Mommy, Why is the Foodbank Food Rotten?

Blog post by Tina Winterlik © 2013
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So my little girl, she's really good. She and I have been through a lot of up and downs. We've been really blessed but sometimes things are pretty shitty...to be honest.

Anyways so we went to the foodbank. It took a lot for me to even get to this point. My kid has fond memories of the foodbank,  in Nelson, she remembers them giving out bread and muffins. So she was sort of excited to go last night. But there was nothing like that there. She was happy there was  Macaroni and Cheese dinner, I haven't bought that in a long time as I don't like the yellow dye and preservatives in there. But we took some and I took the granola bars for my snacks/lunch at school. Both Angel and I are hypoglycemic so we have to eat a little something here and there to keep our blood sugar levels balanced. When we don't we feel grumpy, nausea, and lose our appetite, just a whole range of negative things happen.

As mentioned  Angel was excited, I was just happy that I found a place we could go, I had a letter and hopefully it would help.  First we had no bags. They didn't tell us we needed them. We found out from someone in the lineup. Thankfully our friend was waiting in a car, I phone them and they dumped out something and quickly brought them to us. Otherwise we would have had to get out of line and go to a store or something and come back. It was cold dark and raining, not something I wanted to do, especially with my little girl in tow.

You can see what happened next on my other blogpost.  http://tinawinterlik.blogspot.ca/2013/11/have-you-been-to-food-bank-lately.html

So I brought it all home and put it away. I had looked at the dates on most of it and cringed but put it in the cupboard anyways.

So you can see that this top one is old. I tried one, but as soon as I opened it, it smelled off, like rancid oil but I bit it anyways...(sort of like that song, "found a peanut, ...it was rotten....ate it anyways...")

Well I spit it out and tossed them all out. I felt bad but they are bad. :(

Maybe that's why there was a big box of them and they guy before us just looked at one and tossed it back. He knew. :(

 Now this stuff, I was sort of excited about, I thought Granola, I love Granola, I never get to eat Granola, but since it has Flax, I'm guessing this will be rancid too, although it's just a bit out of date. But let's address this, the granola bars I bought at No Frills recently were dated for May 2014. So you can imagine when the date is April 2013, well they are pretty friggin old already. So how old is this cereal really?

 This package of Macaroni and Cheese should be okay, the box is torn that's why it was in there. Since I need to boil it, it should be fine.

This on the other hand is the one I made this morning for my kid's school lunch. I cooked it up and thought it smelled off. I put it in her thermos and as I lifted the spoon I took a little taste, YUCK! Definitely off!!  So I tossed it and luckily there was a can of chicken noodle soup that was dated 2015 so I made that for her.

When I told my kid all this, she was disappointed. She asked me "Mommy, why do they give rotten food to the foodbank?"

I had to explain how the supermarkets can't throw it out with out looking bad and people think it's nice to give it to the food banks.

What they don't realize is that maybe people going to the food bank already have a comprised immune system or that they just aren't that well because they are hungry. So then they have to eat rotten food and get sicker and then that adds to hospital and medical costs.

Something needs to change here folks, wouldn't you agree?

I remember years ago reading in the province about some poor mom, she had one child and  was in an abusive relationship. She ended getting pregant and then leaving the man. She spent all her day walking from one soup kitchen and then to the next to try and feed her kids. The thing I remember her saying was there was maggots in Kraft dinner.

We can do better can't we. This is Canada.

Anyways, I'm glad I put on a few pounds in the summer because I would rather lose a few more than go to the food bank. But my kid that's a different story. She's growing and needs to eat well, so I have got to change things around somehow here.

With that I would appreciate your positive thoughts and prayers and to you I hope your not experiencing this and if you are I send you love and light!!

P.S. There were eggs there too, that they gave us before we left. Dated Nov 7. I sure hope there's no stinkers in there. Now that would be awful. :(