THIS is why fundies scare me

[AnnieC 305]

I don't understand how her husband goes along with eating less than 200 calories at a meal. It does not add up. I'm not saying she isn't controlling her children with lack of food but her husband, too?

If her husband works I'm guessing he eats out at least once a day. And he's probably too self-centered to realize that his kids aren't getting the extra thousand fast food calories he is so they might be hungry even though he isn't.

[Sola]

You're right, it doesn't add up. What she said there would not go around 11 people. She's either lying about what and how much she feeds her family, or they are all starving and underweight. Seeing as the latter doesn't seem to be the case, she's lying.

And you know, that makes it worse. You get some vulnerable wannabe-leghumping-fundie who wants to be just like her might just try this. And the end result might be malnutrition in her kids.

[BravaAmica]

I wonder if she has an eating disorder?

[Marian the Librarian]

Julia Scheeres wrote about the "starving your kids for Jesus" phenomenon in "Jesusland." Her mother would spend money on care packages for missionaries all over the world, but feed her own children "Garbage Soup" and reconstituted powdered milk.

(Posting quote hidden as a spoiler, as it might be triggering):

"Garbage Soup is mother's name for it, not ours. She makes it from old vegetables and plate-scrapings--flaccid celery and carrot sticks, chicken bones, potato skins, cheese rinds--that she collects in a mayonnaise jar and freezes. When the jar is full she stews the contents in salted water for two hours, strains the broth, adds hamburger, and le voila, Garbage Soup! She says it's loaded with vitamins, one of the most nutritious meals ever...we eat this stuff despite our sprawling ranch house and the Porsche dad drives to work every day."

[ladyamylynn]

Julia Scheeres wrote about the "starving your kids for Jesus" phenomenon in "Jesusland." Her mother would spend money on care packages for missionaries all over the world, but feed her own children "Garbage Soup" and reconstituted powdered milk.

(Posting quote hidden as a spoiler, as it might be triggering):

"Garbage Soup is mother's name for it, not ours. She makes it from old vegetables and plate-scrapings--flaccid celery and carrot sticks, chicken bones, potato skins, cheese rinds--that she collects in a mayonnaise jar and freezes. When the jar is full she stews the contents in salted water for two hours, strains the broth, adds hamburger, and le voila, Garbage Soup! She says it's loaded with vitamins, one of the most nutritious meals ever...we eat this stuff despite our sprawling ranch house and the Porsche dad drives to work every day."

That book depressed the shit out of me.

[BravaAmica]

Julia Scheeres wrote about the "starving your kids for Jesus" phenomenon in "Jesusland." Her mother would spend money on care packages for missionaries all over the world, but feed her own children "Garbage Soup" and reconstituted powdered milk.

(Posting quote hidden as a spoiler, as it might be triggering):

"Garbage Soup is mother's name for it, not ours. She makes it from old vegetables and plate-scrapings--flaccid celery and carrot sticks, chicken bones, potato skins, cheese rinds--that she collects in a mayonnaise jar and freezes. When the jar is full she stews the contents in salted water for two hours, strains the broth, adds hamburger, and le voila, Garbage Soup! She says it's loaded with vitamins, one of the most nutritious meals ever...we eat this stuff despite our sprawling ranch house and the Porsche dad drives to work every day."

Yep. Eating disorder of some kind.

ETA: I have a fundie-lite friend who doesn't starve her kids (allows snacks, varied diet, appropriate portions) does encourage her 6 and 4 year old daughters to "triumph over the flesh" and not snack or eat seconds at dinner. Her 8 year old son, however, doesn't get such encouragement. Apparently, "everyone" knows that buys just need to eat more. :cry:

[samurai_sarah]

Julia Scheeres wrote about the "starving your kids for Jesus" phenomenon in "Jesusland." Her mother would spend money on care packages for missionaries all over the world, but feed her own children "Garbage Soup" and reconstituted powdered milk.

(Posting quote hidden as a spoiler, as it might be triggering):

"Garbage Soup is mother's name for it, not ours. She makes it from old vegetables and plate-scrapings--flaccid celery and carrot sticks, chicken bones, potato skins, cheese rinds--that she collects in a mayonnaise jar and freezes. When the jar is full she stews the contents in salted water for two hours, strains the broth, adds hamburger, and le voila, Garbage Soup! She says it's loaded with vitamins, one of the most nutritious meals ever...we eat this stuff despite our sprawling ranch house and the Porsche dad drives to work every day."

That literally made my stomach turn. I'm all for thrift, and will use up old veggies in a stew, but I have my limits.

[DrPusey]

Every time I look at this thread, I get hungry. And then I go downstairs to the kitchen and get fruit or cheese or something else that is at least partly nutritious, thinking about those poor kids who are existing mostly on inadequate quantities of starch.

I really hate the whole "God will provide" ethos that some fundies use to justify whatever weird or imprudent life path they decide to take. The corollary of "God helps those who help themselves" doesn't often seem to enter into the equation.

I feel awful for this woman's children.

[Effie]

Sorry Annie for my very messy, long message. I hope it makes some kind of sense to you.

This just leaves me... speechless (not in a good way):

If not preventing children is considered irresponsible or reckless behavior, then why did God say he would multiply the children of Israel while they were slaves living in abject poverty? There is not one case in the Bible where believers limited the number of their children based on economic conditions.†generationcedar.com/main/2007/05/children-add-to-familys-economy-not.html

[jjmennonite]

Chaotic Life, I think I love you - all you do for those children and for yourself. I am very sorry for all of you who were brought up with food issues, and I applaud you who have made it a point to get over that for/with your children.

I was brought up fundie Mennonite, and was very enamored with the MDS (Mennoninte Disaster Service) when I signed up for the old Yuku board, so I identified myself as a mennonite in my username. I have LOTS of disfunction from my upbringing, with the fear of hell and the spanking and institutionalized low-self esteem. However, I was certainly fed well and thrifily. It is a Mennonite woman's job to feed her family, and my mother excelled at it.

I am not sure if I had food issues, or just a factor of the low self esteem, but I used to think I was fat and when I tried to diet I would obsess about food and eat more. So, I decided in my 20s to take all the emotional energy I expended on dieting, and put it towards loving myself the way I am. After years of practise, I think it worked. I also was determined my daughter would not have those issues.

We had foster children, when I was a teenager, and we got some that were very hungry, due to neglect, so Mom just fed them until they could hold no more, and they did OK. Chaotic Life, I was a child, so there might have been more to it than that, but that is how I remember it.

I remember when my daughter was 15, we went on a canoe trip, so we were together 24/7. She was eating ALL the time. We asked her if she was ever not hungry, and she said 'yes, for about 10 minutes after a full meal. At home, I had always fed her big meals and had snacks around, so it was not so noticeable. Children need lots of food, and teenagers, especially. We are large Germanic type people, and as such, likely need more food than smaller people. I was astounded by the amount my daughter ate, but she is large (6 feet tall), she was growing, and she is an athlete. I always taught her to listen to her body, so if she was hungry, she should eat. She is almost 20 and is away at university, and never put on the freshman 15 - she is just a healthy, muscular girl, and seems to eat the right amount (and drink too much sometimes, in the way of university students).

This is so very sad, to see people think it is holy to deprive children of nutrition. I hope somebody does call CPS on them and I hope it helps get those children fed.

[TXDuck]

So take note, Kelly. There are dogs in the Midwest who eat better than your children do.

This is partly why I stopped posting/reading for a while. My dogs have vastly superior lives than many of these Fundy kids, to save nothing of my own children's lives. It made me feel so terrible for those kids.

That said, $180 for two weeks for 11 people is just...not good. I spend close to that weekly for 4 people (and 2 labs). Granted, we have health issues Kelly and her ilk probably face and just deny exists. But unless you're a good vegetarian and knonw how to budget, that's not enough.

Those poor kids. What sort of long term Fundy health issues do you think we'll be reading about in 10-20 years from the "Starve For God" diets?

[August]

Even considering cooking from scratch nearly always and avoiding pre-made stuff that always costs more, and including some home-garden bounty because I garden and put back, I cannot even remotely feed 3 adults (my household) on $100 a month. Actually, $100 a week is fairly exceptional. I do include non-food grocery-store purchases like toothpaste, soap, shampoo, etc, because they are necessities. This also includes most packed-for-work sack lunches.

I could do $100 a week if I compromised on meat and dairy. I wonder what we'd have to live on to do much less than that. That 180 can't include bulk grains, can it?

Quick back if the envelope calculation. If your fruit and/or vegetable allowance per person per day is a pound (4 bananas, or a bag of peas or equivalent, like 1 banana, on apple, one carrot, half a cup of peas), and you pay a $1 a pound (a can of fruit is probably less, but not all of the weight is fruit, a bag of peas is a dollar, bananas and carrots are under a dollar a pounds, most other things are more), for 11 people that's $11 a day, $151 for two weeks. If your dairy allocation is one cup of milk and one ounce of cheese per person that's something under a gallon of milk and three quarters of a pound of cheese per day. About $4 of cheese, $56 for two weeks. I assume the milk comes from powdered, I have no idea how much that is. But we're already at $200 for two weeks worth of an ounce of cheese and a pound of produce per person per day.

ETA: Ilooked up dry milk. For 11people to have two cups per day is $5 per day, $70 for two weeks. Assume she goes with that over any cheese, since an ounce of cheese is more than an ounce of milk from powder, it's over $200 for two weeks.

And I have to confess that for dinner tonight my family of four had (ignoring the half a pot of leftovers, this is what was eaten, mostly by the adults) one cup (uncooked) of bulgur, quarter of an onion, one carrot, one tomato and two chicken thighs. :oops: carb loading for the win!

[samurai_sarah]

Sorry Annie for my very messy, long message. I hope it makes some kind of sense to you.

This just leaves me... speechless (not in a good way):

If not preventing children is considered irresponsible or reckless behavior, then why did God say he would multiply the children of Israel while they were slaves living in abject poverty? There is not one case in the Bible where believers limited the number of their children based on economic conditions.†generationcedar.com/main/2007/05/children-add-to-familys-economy-not.html

I need to stop reading her, or the neighbours will find my head poking through their wall. She needs a history book, because she's got her reasoning upside down. Children used to be an economic resource, thanks to the labour they provided, and the lack of pensions. It was in the interest of people to have many children as an insurance against poverty in old age. In the Western world that's not a consideration any more. People had loads of children because of economic conditions, NOT in spite of them!

Thanks to pension schemes and social security, a lot of children are no longer an economic necessity, Having said that, even back in the day (16th century Calvinist Geneva) there was strong sentiment against having more children than you could feed. It was considered better to focus on a limited number of children, and ensure they reach adulthood, than to have loads and hope that one or two might make it. Early Calvinists also encouraged literacy, which like today's education, opened avenues towards better work. As a pension scheme, it paid off to invest more into fewer children. I'm going to stop here, because I'll just descend into historical ranting about how wrong she is, because the neighbours really don't deserve to see me poking my head into their kitchen tomorrow morning.

[MyName]

I can't believe that chicken meal was for eleven people! oh holy moly.

sad. those poor hungry kids!

[itsnikki05]

I was about to say that would feed us... and it would. 2 chicken breasts and such would feed our family of THREE. 1 small child and 2 adults. With leftovers probably. No WAY it would feed a family of 11. Sorry. She needs to get some foodstamps or wic if they're that hard up. That just... those poor kiddos. :(

ETA: That fridge is scary and she is NUTS. I know sometimes... you just don't have a lot of money and beans/rice helps you stretch your meals. Those meals don't seem like ENOUGH for a family that large!

[Wolfie]

I do taxes and budgets for fun. Yep, I'm odd. :D

I'm TRYING to feed my family of four on $100 a week. Two of us have significant allergies and two have a genetic, mild form of diabetes, so I have to be very careful and creative, but even if we didn't, it wouldn't be easy. A family of 11 on about $100 a week? No way could I manage that, even living in an area where food is relatively reasonably priced.

In reference to the many comments above about food hoarding/obesity due to scarcity: I was raised in a very economically unstable home (father's mental health made it difficult for him to hold a job, and my mother obeyed her headship and never worked), so I have many memories of worrying about whether we would have food. Thankfully, I was never hungry ("God" always provided, or so this atheist was told. I think it was kind neighbors and friends who couldn't bear to see children go hungry), but I still often shop like I'm prepping for a famine. If something is on sale, I have to mentally talk myself down from the ledge of buying massive quantities. I've actively worked on this for over a decade, but it's still a struggle. I feel safe when my pantry is overflowing.

Yeah, that $100 a month is for me only. I am trying to prevent the diabetes that run in my family and only have two food allergies that are minor, except I can't drink most juices because of that.

[RachelB]

Probably a lot of you know this already, but Ancel Keys and a bunch of other researchers at the University of Minnesota did an experiment with volunteers just following World War II to get a sense of what a sensible policy of aid to refugees would be. Volunteers' caloric intake was severely restricted for a year to the point it would have been in a famine situation. The psychological and cognitive effects were pretty astounding, and some of those effects lasted well into the rehabilitation phase:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_ ... Experiment (Material at the link may be triggering for people with a history of eating disorders or people with a history of self harm.)

Those research participants were adult volunteers, many of whom were conscientious objectors hoping that their temporary suffering would lead to better conditions for poor people worldwide.

We don't need any more studies to tell us what the physical, emotional, and intellectual effects of prolonged, severe caloric restriction are. We know that already. What Kelly-- and fundies who put locks on the fridge door, FFS!-- are doing to their children, who don't have any say in the matter, is unconscionable.

Edited to add: Do we have a fire-spitting smiley? Because that's what this post needs.

[itsnikki05]

For all of the trumpeting about how fundies are glorifying god I think this post is very telling. They like to point out how they don't live of but in the world (ie what they wear, how they worship) and promote how much better they are then the general, presumably atheist, public. They tout self control & point to how their children are better then yours. Only, one of the primary reasons that they don't have to deal with obesity is the fact that they don't have enough food.

I'd rather deal with my children having to get more exercise then having them complain that they are hungry. I've been hungry, if I have my way my children will NEVER have to deal with that. Not having snacks is one thing, having to deal with the hunger pangs is something else entirely!

Just take a look at Josh Duggar is you want to know what happens when someone is given unlimited access to food after it being limited their whole life.

Exactly. We might not always have unlimited snacks, but my child will NEVER go hungry. And it's irresponsible to have eleventy children if you are not going to FEED THEM.

[yeahthatsme74]

After reading this thread over the course of the evening, I had to go make brownies for my three boys and husband. That was after a delicious homemade dinner of cheese and ham quiche with veggies and fried potatoes. I just needed to make sure nobody still had a growly belly!

[hapamama]

If her husband works I'm guessing he eats out at least once a day. And he's probably too self-centered to realize that his kids aren't getting the extra thousand fast food calories he is so they might be hungry even though he isn't.

When money was tight when I was a child, my father took peanut butter sandwiches to work for lunch. We never went hungry because my parents made sacrifices so we wouldn't (and they never went hungry so that we could eat either).

I have a family of 7 (2 adults, 2 teenage boys, 1 tween girl, 1 7 year old boy, 1 3 year old boy)... we live in an area with a MUCH higher cost of living than she does. Not including cleaning supplies, diapering supplies and other personal care items, we spend about $200/week on groceries. Some weeks I can shave it down to $150 or less if I need to, but usually I don't. We don't eat organic, deal with a laundry list of food allergies, but my kids always have access to food. Even for the tight weeks, I have food in the pantry and the freezer to pull us through.

I can't imagine rationing food for my kids. I'd skip a meal myself before I'd let them leave the table still hungry.

[Phyllis Stein]

I get what you all are saying in general about her food budget, and the tragic comments about starving kids. However, this particular meal may well have been balanced nutritionally and enough to fill everyone up. Milk is also a source of protein, so with the addition of milk there may have been enough protein per person for this to pass as adequate. Also, if the meal was served with salad, they got their veggies in.

[August]

Julia Scheeres wrote about the "starving your kids for Jesus" phenomenon in "Jesusland." Her mother would spend money on care packages for missionaries all over the world, but feed her own children "Garbage Soup" and reconstituted powdered milk.

(Posting quote hidden as a spoiler, as it might be triggering):

"Garbage Soup is mother's name for it, not ours. She makes it from old vegetables and plate-scrapings--flaccid celery and carrot sticks, chicken bones, potato skins, cheese rinds--that she collects in a mayonnaise jar and freezes. When the jar is full she stews the contents in salted water for two hours, strains the broth, adds hamburger, and le voila, Garbage Soup! She says it's loaded with vitamins, one of the most nutritious meals ever...we eat this stuff despite our sprawling ranch house and the Porsche dad drives to work every day."

That's called stock, and is the basis for every good soup or sauce ever made. I have a ziplock of celery, onion and carrot peelings, limp parsley and chicken bones in my freezer all the time. When it's full I add a bay leaf, boil for 3-4 hours, strain and freeze it.

[Koala]

I wish I could find the posts from after the tornado where she talks about taking the stuff that was donated to them and selling it to her children. :evil:

[chaotic life]

Unless it's akin to what my mother used to call "left-over stew" whereby she would dump all of the leftovers from the fridge into a soup pot, boil it together for a few hours and then force us to consume it, or go hungry until we did consume it. Plate scrapings can be a great deal more and more disgusting than what you would consider good soup stock.

The bulk of that meal she made was to fill the kids up on rice. Frankly, given she saved rice afterward, I'm not convinced those kids did get full.....except they are accustomed to only eating what they are served and not complaining about being hungry afterward. My teens actually need MUCH higher protien content than I or the little ones require. My teens are very active, very athletic and have insanely low levels of body fat. It wouldn't take much for them to feel starved. Heck my oldest took about 4 eggs and sausage leftover from breakfast burritos this morning and just chowed down on a bedtime snack....while his brother complained that he didn't share any of it. I generally keep a bowl of hardboiled eggs in my fridge cause my kids will go through about four dozen a week as snacks. Granted, they are smaller than the large store eggs since they are farm fresh eggs, but still my kids SNACK on more food that she's feeing her family for their meals!

[BoomerLynn]

Does this sound repulsive to anyone else or is it just me? Also, a refridgerator that empty in a house of 11 people is just scary. Her poor kids.