The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread XL

[Valka D'Ur]

It's a huge region Valka that involved hundreds of houses, we cannot provide more than necessity, these are people who directly get hit by Covid economically and struggle on daily basis to feed themselves to survive.



We are not even going to give those help directly, or else the masses going to be all over us and things would not only become chaotic but also can turned to be awful very quickly, we usually use the head of local community or youth organization's leader (here they call it: Karang Taruna) to distribute the donation. So we don't know them in detail or in personal level.



Beans is a good source of protein, in Turkey mostly rice served with chickpeas (nohut, @r16 ) but here if I provide beans it would be foreign for people, we usually used nuts to be eaten together with porridge, but the use of chickpeas or cannellini beans (kuru fasulye) to be eaten together with rice is very foreign here, even though it's a very good nutritional diet.

My comments are related to what I am familiar with here. Of course I know that what happens here doesn't happen everywhere.

Beggars can't be choosers. Something is better than nothing. It is not a catering service, it is an if-you-have-nothing-else service.

I have been in the position of turning down donated food due to personal health limitations. It sucks, but that certainly doesn't give me cause to complain and moan about the limited offerings being provided. It's a system that is a slave to the almighty dollar, I can hardly be mad at the people doing their best to provide for as many people as possible for as little cost as possible when I'm the exception to the norm.

Sugar, oil, and eggs are useful for baking, but that seems an inefficient use for bulk nonperishables in a situation where you have to be picky. As you mention, salt and canned meat would be better. With canned meat, you may not need to include salt at all, as you can use the liquid from the can for salting rice. Canned vegetables would be more expensive than salt, but more nutritious. There's a balance to be struck between efficiency and a "satisfying meal," and having rice, meat, and vegetables seems a good combination with the greatest reach.

As someone who has had to use the food bank and had to reject coffee (I don't drink it) and was told "coffee or nothing" because they only allow families with children to have milk, I am quite familiar with it "not being a catering service."

That said... there's this thing called the Canada Food Guide. Rice, beans, peanut butter, and coffee don't fulfill the Guide's requirements (I'm going by the old guide, not that new one that's worse than useless).

I'm going to repeat myself here: What are people who have to have low-salt diets supposed to do if most of the donated items are loaded with salt? Ditto sugar? I suppose you could live on unflavored rice for awhile, but that's going to result in severe vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

Fortunately our food bank does provide bread to anyone without them needing to apply for a hamper. That helps a lot of low-income/homeless. Of course it also means that people who can well afford to pay just go there and help themselves just because they can, and don't care that they're taking food meant for people who can't afford to pay.

BTW... for anyone here who thinks I'm just being picky and entitled... I've been in the position of needing donations. Now that I'm not in that position anymore, I do give back to the system as I can. And it's not a bag of rice - it's got more of a nutritional balance, and tastes good. And when I had to do another change in diet last year, the food bank benefited by about half the contents of my pantry, including items they hardly ever get and that some of the clients would have been quite happy to receive.

 

[Samson]

Whenever there are donation package, for the poor, it mostly consist of:

1. Rice.
2. Sugar.
3. Oil.
4. Eggs.

I really confuse with these list, why sugar or oil? I suggest several time to changed sugar and oil with other things like can food (sardine), because I thought oil is not necessary, if there is no oil you can still boil your food. I even argued that salt is lots more important than sugar. Everybody agree but looking at me like some sort of weirdo, what is the science behind the importance of oil and sugar for survival anyway.

One thing I thought about this is the availability of heat sources and cooking implements. With a small fire and a sheet of metal you can turn oil and flour into flatbread, and add some egg for protein. To boil your food you need a pan and so some way of holding the pan on the heat, and if it does not have a well fitting lid then you need a big fire. This could be a problem for many people.

 

[Takhisis]

This is true really nice spot, they even planning to make a public refrigerator to be used by the community, most of them are farmer who grow vegetable which are easily rotten, so some of the social activist organized those vegetable to not only sold but barter with other goods to the nearest market. That's why I proposed sardine, with salt, and a lot of water, a can of sardine may feed the whole family for a day. And as long as they don't open the can, the food will be preserved.

You need a diet that's a bit more varied, but you're thinking along the right lines.

Als you have to take into account the diversity of religious views in the region. Buddhists might not eat anything but vegetables, Hindus might not eat cows, Muslims might not eat pork, etc.

That applies to the homeless. Low-income people in this country - at least in non-reserve regions of the provinces - who are not homeless will have access to refrigerators. It's a basic component of any apartment, even for the newly-housed. At the very least they have access to a shared kitchen that includes a fridge.

My comments are related to what I am familiar with here. Of course I know that what happens here doesn't happen everywhere.

Well, think of countries in these latitudes as having actual (tens/hundreds of) thousands of near-homeless in slums that are made of boxwood, corrugated iron or sometimes just chicken wire. There's one actually called ‘cardboard village’ here.

Hence why, for example, charity events often feature a musical act and the entrance fee is non-perishable food.

 

[W|M]

the brazilian state has a defined ''basic basket'' which is sometimes tax-exempt (depending on the state), is used as a price index, is used to calculate the required mininum salary for a family of four to consistently feed themselves (which is inevitably far higher than the real minimum salary) and is sometimes given to poor families: it includes different quantities (depending on the region) of meat, milk, beans, rice, flour, potatoes, legumes, bread, coffee, fruit, sugar, lard/oil and butter, though there's a lot of variability in each item, and sometimes eggs and non-food items such as bleach and toilet paper are included as well.

 

[Takhisis]

sometimes tax-exempt

Am I correct to interpret this as saying that they are not including sales taxes in the basket, even though consumers will have to pay it anyway?

 

[W|M]

those goods are sales-tax-exempt, yes, though that doesn't necessarily lower total prices in physical stores

 

[Takhisis]

Dammit, the only difference between the madmen there and the madmen here is the flavouring.

 

[W|M]

mate even counts as a coffee substitute in the basic basket

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Hence why, for example, charity events often feature a musical act and the entrance fee is non-perishable food.

What a novel idea that nobody around here has ever heard of, much less done. We've also never heard of seasonal Checkstops (for impaired driving and seatbelt violations, among other things) when ticketed drivers can pay their fines in food bank or Christmas Bureau donations.

 

[Takhisis]

Oh dammit, I forgot that you're unprovokedly hellbent on pretending that all my posts are aggressions against you so that you can insult me for whatever it is that I have done.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Oh dammit, I forgot that you're unprovokedly hellbent on pretending that all my posts are aggressions against you so that you can insult me for whatever it is that I have done.

[Saavik]Sarcasm. It is a difficult concept.[/Saavik]

If you don't want your posts to be interpreted as aggressive, then you shouldn't word them that way. It looked like you were 'splaining charity events to me where admission is by donation of nonperishable food.

We do that here, thankyouverymuch. I didn't need that concept explained.

 

[Samson]

When news organisations quote people, generally they say something like 'X said "some stuff" in outlet Y'. When they quote what people say on twitter, they generally embed it in the official twitter branded html. This not only breaks up the flow of text, it makes the article susceptible to change if these posts are later changed or deleted, for example here. Why do organisations (in this case the BBC) choose to do this? I would have thought twitter has less legal control of the text being quoted than say the Telegraph has on BoJo's words within their paper.

 

[Mouthwash]

Suddenly I can't send Youtube videos in Whatsapp. I've tried ones I previously sent. I can post the links, of course, but the video bar never pops up (except, strangely, if I only post 'https://youtu.be/' without any specific ID, but that's not useful).

 

[Michkov]

Have you tried the full url not the shortened one? Youtube url usually look like www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ35CZYRUn0 not youtu.be. That seems like url shortener in action

 

[Takhisis]

If you don't want your posts to be interpreted as aggressive,

Oh, the irony. As I told you nto so long ago, please stop doing this to yuorself.

 

[Ajidica]

This seems like a question @Birdjaguar could answer.

My supervisor at work (oversees our department of 5 of us) put in his two week notice today, as far as I can tell he is leaving on good terms. Would a "Goodbye and Good Luck" gift be appropriate? If yes, what sort of gift would be appropriate?

 

[GenMarshall]

As someone who has had to use the food bank and had to reject coffee (I don't drink it) and was told "coffee or nothing" because they only allow families with children to have milk, I am quite familiar with it "not being a catering service."

Now I'm curious on what you did with the coffee. Since I'm not a big coffee drinker and largely perfer water, iced tea, or hot tea (Yes I'm that weird American that likes hot tea ).

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Now I'm curious on what you did with the coffee. Since I'm not a big coffee drinker and largely perfer water, iced tea, or hot tea (Yes I'm that weird American that likes hot tea ).

I gave it to my dad, who practically lived on it. He kept trying to get me to drink it, but I just told him to consider this: If I didn't drink my share, he could have it himself - "more for you."

So he thanked me, but still thought it wasn't really fair that I didn't get what I preferred to drink.

I drank more hot tea when I was in the hospital last year (2 weeks) than I'd ever drunk before in my life. My only other choice for a hot beverage was coffee.

 

[The_J]

It's not so that you normally have a lot more choices for beverages anyways .
(hot chocolate, hot orange juice... mulled wine.... er...)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's not so that you normally have a lot more choices for beverages anyways .
(hot chocolate, hot orange juice... mulled wine.... er...)

I don't drink alcohol and I can't have either of the others for medical reasons.

(hot orange juice sounds disgusting)