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Starting next Sunday, Chicagoans will be able to shop for fresh fruits and vegetables at the Logan Square Green Market using their food stamp LINK card, making Logan Square market the first food-stamp-friendly market in the state. Customers using the LINK cards will pick out their groceries and then pay at a central station, which allows individual farmers to skip the hassle of setting up a wireless credit card machine.
As our hardworking Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky told us, one of the most difficult parts of being on the food stamp program is finding ways to incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables into a diet. Chicagoist applauds the idea behind this program but wonders if it will actually be widely used. We love the green markets and try to go whenever possible, but we wouldn't exactly call them inexpensive. If you are trying to feed a family on less than $30 a week, spending $10 on delicious organic peaches seems unlikely at best.
Still, Paul Levin, executive director of the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce, which manages the market anticipates a good amount of use. "Some of the senior citizens ... they know the difference between fresh [farmers market] produce and the produce that you buy in the store," Levin told the Trib. "And they're pretty enthusiastic about it."
Image via Swanksalot.
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"We love the green markets and try to go whenever possible, but we wouldn't exactly call them inexpensive. If you are trying to feed a family on less than $30 a week, spending $10 on delicious organic peaches seems unlikely at best."
Not really. I prefer going to local grocers and markets over Jewel and Dominick's because their produce is cheaper (and more normal looking). It doesn't have to be organic to be healthy. I fear the supermarket produce more because of the hormones and coloring their suppliers pump into their crap. Compare a raspberry or strawberry in your backyard to one from Jewel. If it's 1/3 the size I'd be shocked. Green peppers sell at the one by me (A&G) for .39-.49 a pound. Jewel doing their 3 peppers for $3 is like they are doing you a favor.
If Chicago grocers want to really keep prices down, they should stop buying from hundreds of miles away. Detroit toyed with the idea of turning their vacant lots in the city into farming plots.
I agree. I was just thinking to myself, it is so unfair that people without jobs have to eat a lower quality of food. Just because people who work to provide for themselves and actually buy their food can have fancy produce, why shouldn't they.
It's hard to incorporate a 24oz. New York Strip with a bottle of Red at a steakhouse too. We should incorporate that as well. And what closes a meal better than a snifter of single malt? Food stamps should make provisions to allow at least for Glenlivet 15, if not 18. Why should only those who work for what they have enjoy success?
Plus, why is Grey Goose vodka not included? The other day a food stamp user whipped her LINK card out to buy food, but then was forced to use cash for the essential vodka purchase. Plus, there is no way she should have used the vodka cash for food instead of mooching off the government, I mean that is just stupid.
Will the market sell organic hot chips?!
I'll never buy any fruit/veggies at Jewel or Dominick's ever again. I always feel ripped off both by quality & price.
It's all about Costco or Stanley's!
Will they be able to use that LINK card scam at the market??
The latest scam works like this:
A welfare recipient goes to a store with a Link card credited by the government with a dollar amount for groceries -- say, $100. The store clerk swipes the card through a government computer and takes credit for $100 in phony food sales. Then, the clerk hands $70 to the welfare recipient, keeping the rest as profit.
This welfare state needs to be abolished! And this program directly funds terrorism!
#2:
i hope that by the time your grandparents are too old to work they are rich and never have to go on food stamps.
i hope that you never have an illness that bankrupts you, causing you to go on food stamps.
i hope that no one in your family ever becomes mentally ill.
that no one's business fails.
that no one gets sued.
there are a lot of reasons one might go on food stamps, and few of them have to do with laziness. any one of them could happen to you or someone you love. try to look at people with compassion, with empathy, and then, cross your fingers.
Boy, just when I thought we kicked all the poor people out of Logan Square, the city pulls some shit like this! Doesn't Daley know the farmers markets are where we go to be with OUR element. I'm just trying to have an urban experience, I don't actually want to be next to city people WHILE I SHOP!
Ladies and Gentlemen, #2 and #5!!!
Right-wingers doing all they can to increase needless suffering, pain, and death in this world!
I'd really like to see the government truly abolish welfare: all that cash they throw to big oil and agribusiness!
Typical liberal reaction. Don't work or do anything for yourself, the government will do everything for you! We should all just quit our jobs and live off the government we bitch about nonstop!
what a great idea. I'm totally quitting my job today & going on welfare. sounds like a party.
oh then I'm gonna get really sick & get medicaid, too. then I'm gonna have 47 kids. nothing sounds more fun & appealing than these awesome activities. I am glad I'm making the conscious decision to take advantage of this luxurious lifestyle.
Given that I think that thoughtfully designed social programs are a good thing, I think this is an acceptable idea. However, I don't understand what's really commentworthy about it.
For one, it's a pretty fair bet that any local grocery already accepts LINK cards. For example, just this last weekend I was walking near Kedzie and Lawrence where I happened to stop for some items at a small but very nice grocery called Andy's. Good quality produce, excellent prices. On the front of the store is a fairly large banner proclaiming that the store accepts LINK. I've seen similar stores all over the place, especially in areas with fairly sizable immigrant communities. Of course this does nothing for people who neither have access to these local establishments nor to your typical Jewel and Dominick's.
Which again makes me wonder why a local farmer's market accepting LINK is noteworthy, whether you are for or against social programs. It's no more accessible for poor people from underserved areas in the city than, say, Jewel off the Berwyn el stop.
If the fury has something to do with poor people being allowed to buy "expensive" organic products, I have to say that I don't find these markets to be that expensive unless you're buying certain specialized items. I have to imagine that a poor family shopping here will bypass the expensive white peaches and settle instead on the 6-for-a-buck plums or apples. Making comments about "Grey Goose" is just the usual straw man example conservatives love. What next, the homeless guy who took the Big Macs you bought so innocently and threw them in the trash? Or the Streetwise vendor who, after a long day, walked back to her Lexus and drove off?
Finally, say what you want about the able bodied adults who are impoverished for whatever reason, but you are truly an ogre if you feel that freefall capitalism is going to save the children who are simply the victims of their parent's poor decisions. Or that it will help the elderly and veterans who paved the way for your ungrateful asses. Pathetic.