Comparative Analysis
My original core reading “How a Government Computer Glitch forced Thousands of Families to go Hungry” Gerry Smith’s article goes into detail about North Carolina’s system glitch and how it forced several, hungry families to go without food. Smith is currently working with The Huffington Post to report all means involving technology. Ellen Smirl, the woman who published “Social Justice Deficits in the Local Food Movement: Local Food and Low-Income Realities” has written about several different topics, from the food industry all the way to the insurance companies. Within this reading she discusses alternative food movement and how these choices affect the environment. Likewise, both readings reach out and try to inform others
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While Camilla Lewis from Smith’s paper can relate to that “cheapness” she is forced to feed her two-year-old son processed foods, even though he has a digestive illness, she is left with no option except “low-priced items like chicken nuggets and instant mashed potatoes” (as cited in Smith, 2014). “Neglecting the inequalities that exist at the local level cannot only fail to solve existing problems but engender new ones” (Smirl4). Comparing the two leads me to believe that some families wouldn’t pursue a choice like Lewis’, that some would use the money out of their own pocket. Stephon Johnson (2013), a man who wrote about millions of New Yorkers facing food stamp cuts stated, “An average family of three will lose twenty-nine dollars a month.” Twenty-nine dollars may not seem like a lot, but if your already living paycheck to paycheck that money may be the difference of keeping your lights on. When situations like these go unsolved and people continue to go hungry what are we really doing to our country? People turn a blind eye to what’s going on, but become extremely upset when the families without food finally stand up and put their foot down, but at the end of the day those people are the one’s always in the wrong, not the
Quindlen exclaimed, “And last Thanksgiving a food bank in Connecticut gave away four thousand more turkeys than the year before” (200). This shows that more and more people are becoming in need of food each year.
The United States government does amazing things day in and day out and the one thing that they do very well is providing hungry families with children food to get them through rough times.
The essay makes sure to explicate why hunger is somewhat unheard of in America. She explains that the parents of the hungry children “loath to talk” about how they struggle .She also gives detailed examples like how it is not typically the “homeless or out of work parents” that they see in food banks but the those who work minimum wage jobs and can't afford to feed their families off that salary. The essay describes how frustrating applying for government assistance can be like filling out twelve pages of forms or being turned down because of new policies.
Could it be because the state is focusing on how much they are exporting and overlooks the deeper problem of hunger within their state? Christina Dreier lives in Mitchell County, Iowa, and is faced with the despair of not having enough food to feed her two growing children. Her plight is so extreme that she must make her three- year- old son go without breakfast, in hopes that he will eat the free breakfast provided by the school so that there will be enough food to feed their family for lunch. Sometimes there’s not even enough food for her to give her kids a snack that is healthy.
The SNAP benefit cuts will make it harder for low-income individuals and families to put food on the table. For instance, if The Agriculture Act of 2014 cuts SNAP expenditures by $8.6 billion over the next years, “anti-hunger advocates said the bill would harm 850,000 American households, about 1.7 million people spread across 15 states, which would lose an average of $90 per month in benefits because of the cuts in the food stamp program” (Nixon, 2014). There have been cuts in the past to the SNAP program that has affected many participants. The cuts that have been realized in The Agriculture Act of 2014 in the SNAP program has related cuts that were caused due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ended it triggered quite a commotion for its termination of temporary increases in SNAP benefit levels that were included in the SNAP program.
Nicholas Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer prizewinning books and “Prudence or Cruelty” was feature in the New York Times in 2013. In “Prudence or Cruelty” it discuss the potential of ridding our society of food stamps to help boost our economy. Children everyday wonder when, not what, their next meal will be. As sad as it sounds, but “5 percent of American households have very low food security” (Kristof 172). This basically means the household can run out of food whenever, and this usually leads to a parent not eating to make sure their kids have enough to eat.
Later on, viewers saw that Barbie was at last able to qualify for benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, allowing her a sense of relief. The average worth of a food stamp provides individuals with roughly three dollars a day. Although this money presented Barbie with some comfort, attempting to acquire healthy yet affordable food on such a minimal budget was a challenge in itself for Barbie. Sadly, Barbie is only one of millions of individuals who struggled or are still struggling with these life altering issues to this day. As a critical thinker, I conclude that A Place at the Table demonstrated how world hunger is the origin for environmental and social affairs for America.
some are denied food stamps because of new welfare policies.” , Quindlen identifies the problems that could come along with food stamps. Along with being denied of food stamps, Quindlen addresses the hard process of receiving a food stamp in the quote, “The average length of a food stamp application is twelve often impenetrable pages; a permit to sell weapons is just two.”. This quote also compares the process of getting a food stamp, a necessity to some families, and weapon permit, a “want”.
In short, many people around the United States suffer from food instability and hunger. People can’t always help the situations they are in, but there are things almost everyone can do to help the hunger situation in
Today’s consumers no longer consider where the food is coming from nor do they understand what it takes to prepare soil, grow food, and its logistic all the way to consumption. Some of his audience may understand the logistic or chain of events from soil to consumption, yet choose otherwise. Berry said: “Many people are now as much estranged from the lives of domestic plants and animals (except for flowers and dogs and cats) as they are from the lives of the wild ones”.
is Looking on the other side of hunger, those who live with wealth and do not share the problems of the poor have actually increased in their prosperity, “The share of the nation 's income going to the top 1 percent of its citizens is at its highest level since 1928.” [This disparity has grown even more in the last decade, since the article was written] Not only have the wealthy increased in their wealth, but as they do it becomes harder to make change “An agriculture bill that would have increased aid and the food-stamp allotment has been knocking around Congress, where no one ever goes hungry.” Because of difference in lifestyle, the people of power believe they have no prerogative to help those in
In the infamous prose “Attention Whole Foods Shoppers” Robert Paarlberg, a Harvard international affairs expert divulges on the ongoing warfare with the issue of sustainability. Paarlberg focuses on how the rise in global starvation increases in less developed nations, but it is often ignored by those in developed countries because of their fixation with the green revolution. He asserts many claims as to why Africa and Asia still have high food deprivation rates, which quite contrary to popular belief has nothing to do with overpopulation. This stems from lack of investment into agricultural infrastructure and investments. His criticism of whole foods shoppers seeks to bring awareness to the issue of world hunger and how the quest to eat organically
In a country that wastes billions of pounds of food each year, it's almost shocking that anyone in America goes hungry. Yet every day, there are millions of children and adults who do not get the meals they need to thrive. We work to get nourishing food – from farmers, manufacturers, and retailers – to people in need. At the same time, we also seek to help the people we serve build a path to a brighter, food-secure future.
In the discussions of food insecurity, one controversial issue has been the prevalent misconception of why people are suffering from obtaining nutritious food on a consistent basis. On one hand, Frank Eltman, a writer for the Business facet of the Huffington post, argues that university students are facing food insecurity due to college expenses exponentially rising within the past decade. On the other hand, Adam Appelhanz, a police officer featured in the documentary “A Place at the Table,” contends that due to budget constraints he has not received a pay raise in the last four years, and is now inevitably utilizing a local food bank in order to ensure that he has something to eat each month. Others even maintain that food insecurity is synonymous
This means that healthy food it’s not really that expensive it’s just people making wrong decisions in wrong choices of their eating habits. That means that poor eating habits are just excuses because in some cases it’s not a economic reason. The income gap affects food choices is it in the sense that people are not driven to pick up a healthy organic lettuce or a healthy organic carrots, people that are struggling with money may have stress eating disorder so they look for food stable saturate them and often end up buying some mac & cheese or some frozen dinner plates.” If you’re living from paycheck to paycheck and on a limited budget, you’re probably more likely to skip the organic vegetables and reach for the boxed mac and cheese instead”-Mike Collins.