Food Insecurity and Nutrition

A food stamp paradox: Starving isn’t the issue – it’s access to nutritious foods, By Eric Schulzke, April 28 2012, Deseret News: “When Jill Warner’s husband lost his job as a product manager in 2009 and entered a bout of hard-core unemployment, they and their four children eventually turned to food stamps. For the first four months, they had zero family income and received $900 a month in food stamps. ‘We ate what we wanted,’ Warner recalls. ‘And we had plenty of flexibility.’ She would leave Costco loaded with snap peas, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and fresh meat, and after a busy day she would stop at Papa Murphy’s on the way home. Because Murphy’s is ‘take and bake,’ rather than served hot, she could use food stamps. ‘Food access was great,’ she said, ‘but mortgage, utilities and car payments were another matter.’  After a few months, her husband found entry level work that barely paid the bills, and their food benefit dropped to $500. ‘That was very tight,’ Warner said. ‘We had to compromise and buy more basic foods, and it was a close call.’ Firmly entrenched in middle class habits and attitudes, Warner is not quite the face of American hunger…”