Tis The Season - 2

Blessings Darlings!

Hunger is every less visible than most issues.  One in 6 Americans can't afford basic healthy food, especially fruits and vegetables.  (http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger/hunger-and-poverty/hunger-and-poverty-fact-sheet.html).  Even when folks are on food stamps, virtually none get the 'full amount' (roughly $140 a month for an adult).  Many who are in need have no access to stores that sell food at a discount, due to not having cars, due to living in food deserts, due to long expensive bus trips to get to such stores, due to living in rural areas, etc.

Would you know if your neighbors are hungry?

Most of the cheap foods are very high in carbohydrates, even the 'healthy' ones such as rice and beans.  Which is a huge problem since the rates of diabetes among the needy are astronomical - and related (http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/articles/diabetes-news/10126-poverty-a-leading-cause-of-type-2-diabetes-studies-say). 

Food banks, of course, are just as inaccessible, for the same reasons, as discount grocery stores are. And the food available at them is usually the same high-carbohydrate cheap foods noted earlier.  Fresh and frozen foods are usually not available at all.  Pasta, beans, rice - sure. Often canned tuna. Very rarely canned ham.  Oh, did I mention the rates of high blood pressure and kidney disease among those in need? (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/07/30/2381471/four-ways-poverty-impacts-americans-health/). 

Combine those facts with the lack of utilities (or total homelessness) noted in my previous blog. Cooking a pot of dried beans, when you have no electricity/gas, is ... an issue.  Cooking a pot roast, even if you could grab a reduced price one, is a huge issue.  So, sure, people are going to use their food stamps/scant cash to buy foods that don't need to be cooked or refrigerated.  Lunch meat to be eaten that day.  A quart of milk to have on cold cereal, rather than the far less expensive gallon of milk.  Fast food.  Etc.

Multi-levels problems.

Frondly, Fern

Cycles....

Blessings Darlings!

So, I'm slowly getting better.  But now the Chubby Hubby is ill.  At least it got him after we made some progress on consulting projects in the business, and we have enough money to get thru' the the next month.  I'm quite fond of being able to pay the rent and utilities and such you know.  And our grocery spending will only be $100 below food stamp levels.  Whoo hoo!

I even made it to the stores for the 'big monthly shopping trip' yesterday.  I wasn't able to buy everything I'd have liked to (you can check my ideal monthly shopping list here) but I also hit the corned beef and beer on sale for St. Paddy's day and got wine to cook with, all for my $100.  I'm really low on sugar, but, let's face it, until I'm better I'm not likely to bake.  I've even been relying on store-bought cheap styrofoam bread since getting sick.

Being able to rely on the pantry while sick is of course making life easier.  We rely on apple juice when sick - it's sort of a family tradition.  When the Spawn started this round of illness I grabbed another bottle as insurance, even tho' we already had bottle here.  We're opening that bottle today for the Chubby Hubby.  The Spawn, who is working a 12-hour double shift today, won't have to drag his sorry butt to the grocery store after work to help his Dad out. 

Frondly, Fern

Home Made Bacon

Blessings Darlings!

Finances here are still miserable. We, however, are NOT miserable.

Yes, we're feeding 3 adults and two picky cats on what the three humans would get on food stamps.  Which we are of course not on, because our money problems are all around paying of debt from starting the business, not lack of income per year (not that the income in evenly spread out, but that's a different issue).

We keep getting showered with blessings.

Today, for instance.  I'm typing on Sunday afternoon.  Sunday mornings we have a family tradition of eggs with bacon or sausage for breakfast.  But we haven't bought any of that stuff in ages - since the price on both went up when our finances went down (back to that 'unevenly spread income' thing).  BUT - friend Suz gave me some pork bellies, after she and one of her other friends split an organic pastured hog some time back (I expect it was a heritage breed, too, but I am not sure).  Suz didn't know what to do with them, and she knows that I'm .... willing to experiment.  So when I last smoked a pork shoulder for pulled pork, I smoked the two slabs of side meat.  I didn't think to brine them, so I  just did one plain and one with rub.  Today we tried the plain one.

OMG Yummy!  I needed to salt the slices we cut before frying them - brining would have covered that - but this rich taste, so incredibly meaty, very smoky, was amazing.

I'll be bringing some of the sliced bacon over to Suz, who now has some soup bones from the last steer she split with others on hold for me.

Life is lovely.

Frondly, Fern