This is great. Paris is offering 2 free meals a day to people in need. Delivered at home.
Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
251–260 of 494 posts
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#252I find it fascinating that it seems so many people are against (sometimes vehemently) against others getting free food and shelter.
There is no excuse for a modern civilization to not ensure that everyone has basic human needs met. Sure, we can argue some details like, "Is Netflix really a basic human need?"... joking aside, we as humans should endeavor to ensure that all people have their Maslow pyramid filled in.
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think SNAP is supposed to always cover 100% of food expenses. If you're near the cutoff point for benefits, you get some allowance, but you're expected to cover some of the food cost from your income. You would of course use your SNAP benefits first, since they are not fungible, so it is not surprising that you would run out before the end of the month. This does not mean that such households are unable to af…
> ... $500/mo in benefits for a family of three. This is definitely sufficient to provide three nutritious meals per day for three people anywhere in the country. This is an unbelievable assertion. That’s $5.48 per meal for 3 people. Have you tried to feed 3 people a consistently nutritious meal on $5.48 per meal everywhere in the country ? What is your nutritious meal plan for 3 meals each day, 365 days per year, th…
I mean, I cook for my family so I have some idea what goes into each meal. Typical dinner will be rice, some protein, and some vegetables. By far the most expensive bit is the protein. Our staple is chicken thighs which can be had for $2-3/lb. We use maybe half a pound per person (generous estimate), so the protein cost is on the order $6/meal. The rice costs next to nothing, maybe 20c. And the vegetables might be a dollar a head. Spices and such are de minimus. Adding it all up we have about ~$10 to feed a family of four dinner, plus maybe 20-30c worth of milk for each child.
So, that's in the neighborhood of $300 a month for dinner. Again, a generous estimate, because really wifey and the kids don't eat half a pound of meat each. Breakfast and lunch are vegetarian, so much cheaper. This is in inner Brooklyn, so not far off from the most expensive food locale in the US. Hawaii is significantly more, but few other places are. We could make it work on $500/month if we had to, for sure.
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#254I find it fascinating that it seems so many people are against (sometimes vehemently) against others getting free food and shelter. There is no excuse for a modern civilization to not ensure that everyone has basic human needs met. Sure, we can argue some details like, "Is Netflix really a basic human need?"... joking aside, we as humans should endeavor to ensure that all people have their Maslow pyramid filled in.
that's impossible, all 5 levels?
Forget it
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the point. It should. If we remove the fear of starvation (we can afford to feed everyone twice and barely put a dent in our military budget) a lot of people will have a HUGE improvement in their day-to-day happiness. This is one of those obvious huge moral positives we can do. The only "down side" is there will never be fear of starvation. Edit: The one progress I can see in a society is when we can basically…
> If we remove the fear of starvation (we can afford to feed everyone twice and barely put a dent in our military budget) 327,000,000 people * 365 days * $5/person/day = $596,775,000,000 yearly Or $596 billion $693 billion is the Wikipedia number for DoD budget, so that actually checks out. Of course, that's more than "put a dent in the budget," but I'm sure you meant those in need, and not every American (which is t…
> but I'm sure you meant those in need, and not every American
I personally despise means testing. There has been so much hatred spewed over "welfare queen" that I am amazed we still do means testing and we have pulled it forward to things like the New York state Excelsior program (college education for first-time college students) and even for the $1,200 COVID-19 stimulus. It is very sad. We don't less means testing, not more.
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the point. It should. If we remove the fear of starvation (we can afford to feed everyone twice and barely put a dent in our military budget) a lot of people will have a HUGE improvement in their day-to-day happiness. This is one of those obvious huge moral positives we can do. The only "down side" is there will never be fear of starvation. Edit: The one progress I can see in a society is when we can basically…
> If we remove the fear of starvation (we can afford to feed everyone twice and barely put a dent in our military budget) 327,000,000 people * 365 days * $5/person/day = $596,775,000,000 yearly Or $596 billion $693 billion is the Wikipedia number for DoD budget, so that actually checks out. Of course, that's more than "put a dent in the budget," but I'm sure you meant those in need, and not every American (which is t…
I think the suggestion is that we can afford to oversubscribe a program like this, because it'd be a guarantee that you'd be able to eat (i.e. food on demand), not a push-based delivery of the resources (money/food stamps/etc.) required to be able to eat, that people would then feel that they "should" use up, thus using less of their own money.
Any American who didn't take advantage of a demand-driven food supply program on a given month, wouldn't be costing the program anything. It just means that they'd be able to instantly access food when in need, without first qualifying into the program.
Think less "food cash" (like food stamps essentially are), and more "no-limit food credit card" (with the government as the account holder.) You'd just go into a grocery store and buy whatever, and if you couldn't afford it, you'd pay for it with the food credit card (= the government would pay for it.) But if you don't use the card, it isn't accruing or expiring a balance. It's just there, waiting to be used.
One can think of this another way, with a different moral color but the same in-practice effects: imagine if they made shoplifting from grocery stores legal (i.e. every grocery store is now also required to act as a food bank), and the government promised to pay the store back for any shoplifting-related shrinkage. That's essentially what this program would be, except with the store able to track inventory through the till, since the food would still be being "purchased."
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the point. It should. If we remove the fear of starvation (we can afford to feed everyone twice and barely put a dent in our military budget) a lot of people will have a HUGE improvement in their day-to-day happiness. This is one of those obvious huge moral positives we can do. The only "down side" is there will never be fear of starvation. Edit: The one progress I can see in a society is when we can basically…
> If we remove the fear of starvation (we can afford to feed everyone twice and barely put a dent in our military budget) 327,000,000 people * 365 days * $5/person/day = $596,775,000,000 yearly Or $596 billion $693 billion is the Wikipedia number for DoD budget, so that actually checks out. Of course, that's more than "put a dent in the budget," but I'm sure you meant those in need, and not every American (which is t…
I wish i could reply to the comment below about means testing. The reality is even if this were means tested, many people wouldnt opt into it...so short story, I agree with you, it would be much cheaper than you're describing.
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#258One of those things I wish could out last this virus. We'd be so much better off as a society if we could at least keep our people fed. The comments in here seem a little negative currently but this is great news. Think of all the people in NYC who didn't have access to clean and regular food before the virus.
As of 2018 40 million Americans received more than 57 billion dollars in SNAP. It seems like largely the US has been and will continue to keep people fed. Note also that this is just 1 Federal program and doesn't mention the multitude of other state level and city level programs that exist as well as private charities, religious organizations, etc. Please note I am not saying the system is perfect, shouldn't be expan…
More nuance is exactly the problem.
This isn't a matter of a specific little bit of math inside a bigger ball of math or highly custom machine that needs nuance.
This is a literal effect we have on other humans by letting them go underfed.
Why do we need more nuance in the rules around apportionment in the well walked context of "people got to eat"?
This is just asinine at this point in human society. Especially with a much more educated society that can argue cogently around it sitting on their hands wanking their custom theories, tacitly enabling this.
Society needs to focus on stable support of our shared human needs first, stores of usable foods, basic products, etc.
It does not need to enable everyone's imagined pipe dreams, and emotional castle building, to become literally true. That's romanticized emotional ideology the others don't have to enable. Free speech does not mean you get what you're asking for.
When you're hording toilet paper and flour, but shelves are full of garbage caffeine tricks, sodas, "craft beer", sugar bomb cereal, you know your society has jumped the shark.
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
The USDA definitions are extraordinarily misleading. “Food insecure” includes people who are at no risk of going hungry, but wish they had better food or a larger variety of food.
You'd be feeling pretty insecure if your only options for food was the boxed garbage from a gas station.
Whose only option is that?
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
no one making vegetarian food is going to use utensils that have touched meat. So I dont see how vegetarian food could not be kosher. Am i missing something?
They won't use utensils that have touched meat _since last being washed_. For kosher, you have to have permanent segregation of utensils etc.
This is fascinating. I have a hard time wrapping my head around how this is supposed to work though. Does this assumption never break down at any point? From the moment the iron is extracted and melted to the moment the knife comes into your hand... is there some kind of chain of custody certificate that says it's never touched anything impermissible? Are there entire kosher industries and factories I'm not aware of for making utensils and such?