A family sits down for a meal, in front of them are all the items on the food pyramid such as dairy and fresh fruits and vegetables, would the meal be the same if the family only had $50 a week to spend on groceries? The answer to this question which so many American families are forced to answer is no. This is partly do to the minimum wage being so low. With it hovering around $8.15 an hour and most people working around 40 hour work weeks that gives $326 for the week. This is excluding taxes then families have to take into consideration the number of mouths to feed and how many meals are needed. This has to be done on top of other expenses. The final tally ends up being around $50 or like the statistic from Feeding America, “Nearly
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The other part of the research was to also make the meals nutritious in the terms of what is nutritionally needed day to day. Nutritious is defined as “providing nourishment, especially to a high degree”(Dictionary.com). Going off of the food pyramid this would include dairy, some oils, vegetables and fruit and a starch. This should try to be in every meal but it is difficult. When it is difficult to get these items that is where SNAP comes in. Yet SNAP does not provide the most nutritious items either. This is clearly shown in Ehrenreich 's book when she goes to a place sort of like SNAP, “My dinner choices, she explains, are limited to any two of the following: one-box spaghetti noodles, one jar spaghetti sauce, one can of vegetables, one can of baked beans, one pound of hamburger, a box of Hamburger Helper, or a box of Tuna Helper. No fresh fruit or vegetables, no chicken or cheese, an oddly, no tuna to help out with. For breakfast I can have cereal and milk or juice”(Ehrenreich 103). While any food will help out more nutritious food will allow the workers to be able to last longer and not get as hungry because of the amount of calories that are being burned, “If you assume an average of 5 calories per minute in a seven-hour day (eight hours minus time for travel between houses), you need to be taking in 2,100 calories in addition to the resting …show more content…
One of the big things is SNAP does not provide fresh fruit or vegetable which previously stated is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. SNAP also does not give you enough money left over to live off of. This is clearly shown in this quote from SNAP, “The amount of benefits the household gets is called an allotment. The net monthly income of the household is multiplied by .3, and the result is subtracted from the maximum allotment for the household size to find the household 's allotment. This is because SNAP households are expected to spend about 30 percent of their resources on food”(SNAP). If each household is expected to spend about 30% of their money just on food, which there is a list of items you can and cannot buy, there is not a lot of money left over for things like toiletries. There are also tons of requirements to even qualify for SNAP. On the SNAP website it clearly states, “To get SNAP benefits,households must meet certain tests, including resource and income tests...” . While some tests are needed there can also be too many tests or requirements. Another requirement that SNAP has is. “With some exceptions, able-bodied adults between 16 and 60 must register for work, accept suitable employment, and take part in an employment and training program to which they are
The other part of the research was to also make the meals nutritious in the terms of what is nutritionally needed day to day. Nutritious is defined as “providing nourishment, especially to a high degree”(Dictionary.com). Going off of the food pyramid this would include dairy, some oils, vegetables and fruit and a starch. This should try to be in every meal but it is difficult. When it is difficult to get these items that is where SNAP comes in. Yet SNAP does not provide the most nutritious items either. This is clearly shown in Ehrenreich 's book when she goes to a place sort of like SNAP, “My dinner choices, she explains, are limited to any two of the following: one-box spaghetti noodles, one jar spaghetti sauce, one can of vegetables, one can of baked beans, one pound of hamburger, a box of Hamburger Helper, or a box of Tuna Helper. No fresh fruit or vegetables, no chicken or cheese, an oddly, no tuna to help out with. For breakfast I can have cereal and milk or juice”(Ehrenreich 103). While any food will help out more nutritious food will allow the workers to be able to last longer and not get as hungry because of the amount of calories that are being burned, “If you assume an average of 5 calories per minute in a seven-hour day (eight hours minus time for travel between houses), you need to be taking in 2,100 calories in addition to the resting …show more content…
One of the big things is SNAP does not provide fresh fruit or vegetable which previously stated is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. SNAP also does not give you enough money left over to live off of. This is clearly shown in this quote from SNAP, “The amount of benefits the household gets is called an allotment. The net monthly income of the household is multiplied by .3, and the result is subtracted from the maximum allotment for the household size to find the household 's allotment. This is because SNAP households are expected to spend about 30 percent of their resources on food”(SNAP). If each household is expected to spend about 30% of their money just on food, which there is a list of items you can and cannot buy, there is not a lot of money left over for things like toiletries. There are also tons of requirements to even qualify for SNAP. On the SNAP website it clearly states, “To get SNAP benefits,households must meet certain tests, including resource and income tests...” . While some tests are needed there can also be too many tests or requirements. Another requirement that SNAP has is. “With some exceptions, able-bodied adults between 16 and 60 must register for work, accept suitable employment, and take part in an employment and training program to which they are