Things that taste good affecting the world

I have created this blog as a project for a writing seminar that i am currently enrolled in at Cornell University. The writing seminar is called Having a Lot on Our Plates: an introduction to the Sociology of Food and Nutrition, and this blog will therefore be updates with posts that summarize and reflect on readings that we will be doing for the class. Each post will somehow connect food and nutrition to the world on either a political, social, financial, or even physcological aspect. By reading through the blog you will learn about why different cultures eat the way they do. Hopefully the things that are addressed on this site concoct a delicious meal for your mind. Comment on anything and everything. I am by no means a master on this topic and any thoughts are appreciated and actually beneficial to the blog...so here it is...some food for thought....

Saturday, April 17, 2010

The Food Stamp Issue

Last November, The New York Times produced an article regarding the recent incline in need for food stamps by people in the United States. With a brand new economic recession on our hands, many people have fallen to an economic level that puts them in need of food stamps. The people who have most recently began their use of food stamps actually have or had incomes that are or were higher than the poverty level, which just goes to show the intensity of the economic slump. Thankfully, the government has been willing to keep the program in motion and not made the decision to halt its growth. As a result, there is, unfortunately, more debt. Yet, at the same time, the once negative stigma attached to people taking federal aid via food stamps has diminished. The article makes the statement that fewer people felt ridiculed about using food stamps.

Personally, I do not quite agree that the stigma attached to food stamps is fully diminished. However, I believe that it is important that people who need the federal aid, take the federal aid. It is therefore crucial that the government continue to be prepared for an increase in the number of families on food stamps with the continuation of the economic downturn. Many families who were once very well off may suddenly need financial assistance.

Is there any way that the government can possibly change the name of the aid to something that could detach the negative stigma currently attached to it? or maybe make the aid more secretive that it currently is, so that people dont need to publicize their financial situation?

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