If only the food stamp bounty in real life included gallons of milk, stacks of turkey legs, miles of bananas, yogurt cups (okay who knows what they are but that's what I'm seeing) and dozens of apples! In truth it's very often made up of what you can get at the corner store, where you'll find more varieties of whiskey and potato chips than you will fruits and vegetables. Sure you can buy a gallon of milk at the liquor store, but there, fresh food is priced at a premium. It's not always a matter of choice when the milk costs over $4 a jug.

My auntie used to get castoffs from a neighbor who received surplus commodities from the government. Big aluminum tubs labeled "BEEF," blocks of processed cheese, jars of peanut butter and mountains of powdered milk. None of that food was healthy. All of it would most certainly have contributed to obesity and health problems. My auntie's neighbor, a Chinese immigrant, had no idea what to do with jars of peanut butter and couldn't have even digested the cheese--lactose intolerance, you know--if she could have found a way to work it into her family's diet. Her family was poor. They needed food, but they couldn't use what the government gave away.

There are of course exceptions. Boston's testing a new program called Boston's Bounty Bucks that lets food stamp recipients double their food stamps value (up to $20) when shopping at one of Boston's farmer markets. But good, healthful food is still too often expensive food.

As the ranks of the jobless and homeless swell it's important that we see people's needs clearly, with honest social contextualization.