50% of US kids to be on food stamps plus cake recipe
Newsletter November 4, 2009
Nearly half of all children in the United States will be on food stamps at some time while they grow up, according to a new study released Monday. The study analyzed 30 years of national data. The Associated Press says researchers think it could get worse because of the Great Recession. That's why I firmly believe that learning to cook in a thrifty manner should be part of everyone's "be prepared" kit, along with fire drills and knowing CPR. You may not cook this way very often, but practicing when you don't need it will help immensely if you ever do.
Read below for more and for a scrumptious recipe to get you started: chocolate-pumpkin snack cake.
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Nearly half of all American children will live in a household that receives food stamps at some time between the ages of 1 and 20. This figure comes from an analysis of 30 years of data by professors at Washington University and Cornell University, published in this month's Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The study concludes that:
Households in need of the program use it for relatively short periods but are also likely to return to the program at several points during the childhood years .... Such events have the potential to seriously jeopardize a child's overall health.
Half the people who received food stamps in 2001-2003 stayed on for eight months or less and 61 percent exited within a year, according to Joel Berg in his excellent book All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America?, citing a 2007 USDA study. He says the study found that people leave the food-stamp program because their incomes go up or because they are removed due to "bureaucratic snafus."
Of course, many people who are eligible for assistance don't take it out of pride or because it can be an inconvenient, humiliating experience.
Develop thrifty cooking skills before it's urgent. Learn to cook dried beans, make your own bread, and cook cheap, sturdy food like onions, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes before the wolf is at your door. You'll be more relaxed. If you make a mistake, you'll be able to eat something else or even go out. And if you eat in a thrifty way at least occasionally now, you'll reduce the panic-inducing sense of change in your household if thrifty cooking ever becomes essential.
Take your health into your own hands. Cooking from scratch may reduce levels of dangerous chemicals in your food without waiting for the government to step in. For example, by using using fresh pumpkin instead of canned in the cake recipe below, you'll be reducing your family's exposure to BPA as recommended in the December issue of Consumer Reports. BPA is found in can linings and clear plastic bottles. It's banned or restricted in Canada and Chicago because some studies have linked BPA to reproductive abnormalities and a greater risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, and heart disease. The FDA considering taking similar action, but  why wait?
Chocolate-Pumpkin Snack Cake. You may think that snack cake is an odd introduction to thrifty cooking. But this recipe uses the pumpkin puree made from Halloween pumpkins. Some years you may find it's not worth the trouble to cook up your Jack-o'-Lantern. But if you try it as a fun family project, then it's not so scary if you ever do it to put vegetables on the table. The cake is light and tender, with a good cocoa flavor and just a faint hint of spiciness from the pumpkin, well worth making no matter what the reason.
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Thanks for taking time to consider making dessert a healthy treat. Have a delicious day!
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