaky part. According to McDonald's own website, Chicken McNuggets are also made with "hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness" and "Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent." (http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutr...)

At least two of these ingredients are artificially synthesized industrial chemicals. TBHQ, a petroleum derivative, is used as a stabilizer in perfumes, resins, varnishes and oil field chemicals. Laboratory studies have linked it to stomach tumors. "At higher doses, it has some negative health effects on lab animals, such as producing precursors to stomach tumors and damage to DNA. A number of studies have shown that prolonged exposure to high doses of TBHQ may be carcinogenic, especially for stomach tumors." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TBHQ)

Dimethylpolysiloxane, a type of silicone, is used in caulks and sealants, as a filler for breast implants, and as key ingredient in Silly Putty. Says Wikipedia:

"PDMS is also used as a component in silicone grease and other silicone based lubricants, as well as in defoaming agents, mold release agents, damping fluids, heat transfer fluids, polishes, cosmetics, hair conditioners and other applications. PDMS has also been used as a filler fluid in breast implants, although this practice has decreased somewhat, due to safety concerns. PDMS is used variously in the cosmetic and consumer product industry as well. For example, PDMS can be used in the treatment of head lice..." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimeth...)

Not that the other ingredients are any better. Because cotton is not regulated as a food crop, cottonseed oil may contain chemical pesticides that are banned in food production. It is also almost always genetically modified. Hydrogenated oils, of course, typically contain trans fats, the artificially produced fats that are unusable by the body and that studies have linked to a number of detrimental health problems. And autolyzed yeast extract is a chemical taste-enhancing ingredient containing free glutamate that manufacturers use as a friendlier-looking replacement for MSG.

And what about the chicken in Chicken McNuggets? It's factory-farmed chicken, not free-range chicken. So it's the kind of chicken that's typically treated with vaccines and hormones while being fed conventional feed products that are medicated with pharmaceuticals and grown with pesticides.

Yum!! Don't forget to ask for extra dipping sauce. We haven't even talked about what you'll find in there...

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032820_Chicken_McNuggets_ingredients.html#ixzz1cnGUSfSe

Discussion Questions:

1. This article states that a particular ingredient in Chicken McNuggets has also been used in breast implants, but is no longer used as much because of "safety concerns." How is something such as PDMS a safety concern when placed under the skin, but it is alright to ingest?

2. For any of you who have eaten Chicken McNuggets in the past: Do you think you can still eat them after hearing about some of the ingredients? I think I probably could, just not very often. :]

One in 15 Americans now officially living in poverty as number receiving food stamps rises 8.1% in a year

By DAVID GARDNER

Last updated at 9:18 PM on 3rd November 2011

WORST FIVE STATES

1 Mississippi 21.5%

2 New Mexico 20.7%

3 Oregon 20.6%

4 Tennessee 20.2%

5 Louisiana 19.9%

Shocking figures revealed today that one in 15 people in America is now living in poverty.

The number - a record high - is spread widely across metropolitan areas as the country's economic troubles continue to bite.

And almost 15 per cent of the population are also now on food stamps, it emerged yesterday.

The ranks of the poor applying for food stamps increased by a worrying 8.1 per cent over the past year to make a total of 45.8 million.

The increase in poverty is believed to have been caused due to the housing bust pushing many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income.

'There now really is no unaffected group, except maybe the very top income earners,' said Robert Moffitt, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University.

'Recessions are supposed to be temporary, and when it's over, everything returns to where it was before. But the worry now is that the downturn — which will end eventually — will have long-lasting effects on families who lose jobs, become worse off and can't recover.'

Once-booming Sun Belt metro areas are now seeing some of the biggest jumps in concentrated poverty.

About 20.5 million Americans, or 6.7 per cent of the U.S. population, make up the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 per cent or less of the official poverty level.

Those living in deep poverty represent nearly half of the 46.2 million people scraping by below the poverty line. In 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four.

That 6.7 percent share is the highest in the 35 years that the Census Bureau has maintained such records, surpassing previous highs in 2009 and 1993 of just over 6 percent.

After declining during the 1990s economic boom, the proportion of poor people in large metropolitan areas who lived in high-poverty neighborhoods jumped from 11.2 per cent in 2000 to 15.1 per cent last year, according to a Brookings Institution analysis released on Thursday.

As a whole, the number of poor in the suburbs who lived in high-poverty neighborhoods rose by 41 per cent since 2000, more than double the growth of such city neighborhoods.

Poverty for Americans 65 and older is on track to nearly double after factoring in rising out-of-pocket medical expenses, from nine per cent to more than 15 per cent.

Poverty increases are also anticipated for the working-age population because of commuting and child-care costs, while child poverty will dip partly due to the positive effect of food stamps.

And with one in 15 in poverty, more than one in four of working age are now tapping food stamps.

According to Department of Agriculture figures, worst hit were people in Mississippi, where more than 21 per cent were recipients.

One in five residents in Tennessee, Oregon, New Mexico and Louisiana also depended on the hand outs - formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - to eat.

Officials fear the numbers may swell even more in the coming months as people battle financial hardship and record unemployment.

But one reason for the rising number of recipients was that many states have waived requirements limiting the assets food stamp applicants could own, said the Wall Street Journal.

The number of food stamp users exploded after the recession hit in late 2007 and has continued growing even though the downtown is officially supposed to be over.

Researchers from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire estimated that the percentage of Americans receiving food stamps increased by 61.2 per cent between 2007 and 2010.

Reliance on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Programme was very high among single parents, rising ten per cent.

In 2010, 42 per cent of single mothers and 25 per cent of single fathers relied on the stamps. In rural areas it was ever higher at one in two single mothers.

States also made changes to make it easier for residents to tap into the program, such as waiving requirements that limited the value of assets food stamp recipients could own.

This is believed to have been caused due to the housing bust pushing many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income.

'There now really is no unaffected group, except maybe the very top income earners,' said Robert Moffitt, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. 'Recessions are supposed to be temporary, and when it's over, everything returns to where it was before. But the worry now is that the downturn — which will end eventually — will have long-lasting effects on families who lose jobs, become worse off and can't recover.'

The institute also found that 14.6 per cent of rural households were relying on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme in 2010.

Suburban households are less likely to receive SNAP benefits, but usage is on the rise. About nine per cent of suburban households received SNAP in 2010, up from 5.4 pe rcent in 2007.

Jessica Bean, a vulnerable families research associate with the Carsey Institute, said she thinks rural residents have traditionally been less likely to collect SNAP benefits because they live in remote areas where it’s hard to access social services and are more concerned with the social stigma.

In a rural area, she said: 'When you go into the grocery store and you pull out your food stamps card, everybody knows you.'

Just one in ten married couples with children are using the government-funded food benefit.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056864/Handout-nation-Food-stamp-map-America-reveals-hotspots-15-population-government-help.html#ixzz1cm8SyVYw

Discussion Questions

1. What do you think is really behind the dramatic increase in the amount of food stamp benefits? Is it that food insecurity has actually increased dramatically since the Great Recession, or that people are taking advantage of the system with the recent removal of the limit on assets for applicants? Or a mixture of both? Why?

2. What is a solution to reduce the need for food stamps in the United States?

In High Schools, a Critical Lens on Food

By HANNAH WALLACE

Published: October 26, 2011

A commercial for McDonald’s fish sandwiches played in a classroom at Park Slope Collegiate one day last month as part

of a class called the Science of Food. It was clear that many students had seen the ad several sang along with the jingle
but this was the first time they had been asked to critique it.

“Who is the target audience for this ad?” asked their teacher, Joni Tonda.
“Us!” yelled the 23 students, practically in unison.
Through the class, which is part of a new program being taught at 15 city high schools, students are becoming aware that they are part of a lucrative demographic, and they are learning how companies target them.
Media literacy is only one part of Ms. Tonda’s lesson plan, which is based on a curriculum developed by a nonprofit group, FoodFight. The group’s founders, Carolyn Cohen and Deborah Lewison-Grant, two former public school teachers, set out to change the way adolescents think about food. By one estimate, 35 percent of adolescents in the United States are overweight or obese.
Though there have been several recent attempts to improve school food and to plant edible gardens at public schools — Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign among them — those efforts have largely been focused on elementary and junior high schools.
“High school students have been ignored in this conversation about the obesity epidemic,” Ms. Cohen said. “It’s a serious health crisis.”
The lesson plan blends media literacy, politics, nutrition and cooking. Students learn how to evaluate food labels, to prepare nutritious and affordable meals, and to identify the political and economic forces that shape their diet. Some will visit urban farms, food co-ops and a 400-acre farm upstate.
Sarah Katz, one of the first teachers trained in the program, in August 2010, said the curriculum appealed to her because of its interdisciplinary nature and because it was not preachy.
“Telling kids what they should and shouldn’t eat is not really effective,” said Ms. Katz, who taught a class called Food for Thought at Essex Street Academy last spring. “Teenagers don’t do things because adults tell them to. They need to care and have enough information to make their own choices.”
A FoodFight course begins with a critical look at marketing campaigns. Some students react with outrage. “Kids don’t like to be played by corporations,” Ms. Katz said. “They want to make their own choices.”
At another point, the class discusses why some neighborhoods lack access to healthy, affordable food, an issue that resonates with students because many FoodFight classes are taught in poor neighborhoods.
Students keep a food journal and learn how lobbyists try to influence federal dietary recommendations.
In the lesson about advertising at Park Slope Collegiate, Ms. Tonda organized her students into small groups and asked them to create a slogan for a real or imagined food product. Three boys in the back of the class designed an energy bar called Pro-Fit. “It’s more than protein; it’s Pro-Fit!” their slogan read.
Takiyah Newton, a senior, said, “I signed up for the class because I wanted to learn about the food we eat, and society and stuff.” A highlight, she said, was “learning about these companies and how they’re tricking us.”
Ms. Tonda said she had seen some changes in students’ behavior. After a lesson about the consequences of consuming too much sugar, Ms. Newton switched from McDonald’s sweetened iced tea to a no-calorie drink, Ms. Tonda said, and now brings bottled water to class. Another student, affected by the images of a crowded chicken farm in the documentary “Food Inc.,” has asked her mother to stop buying meat from industrial producers.
Ms. Katz, at Essex Street Academy, was skeptical at first that her students would alter their diets. But when she quizzed parents, it became clear that habits were changing. One student said he had cut out sugar-sweetened beverages. “His mom said, ‘So that’s why they’re still sitting there in the fridge!’ ” Ms. Katz said.
Before Brandon Rosales took the class last year, he drank a lot of soda and never thought about portion sizes. “I would skip breakfast, eat a light lunch and then stuff myself at dinner,” said Mr. Rosales, who acknowledged that he was overweight.
After his food journal revealed the unhealthy pattern, he began replacing juice and soda with water, he said, and started eating smaller meals. Since he took the class, he said, he has lost 10 pounds, and he continues to maintain the journal.
“Now my food journal looks clean,” he said. “My meals are good; I drink water. It’s like a healthy person’s journal.” His family history provides some motivation. “I have a family full of diabetics,” he said. “I want to live a happy life not having to put insulin in like my grandmas do.”

Discussion Questions:

1. The article points out that there has been less focus on high schools in the push to make school lunch programs more nutritious. Why do you think this is? Could it have anything to do with the fact that it's more difficult to change existing eating habits than it is to start kids eating  healthy at an early age?

2. The FoodFight courses seem to offer students a well rounded view of our food system. One of the things they focus on is media literacy. Their discussions appear to focus on the advertising of unhealthy foods, but how does talk about marketing strategy relate to discussions we've had in class about certified organic as well as fair trade labeled foods?