Today's popular content
- Wisconsin’s System Increasingly Rigged Against the Unemployed (46)
- The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform (25)
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food" (20)
- About ALEC Exposed (18)
- More Corporations Drop Off ALEC's Conference Brochure (14)
- Harold Camping's Global Apocalypse PR Campaign (12)
- Why Do We Need Health Care Reform? Don't Ask George Will (11)
- PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary "Citizen Koch" To Appease Koch Brothers (11)
- Resources for Investigating ALEC/NRA Gun Bills (11)
- Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama Raises Funds Off Colorado Tragedy, Fleeces Contributors (10)
Readers' Comments
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Submitted by: AndrewG
I hope that covers special food needs and those that choose to buy organic or whatever.
1/3 of the vouchers can be used to buy whatever you want.
If they can afford organic food, I have no problem with them purchasing it. I'm middle class and can't afford organic milk, eggs and produce and certainly not healthy meat and I don't always have time to get to the farmer's market or coop in addition to the regular grocery store.
I'm middle class and I can't afford organic milk...I believe they have 1/3 of their vouchers to buy whatever they want.
These look like references to other articles your organization has written.
I used to work for WIC. They will only reimburse the grocer for a reasonable price. So I would guess that's why the WIC cereals etc. are reasonably price.
I have a heart problem and need a special diet. Snap has no right to tell me what to eat especially when it clashes with my doctor orders. Who are you people who so cavalierly decide what is right for others to eat? Pigs. Big fat pigs. In Texas, anyone making less than $1000 a month from S.S. receive $16 a month to live on. This country has real problems. They won't feed us but they won't let us die either. They are slowly starving many of us to death. The county clinic will pay $500 a month for stomach meds because I can't afford to eat and have an ulcer. Does any of this make sense to you?
THE FOODSHARE MONEY ALREADY RUNS OUT EARLY YOU CAN ONLY GET SO MUCH FOOD THEN HAVE TO GO TO FOOD PANTRYS TOO.
I do. It's incredibly easy and cheaper and better for you. The food companies pick quick and easy stuff to make (they don't want to spend time and money on making it) and sell it for a high profit. Plus they put a whole lot of garbage preservative and flavorings in it.
And making it yourself is as easy as paying much more for pre-made food.
Mac and cheese is macaroni, powdered cheese or grated cheese and butter or oil. Boil the macaroni, add the cheese and oil. Just like the pricey packaged stuff that costs a lot more.
I'm glad I'm independent from the food made by mega clogomorates. It's economic freedom for me and better food.
It's sad that people can't cook the simplest of foods.
This behavior is morally reprehensible, ethically unaceptable, and if this is what America is to be, I am ashamed my country and the 2 combat tours I served in her military. If bribe, bully, and strongarm tactics are to be condoned what recourse does civil society have?
Rebekah -
Where exactly did you point out that the majority of composting facilities are handling yard waste, food waste, and any inputs besides sewage sludge? Sorry if I missed it, but the pervasive tone throughout the article does a disservice to the USCC to paint it as the sewage sludge industry trade group. While that serves your purpose - which is clearly NOT to inform, but rather provoke.
I am not in favor of sewage sludge land application and was happy to hear that Kellogg's discontinued the inclusion of sewage sludge in any of their products last year. You may want to do some fact-checking prior to publishing your "article". That is not my responsibility as a reader.
I am not suggesting that there is not substantial risk from the use of sewage sludge, however, when properly composted, that risk is significantly reduced or eliminated.
Nowhere on your wiki site did I find any studies identifying these constituents of concern in composted material, only about Type A and Type B sludge.
Like Fox News, you seem to purport that you have been "fair and balanced", which is clearly not the case.
On a positive note, many thanks are due to the hundreds of composters (who are sewage sludge free)participating in this program that you have besmirched so dismissively.
Keep in mind that the subject is limited to a certain dollar amount...if one person wants to spend their allotment on organic foods, but get less over all, that should be their choice to avoid pesticides, growth hormones and GMOs. Also, many farmers markets are accepting food stamps: they products are often cheaper than grocery stores yet still organic. Also: how about we stop subsiding the meat, dairy and cheap oil/fructose industries? They get huge allottments of our tax dollars already, SNAP should not force people to give these industries even more governemtn dollars.
"Born Skeptic,"
Nothing in the article suggested that there are not also USCC members that do not handle sewage sludge. Nothing in the article suggested that using real compost made from clean organic materials is not an excellent idea in community gardens and elsewhere.
What makes you say that Kellogg Garden Products does not use sewage sludge in its products? Do you work for Kellogg? If so, I would love to speak with you about it. If it no longer does, that is excellent news. Its own website previously confirmed its use, and a case study by a third party points out that Kellogg's brand was built on using sewage sludge in its products: http://www.sourcewatch.org/images/4/43/KelloggBrandcasestudy.pdf.
You use the words "potential" and "allegedly" to suggest that there is little or no risk for sewage sludge to contain a host of chemical contaminants. The EPA's testing and regulation of sewage sludge products is problematic at best, but even the EPA's Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey in 2009 concluded that ALL sewage sludge contains toxic and hazardous materials, including large numbers of endocrine disruptors: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/TNSSS.
CMD has been reporting on sewage sludge for many years, and each PRWatch article cannot contain the decades of scientific research showing the problems with its application to soil, but many of those studies can be found on our sister wiki site, SourceWatch, here: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Scientific_Studies_of_Sewage_Sludge.
Looking forward to continuing the conversation,
Rebekah Wilce
I believe that no matter what a person/family decides to buy with their food stamp benefits they should be allowed to choose. The reality of the situation is, if they choose options that are too expensive, they are going to run out of food stamps before they get more. This will teach families to be more responsible in budgeting and making wiser choices about the foods they are buying. To put foods on a banned list is irrational and takes away people's freedom to choose.
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How to get your wife to love you again
This is clearly a bid by major corporations to squelch small organic farmers in favor of their pesticide-laden, GMO crap.
When I was on food stamps I did see people who abused it. A woman ahead of me in line once bought 20 cans of baked beans and gobs of candy. I don't know how she was still alive eating like that. Meanwhile I was buying seeds so I could grow my own food, organic milk, organic fruits and vegetables, and trying to stay healthy on a shoestring. I bought at Trader Joes a bit and they never made me feel bad. I bought ice cream a few times and some salads kits when I was out and about for lunch.
There are some people who really should be making wiser choices about what thy eat. An educational program would be helpful for many, but I'm guessing that would be sponsored by corporate farming conglomerates and companies like Nestle who convinced women that formula was better than brat milk for their babies. It was the future made possible by science!
Many people are on Food Stamps because they have other disabilities and not just that they are lazy. I'd like to challenge any of you to try to live on the meager $200 a month they give you for food as a single person with a maximum benefit. Unless you are buying staple foods and making everything from scratch it can barely be done. Who cooks from scratch anymore? Any of you? I didn't think so. Many stores used to have a few aisles of staples 50 years ago, now you can barely find that.
This is a fabulous piece of work from the Michael Crichton school of journalism: mix in some incontrovertible facts and weave in some plausible theory, all designed to suspend disbelief in the reader.
Of course this type of story is always better if you disregard inconvenient truths: the overwhelming number of USCC members do not handle sewage sludge and are working every day to provide sustainable options for society; Kellogg Garden Supply does not use sewage sludge in their products; using compost in community gardens, particularly in urban "food deserts" across the country will help promote healthy eating that may even save or extend lives.
The whole premise this hit piece lies in the potential for sewage sludge to alledgedly contain a host of chemical contaminants. It would better support the author's cause to provide links to actual studies showing that these substances are actually present in the compost products, instead of other spurious articles. Maybe this Sally Brown is right.
It would be great to be able to access a detailed list of the sponsors, donors, and mentors of the ALEC network. It might make a difference in people deciding with whom they will do business. It did for us.
I see this bill as an assault on poor people, another way to scapegoat and punish them for being poor. People cannot sustain health with the kind of restrictions this bill imposes. Why should poor people tolerate having a small group of legislators dictate what their families can eat? This is un- American. Should we tell the governor and legislators what they can buy with their state paid salaries? Should we base it on job performance too? They seem to think that different standards apply to different economic brackets, when the FACT is, we are ALL dependent on the state and each other for our livelihoods.
A consumer with food stamps who chooses to pay more for the organic milk doesn't consequently get a larger allotment of food stamps. Maybe he decides to buy bulk dry beans instead of canned beans to save money elsewhere. But under this bill, he couldn't buy either one, at least with the majority of his benefit allotment. The point is, for those who value consumer choice, why should someone with less money, who needs a little assistance, not also be allowed to make rational, considered choices just like everyone else?
Personally, I can see where any food that sets a premium price should be considered to be outside the norm for SNAP (food stamp) purchases. In this case all three items mentioned are sold at premiums prices, and, in my opinion, should not qualify for SNAP recipients.
Orwell would be PROUD of Wisconsin for this move...Love is hate, left is right, right is wrong, and now...healthy is junk food. Score another one for Treason against the nation by "our" bribed legislators
From reading the list, it seems that there are two REAL purposes: first, to put more profit in the hands of companies that make plain "1950" type foods that do not LOOK like junk food but, due to manufacturing costs, actually are, and less in the hands of "liberal" or "hippie" owned food sources that make the healther, organic products. And second, to make sure that kids growing up poor are less healthy because of what they ate growing up, AND more likely to shun healthier foods because of lack of exposure to them.
The fact that ALEC is associated with this bill (which even goes against local agriculture in that state; WISCONSIN restricting their OWN BEST KNOWN PRODUCT? What's next, FLORIDA restricting ORANGE JUICE?) tends to suggest that profit for "big agra" and "big pharma" (since eating less healthy foods leads to greater need for medicines) is the motivation. The health of poor children is just collateral damage, and since they don't vote...
ALEC serves as an almost covert US Chamber of Commerce, an active think tank and well-funded and pro business lobby. As such it has every right to function freely and give its support to its backers. Like any strategic planning organization it also has the know-how to realize who its opponents are or will be. On the other hand, those who perceive ALEC's long reach into state and federal affairs have every right to suspect and rail against its well-funded attempts to deceive, oppress, coerce and even use the acrimonious Citizens United Supreme Court decision to legitimately "bribe" public officials to achieve its goals as threats to the commonweal.
The article shows part of the specific language of the bill. While the SUMMARY of the bill cites "junk food" as the reason for the restrictions themselves actually LIST brown or organic eggs, organic cheese, etc.
One restriction (which to me is like saying poor diabetics cannot buy insulin with Medicaid) disallows the only kind of bread that people with Celiac disease can safely eat! I'm not sure whether someone was just ignorant and concerned with money, thinking gluten free bread is just a trendy upscale fad, or if they were paid off by Wonder Bread and their ilk. Probably both.
In 1965, Lyndon Johnson tried to wage war on poverty. Since the 1980's the GOP has been waging war on POOR PEOPLE, both in government and in the private sector. Remember the income tax "reform" that Reagan got Congress to pass in 1986? Before that, you could deduct interest on car loans and credit cards, in fact ALL kinds of consumer debt. Since then, you can only deduct interest on loans secured by your HOME, if you are fortunate enough to OWN ONE. This allowed banks to replace "regular" credit cards with lines of credit from second mortgages, so that when a downturn in home values comes along (as in 2007-2009) more homeowners were at risk because of second mortgages to spend like credit card loans, while people who could not afford to buy a home lost one of the breaks that made their lives a little better.
This is another example of the (Re)public(an)-private partnership to vacuum up whatever loose change the average American still has and put it to "good use" buying yachts and dressage horses. Back to (John Maynard) Keynes or back to (Charles) Dickens, it's our choice.
The list of people, all RepugnantCONs, that support this 'bill'/ALEC template legislation is quite possibly a laundry list of ALEC or Koch Brother, Koch Industry CONtribution recipients.
"…supporters include Representatives John Nygren (R-Marinette), Kathy Bernier (R-Chippewa Falls), Ed Brooks (R-Reedsburg), Jeff Stone (R-Greendale), Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc), Garey Bies (R-Sister Bay), Samantha Kerkman (R-Powers Lake), Scott Krug (R-Wisconsin Rapids), Pat Strachota (R-West Bend), Daniel LeMahieu (R-Cascade), Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), Mike Kuglitsch (R-New Berlin), Michael Schraa (R-Oshkosh), Alvin Ott (R-Forest Junction), Mike Endsley (R-Sheboygan), Jeffrey Mursau (R-Crivitz), and Travis Tranel (R-Cuba City). In the Senate, the bill's supporters include Senators Robert Cowles (R-Shawano), Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan), Frank Lasee (R-Casco), and Glenn Grothman (R-Fond du Lac)." - from the above article.
It will take some time to sniff out all their paper shuffling.