That's barely subsistence. Having been on that diet, I can tell you it's a gateway to insulin resistance, diabetes, and malnutrition. However, $10 will improve it to somewhat better, and $50 will give the kids a chance to grow up healthy.
This doesn't mean "Don't give" but it means "give more" when possible.
The costs are brought down somewhat by subsidy. When Penny and I were receiving food assistance from the state while I was unemployed for four years, we got about $12/day for two of us. That was the minimum the state was willing to provide for food. When I was growing up, they didn't have that, but they had an agricultural surplus food program that basically provided cheese, flour, sugar, corn syrup, lard, beans and canned meat (big cans of separated but not finely ground chicken, beef or pork) but no vegetables, because they weren't surplus. A family would get a particular amount based on size, that wasn't enough to live on but would help a LOT. Unfortunately that program no longer exists.
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Date: 2010-10-09 04:35 pm (UTC)This doesn't mean "Don't give" but it means "give more" when possible.
The costs are brought down somewhat by subsidy. When Penny and I were receiving food assistance from the state while I was unemployed for four years, we got about $12/day for two of us. That was the minimum the state was willing to provide for food.
When I was growing up, they didn't have that, but they had an agricultural surplus food program that basically provided cheese, flour, sugar, corn syrup, lard, beans and canned meat (big cans of separated but not finely ground chicken, beef or pork) but no vegetables, because they weren't surplus. A family would get a particular amount based on size, that wasn't enough to live on but would help a LOT. Unfortunately that program no longer exists.