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Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

schools.nyc.gov

131–140 of 494 posts

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#131
post #22
post #3

But in order to get them you have to congregate. :\

Now would be the perfect time to start testing food delivery using drones. Bonus points if the drones can be sprayed with disinfectant after each flight.

In every group, there's going to be a small percentage of people who are selfish (look at the TP situation). So, how do you keep those people from running out grabbing the supplies each time you drop? You can't possibly drop all the supplies at one time from a drone.

This is a bad time to try drone drops.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#133
post #95
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

and yet according to the USDA, "11.1 percent of households were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 4.3 percent (5.6 million households) that had very low food security".

[deleted]

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#134

One 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.

Feeding people was solved in the 20th century, perhaps almost too easily. See correlation between poverty and obesity in the 21st century, vs the 19th century.

Right. Food insecurity need not be a problem for anyone in the 21st Century. It should be like running out of oxygen: nearly impossible because it's essentially free and widely available.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#135
post #8

New York City, that is. Not New York State.

Also no kosher option. Still Halal and Vegetarian options available, so clearly some thought given and overlooked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City

As far as I understand, food prepared by a non-Jew isn't kosher even if the ingredients are. This is not the case for halal food, which may be prepared by non-Muslims.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#136
post #8

New York City, that is. Not New York State.

Also no kosher option. Still Halal and Vegetarian options available, so clearly some thought given and overlooked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City

Interestingly, kosher food is usually considered acceptable under Halal but not vice-versa; so if they made kosher meals they'd be covering both.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without universal basic income, we are totally f@cked UBI isn't a savior. UBI still requires that people, you know, pay taxes. If 30-40% of people have no income and are completely dependent upon the government, then you have slavery 2.0 (3.0?) and you will end up creating a worse, classed society than you had before: the ones receiving vs. those who pay for what everyone else gets. Or the government just prints mo…

Taxing only the wealthiest americans could easily fund a UBI for everyone else. The middle class will not have to make any sacrifices

That's a great way to see the wealthiest people flee your country in droves.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#138
post #95
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

and yet according to the USDA, "11.1 percent of households were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 4.3 percent (5.6 million households) that had very low food security".

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.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#139

The logistics behind this must be formidable. They would need hundreds of food preparers, all of them tested daily for COVID-19 and of course practicing strict hygiene in prep and packaging. Still it's probably easier to control than thousands of separate restaurants and food markets, which is undoubtedly their thinking: centralize food distribution to minimize risky contact. This is a sobering reminder of how depend…

It's literally just all (or close to all?) existing public school cafeterias staying open.

Same cafeteria workers as always, same types of menus.

The biggest change in logistics seems to be that all the meals are now to-go, so goodbye trays, hello bags.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#140
post #109
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and yet according to the USDA, "11.1 percent of households were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 4.3 percent (5.6 million households) that had very low food security".

Giving people money won't solve this problem. The food desert phenomenon is very real and very unsolved.

Hot take: You need a food equivalent of Medicare, where you can walk into the equivalent of a public good supermarket (Aldi would be my example, perhaps adjacent to a library and community center, with a "dine in" meal area), and walk out only with healthy foods or a healthy meal. Regarding food deserts, you need to force the distribution chain where it isn't, even if it isn't profitable (we don't look at the profitability of school lunches, soup kitchens, or food banks, for example).

Citizens also need help understanding nutrition and health diets (existing efforts are woefully inadequate), and direct cash benefits (SNAP) are suboptimal for that, considering food industry marketing efforts (looking at you Coca Cola).

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