I was surprised that SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), the food stamps program is not like WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) in that there is no requirement that foods be healthy. SNAP prohibits certain items like hot food, alcohol, and tobacco – but not specifically prohibit processed, unhealthy foods. There is no list of SNAP legal foods outside of those broad prohibitions.
Is there really much of a difference between consuming tobacco and alcohol, and eating a candy bar or drinking soda? Or eating hot pockets? While snacking on candy bars won’t get you into an immediate auto wreck this afternoon, it will lead to diabetes, heart disease, obesity and a shorter lifespan. I really don’t think the government should be using taxpayer resources to subsidize death and disease.
The USDA has been pushing back against Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s push on the use of food stamps to buy soda and other junk food. They say it’s difficult to technically implement but I would argue that’s not true if they can do it already for WIC. Why should processed foods be part of SNAP? They already ban hot foods, so I don’t see why they couldn’t ban most other processed foods and have a much more limited list of healthy, nutritious foods that support a healthy body.
Restricting food stamps to healthy foods only makes sense and would save the government money. It could also be used to increase food stamp allotments to individual recipients – if some people choose not to fully utilize their benefit – they could plow that into a higher overall allotment for all recipients, ensuring that people have more healthy food.
One of the things I don’t like about owning land is the long commute. Everybody warns me about it, but it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with it having lived in Dormansville for many years growing up and commuting various jobs in the Greater Albany area. I haven’t driven to work in many years, but I do remember those days well. I also drove from Dormansville up to Hudson Valley Community for two years, five days a week. That was about 30 miles each way.
Some people do long commutes to get more affordable property. Other people do it because they like the rural lifestyle, they want acerage, land they can call their own. That’s the camp I fall into. I have determined that a 30 mile commute — 45 minutes each way or an hour and half total is a reasonable trade off for a rural lifestyle. Especially if much of that commute is on fast-moving, 2 lane rural highways, it’s something I can live with even if it’s a pretty big nuisance.
Things have changed in my life — working in the suburban office with acres of parking, and a 9-5 schedule. Except for those dark days in November, December, January and early February, most of the time I will be driving in the daylight. It’s much different then when I was working the late nights, in a downtown office, where the only option for parking was off-site in a large parking garage.
At roughly 350 miles a week (assuming up to 10 miles per day side trips), it’s a lot of driving and it’s tough on cars. As much as 18,200 miles a year. Each week 7 1/2 hours spent motoring if it’s 45 minutes each way. Then again, I guess the flip side is that’s about what I spend on bus between the time getting out to the stop, waiting for the bus to arrive and head home. But a whole lot more expensive. And that’s time I can’t spend exercising or doing other things, though I can certainly stream podcasts and audio books as I drive.
I can figure on using a tankful of gas each week. Probably not an $80 or $100 tankful, as I don’t think my big jacked up truck has all that much useful life in it, but certainly $50-75 a week in fuel, especially if I end up something like a 4×4 compact pickup like a Toyota Tacoma. Probably going to need something with four-wheel drive out in the country for the winter and mud season. When fuel prices inevitably go up to $5 or $6 it will become a big pain the but though my budget and salary can absorb it. Plus replacing the vehicle every 8-10 years due to the mileage more then the age. Again, I’m sure I can afford it but do I want it?
I don’t know, I kind of like living in the city and busing and biking it to work. I don’t have to worry about weather or breakdowns. But the flip side, is I like being out in country, having fires, burning things, listening to frogs and howl of the coyote and the idea of owning my own land, and not being a pawn at a landlord’s game. Where I have a real home, not a moldy shit shack where I get my mail and plan my next escape to the wilderness. It’s where my roots are. I really struggle to know what’s right but I’m deeply unhappy with the my current situation.
The rain stopped so I can ride to work and back, assuming the cassette isn’t acting up like it was on Wednesday night. I should look into that before leaving. I guess worse comes to worse I drive in, as I don’t know what the alternative is the bus really sucks. But I’m hoping I can ride today, as it’s the last day until Valentines Day I’ll be able to do the trip both ways due to the time change.
I made some loafs of bread up, acorn squash and black beans – and then eggs for breakfast. Just another case study on why my electric bill is so high. I haven’t turned on the heat yet for the year, though I concede at some point that will be necessary come November. It’s cold inside but I have the heated blanket, and most nights once I’m done with a hot dinner, I crawl into bed. I turned the electric blanket last night for a while as it was quite damp with the rain.
The black beans will be good for lunch today with tomatoes, onions, and broccoli. Be enjoying those black beans all weekend. I finished up the last of the 16-bean soup on Thursday, really slurped that up too quickly along with the bread and the last batch of acorn squash. So yeah I was up cooking bright and early this morning.
Drove to work yesterday. 🛻🛻 It was fine, I cut through the South End and avoid the traffic. Not sure if it’s faster taking the local streets, and some of those South End streets are complete crap bu then again the suspension in my truck s beat to shit too. I thought about stopping at Wally World yesterday, but I didn’t want to go out in the rain for stupid shit like peanut butter powder and Frank Hot Sauce when I had plenty of alternatives at home.
My truck is getting old. The license plate bulb burned out. But 15 years ago, I had another old truck and the license plate bulb burned out. Guess what I found in my drawer! A brand new 168 license plate bulb as they come in sets. From my old truck 15 years ago. I’m installing this weekend. How fast time goes by, everything is getting old.
Today will be the last night I can ride home from work, assuming there is no issues on my bike. I don’t know what was causing the skipping I noticed in the dark riding back from the Pine Bush Dinner. Hopefully it was just some junk or debris stuck in the chain or cassette. After tonight if I leave work at 5 PM going to need the lights and catch the bus the way from downtown to home. I guess it’s better then driving plus I get exercising riding in and back downtown.
There is a game going on politics that food stamps go to the poor; that they are paid to the poor. But food stamps are not cash – they are a value loaded onto a plastic card given to the exceptionally poor – and spent at retailers. The poor never see the money, and while they do get food as a side-effect of payment to retailers, mostly it is a transfer payment from the government to convenience markets and Walmart.
The people at most risk of losing food stamps are not the poor, but the retailers. The debate should be over these businesses – do they deserve so much government subsidies especially when they sell such unhealthy convenience foods to the poor? Maybe it’s time for society to move away from supporting the food stamp and instead spend that money at improving local food systems such as farmers markets and offering more public education on cooking and food preparation on a budget, that could help not the just poor but the public at large.
I was having a dream last night about the parcel of land I did a drive out in Berne last summer on that dirt road. I was thinking about that hill, and how icy that road was in winter and how unrealistic it would be to live out there and have to commute to city every day. It sure is nice to live in the city.
Still I could have seen that land as my own, my cabin up on that hill, overlooking the valley and my land and livestock. Have that nice woodstove, in a reasonably sized cabin, with simple, minimal lighting powered by solar energy. But still there would be all those state and local codes to comply with, all the laws and regulations of New York.
I have been following this Facebook account of this person who has this neat barndium cabin in Northern Maine. Beautiful dark steel exterior and wood shiplap and a woodstove and heat pump inside. He’s big into healthy eating from his videos, he has a burn barrel for his trash on his acreage and haa a tractor and a Toyota Tacoma truck. Doesn’t have any livestock. Interested in following him further.
Then there is this Facebook account of an off grid homestead in Arkansas I follow, this homesteader who has lots of livestock, goats pigs, cattle. Old house, but it’s obvious it’s all about the land and the animals. I actually like it disorderly but real. Farm equipment, feed sacks and equipment. Pans blackened from the wood smoke and gas stove.
Some day it will happen. I can retire before I know it, time goes by so quickly. If that’s the life I want to live in a small town, I’ll have the money to do it as I’m saving and investing every week.
Just another case study on why my electric bill is so high. I haven’t turned on the heat yet for the year, though I concede at some point that will be necessary come November. It’s cold inside but I have the heated blanket, and most nights once I’m done with a hot dinner, I crawl into bed. I turned the electric blanket last night for a while as it was quite damp with the rain.
Be enjoying those black beans all weekend. I finished up the last of the 16-bean soup on Thursday, really slurped that up too quickly along with the bread and the last batch of acorn squash. 
So yeah I was up cooking bright and early this morning.
The license plate bulb burned out. But 15 years ago, I had another old truck and the license plate bulb burned out. Guess what I found in my drawer! A brand new 168 license plate bulb as they come in sets. From my old truck 15 years ago. I’m installing this weekend. How fast time goes by, everything is getting old.
assuming there is no issues on my bike. I don’t know what was causing the skipping I noticed in the dark riding back from the Pine Bush Dinner. Hopefully it was just some junk or debris stuck in the chain or cassette. 
After tonight if I leave work at 5 PM going to need the lights and catch the bus the way from downtown to home. 
I guess it’s better then driving plus I get exercising riding in and back downtown.
