Life Without Potatoes
A few weeks ago, Ricochet's Tommy De Seno took exception with the government's decision to ban the purchase of sugary soda with food stamps. Tommy's argument:
[W]e don’t buy and own welfare recipients with our largess, and certainly don’t want someone who may have had some bad beats in life to suffer the further indignity of being told they aren’t worthy of the occasional guilty pleasure of an orange crush.
Ricochet member Matthew Lawrence pithily expressed the counterargument, which many readers -- including myself -- agreed with:
"He who pays the piper, calls the tune."
You wanna drink sody water, get off the dole.
Or, more preferably, get rid of the dole.
But now, in addition to soda, Uncle Sam has decided that poor folks shouldn't eat potatoes either. If there ever was an incentive to get off the dole, this would be it. Can you imagine the life without mashed potatoes? That could darn near ruin Thanksgiving! Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air explains why we should start paying attention to the government's creeping interference with Americans' diets.
Most offensively, the program treats subsidy recipients as if they cannot make their own food choices for themselves. People may tend to write this off by saying that aid recipients aren’t entitled to the money and that the USDA can set whatever condition it likes on the service, and that’s true. WIC and food-stamp recipients can buy potatoes with their own cash, too. But when a large number of Americans start receiving federal subsidies on health insurance — subsidies that will apply to anyone in the health exchanges with an annual salary of $88,000 or less, which is the 62nd percentile for annual household income in the US — what dictates will then be permissible? Smoking, alcohol, food? All of these impact health, and health-care costs.
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Jul '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
This is clearly a case of anti-Irish discrimination.
Re: Life Without Potatoes
Looks like my point of view is polling at 71% on Hot Air's poll.
/smiles
//pats self on back
Aug '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
I can only presume that the United States Potato Board did not donate enough to Democratic candidates this year.
Oct '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
Yes indeed, welcome to Canada. One of the terrible things about socialized medicine is that the government becomes increasingly interested in your health. In the name of prevention all sorts of things are justified. We had a very embarrassing fitness programme called Participaction that cost untold dollars. But then again we have also had politicians justify not giving tax relief to families with small children because the parents would spend the money, if it were their own, on "Beer and Popcorn." Of course, in my case they were right, and we do spend a significant portion of the approximately 35% of our income that we are allowed to keep on beer and popcorn, as we stay home and watch movies we cannot afford to go out and see.
Re: Life Without Potatoes
Whiskey Sam: This is clearly a case of anti-Irish discrimination. · Oct 22 at 12:13pm
Anti-Mexican too. Potatoes make an appearance in most of my favorite Mexican dishes. Tonight, for instance, I'm making picadillo, which is a favorite among the men in my family. Recipe available, upon request.
Aug '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
The busybodies that run the federal government will control every aspect of your life if you let them. I feel bad for people who are on the dole but they if they don't like the diet the feds mandate they can vote Republican...
May '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
Again, this is a case of progressives trying to "fix" human nature. Ban one vice, we'll choose another.
Though the idea of potatoes as a vice has my mind in knots. Maybe they're just trying to spread the joy of sweet potatoes by banning the vastly inferior russets.
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Tonight, for instance, I'm making picadillo, which is a favorite among the men in my family. Recipe available, upon request. · Oct 22 at 12:24pm
Lay it on us!
Aug '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
Diane Ellis, Ed.
picadillo, which is a favorite among the men in my family. Recipe available, upon request. · Oct 22 at 12:24pm
Su receta por favor.
And did no one see our first lady rooting through a sweet potato patch yesterday on all the channels ?
By the time you add butter, brown sugar,and marshmallows those yams could feed ten Morgan Spurlocks for a month. And turn him into a charismatic.
Looks like the comm links are crumbling in between the White House kitchen and the spinroom at USDA. Maybe this has something to with cotton being at a 140 year high, cause it's racist !!!
May '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
flownover
And did no one see our first lady rooting through a sweet potato patch yesterday on all the channels ?
By the time you add butter, brown sugar,and marshmallows those yams could feed ten Morgan Spurlocks for a month. And turn him into a charismatic.
I'm sorry, guys. But if the Obamas can provide me with a steady ration of giant yams like those, I might have to become a Leftie.
By the way, sweet potatoes and yams are not actually the same thing, as I learned when I worked as a produce clerk many years ago. They taste basically the same, but the texture's different. Since this thread is entirely focused on potatoes, I figure we should be precise.
Re: Life Without Potatoes
Aaron Miller:
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Tonight, for instance, I'm making picadillo, which is a favorite among the men in my family. Recipe available, upon request. · Oct 22 at 12:24pm
Lay it on us! · Oct 22 at 12:44pm
In a large skillet, over 1-2 tbsp of olive oil, saute over medium heat half a chopped onion, a clove of minced garlic, 4 chopped medium sized yukon gold potatoes, and 2-3 chopped carrots. After 5 minutes, add 1lb of lean ground beef. Cook until browned. Season the mixture with cumin, oregano, salt, pepper. Add 1 15 oz can of tomato sauce (I use 2 7 oz cans of "El Pato Salsa Fresca" but it might not be widely available). Bring to boil. Add 1 15 oz can (or 2 cups of frozen) green peas. Add 1/2 tsp chili pepper flakes. Let simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Serve with tortillas and Mexican beer of your choice.
May '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
The rationale is likely that potatoes are not really purely a vegetable, in substance they are a starch grain, is is rice (and yams), and thus lead to obesity.
But they will pry my baked, mashed, hash-browned, and french-fried out of my cold, dead fingers....
I suspect that the purpose here is to encourage recipients to go off of the W-I-C program. There is a twisted logic to that, if you think about it.
Aug '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
Aaron Miller
I
By the way, sweet potatoes and yams are not actually the same thing, as I learned when I worked as a produce clerk many years ago. They taste basically the same, but the texture's different. Since this thread is entirely focused on potatoes, I figure we should be precise. · Oct 22 at 1:07pm
I yam what I yam.
Which, as you point out, is usually wrong. Thanks for the correction, it felt wrong writing it. Turns out yams, sweet potatoes, and regular spuds are barely cousins.
May '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
War on Idaho, you heard it here first. BCS gips Boise State. Then the "Idaho? No, you da ho." shirts come out. Senators: a toilet stall tapper and a guy with "crap" in his name. Georgia votes Republican? War on Peaches. Fiorina wins? I hope you like bran, 'cause there won't be any raisins soaking in your milk. Senator Dino? Keep drivin' on I-90, the Rainier cherry stands will be long closed, those sweet little nectars from heaven.
Jul '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
One of the terrible things about socialized medicine is that you lose the most precious property right you have.
Jun '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
Duane: You said it before I could. The potato is the only food that's impossible to screw up. Boil it, fry it, bake it, mash it, make a chip out of it. Even bad cooks can't mess them up to the point that I won't eat them.
Pretty soon we'll have legal pot farms and illegal potato patches. That's the point that I'll engage in major acts of civil disobedience.
Aug '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
Michael Tee
One of the terrible things about socialized medicine is that you lose the most precious property right you have. · Oct 22 at 2:34pm
A...men!
Aug '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
tabula rasa
Pretty soon we'll have legal pot farms and illegal potato patches. That's the point that I'll engage in major acts of civil disobedience. · Oct 22 at 2:55pm
What if you crossed pot with a potato to make a pot-ato? Would that be legal or illegal?
Seriously, though, I wonder whether the disgrace of the potato has anything to do with rival starch lobbies -- corn, wheat, rice, etc -- applying political pressure to see that their starch is more favored. One starch is likely to substitute for another, after all.
Jul '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
I fully support the government banning the poor from buying potatoes, and rice, and white bread, and white sugar, and cranberries, and spinach, and anything else I am not supposed to have while on my diet. After all if it is healthy for me it is healthy for the serfs and the peasants. They really can't think for themselves, especially the 40% or so who are subsidized by the shrinking number of tax payers. If we have to have a dependent class and a supporting class then those of us in the supporting class should have special privileges, for instance the right to eat what we want; the dependent class is entitled to do, and eat, what they are told. Next, the issue of what they may watch on TV . . . whoa, I just went all Sebelius there for a minute, I'm better now. Maybe people should be free to make up their own minds, like in a democracy, or a republic, or something. Why do we have food stamps anyway? Shouldn't we just give people money? We could always put the ones who neglect their children into prison.
Jul '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
Good lord. Potatoes contain more potassium than bananas. The protein content is the same as ½ glass of milk and the B6 and vitamin C content is ½ the RDA. They’re rich in fiber and the rest of the vitamins and minerals is a list longer than your arm. Healthy, healthy food. (And I’m not even from Idaho.)
As good an idea as it seemed at the time, many of us knew the consequences of banning smoking. That was the camel’s nose (pun, or not) and now those nursemaid nose-wipers (again, thanks Jonah) know they can get away with anything. Even Putin sees the advantage of doing this. It‘s a ‘softer’ way to regain control over the populace. And if they’re not stopped, don’t for a minute think this will only apply to people on food stamps. We may be allowed our potatoes, but only prepared as the NMNWs permit.
Jun '10
Re: Life Without Potatoes
The easier you make it for the welfare class to sit back on their collective backsides, the longer they will do so. I'm in favor of food vouchers that will provide the following diet: rice, lentils, produce, milk and yogurt. If it's good enough for 500 million Hindoos, it's sufficient for America's poor. Meat is for taxpayers. The underclass can eat the food that food eats.