So after YOU make them buy what YOU think they should, and then make them buy the correct cookbooks and equipment, are you going to go by their house and watch them eat it in the proper portions?
When I was a kid, I read in the newspaper about a mom on welfare with (I think) 5 kids, who was the queen of frugal shopping and cooking. She would use newspaper coupons and buy several months’ worth of products if the price was low enough, until after a few years she was able to save up several thousands of dollars with which she planned to buy a car. When the welfare office saw how much money was in her bank account, she was cut off of the program for having too much money.
Seeing how 1/8 of the nation is on food stamps feel free to tell the 40 million people in this country about that plan and see what they say.
Do you feel people on social security should be dictated to? People on unemployment insurance? People who receive tax cuts?
Anyway, no. Preparing food takes a decent amount of time and effort. Not only that, but there is nothing to stop people from making unhealthy food from scratch. All you need is tons of butter and sugar.
Also, why should anyone else pay for your public education and the roads you drive on? Nobody asks those questions.
I also want to know if the OP would allow things like say, cheese, or yogurt (which can be really good for you!), peanut butter and jelly, etc. Low-fat yogurt is probably better for you than canned soup, which is chock-full of salt.
The part where the <2% of federal spending that encompasses all nutrition programs: SNAP, WIC, school lunches is significant in terms of the deficit, which is 150% higher than it would be had Bush not cut taxes for the rich and led us into two vastly expensive, useless wars.
By the way, SNAP, food stamps that is, was expanded a couple of years ago, just in time for the big economic crisis, and hundreds of thousands benefited from that expansion. Just the same, 1 in 6 urban children (who have no options) are going to bed hungry tonight, and rural kids are in even worse shape. And yet, on Thursday and Friday, the food stamp program was just cut back to it’s pre-expansion funding, in order to expand the school lunch program (part of the First Lady’s initiatives) in a “deficit neutral” fashion.
I can’t find exact numbers on SNAP and I’m still looking for them, but not even a week ago, I ran the numbers and found that the total cash outlay for the Iraq war from day one to the official troop pullout date (which we know is a fallacy, as troops will still be there) would have funded the WIC supplemental nutrition program for 200 years. My guess it would’ve funded SNAP for at least 100.
So you know, I’m not really interested in hearing about deficits in a discussion about programs that keep people from starving to death so long as the biggest cash consumer on the federal block is the killing machine, oops, I’m sorry, Department of Defense.
I am very very liberal and believe in the EBT program, socialized medicine, etc etc. But I will never forget the guy buying 250$ worth of our most expensive $14/bottle maple syrup. It made me mad, not because it is wasteful gaming of the system (since the guy obviously doesn’t actually need his foodstamps) but because people like the OP only ever see the cheaters and not the 95+% of people who are just buying their groceries like everyone else, thanks to a bit of human decency.
the money wasted on potato chips is money that will not feed someone else. It is also borrowed money which means the money that could go towards food is going towards the interest. We are already in deficit spending with Social Security and the baby boomers are just begining to retire.
The shit isn’t going to hit the fan, it’s hitting the fan now. Cities and states can’t make payroll and the Federal well is dry.
Garbage. Forbidding them from eating potato chips won’t save a penny. All it will do is make their life that much more miserable…which of course is the real point.
I’ve been circling this thread the past couple of days like a hawk. If not for the EBT program my daughter and I would be singing the blues for real.
Yes, peoples lives revolve around potato chips. Might as well add beer and slim jims while you’re at it.
Food stamps only for ingredients? No, for many of the reasons noted above.
But I would definitely agree with making food stamps only be for food with actual nutritional value. They’re ‘food’ stamps, not ‘candy & junk food’ stamps.
Food stamps are a -supplement- to the family’s overall food purchases. If the family wants to spend their money on candy and snacks and what-not, that’s up to them. No one is saying the poor can’t enjoy junk food as well…but only when they’re using their own money, not when they’re using our tax dollars.
Did you think the poor were rolling in entertainment? Yes; some tasty food may be the one pleasure they have access to. Can’t have that! We need to strip away every last shred of pleasure in their lives, no matter how small. We need to make sure that every waking moment is filled with misery and humiliation. We need to monitor their every action to ensure that they enjoy nothing.
It’s their tax dollars too. However much it distresses Americans to treat the the poor as human, being poor does not strip you of your citizenship and humanity.
Well, since you’re supposed to be at or near poverty level to qualify for food stamps, they probably aren’t paying much income tax, are they? And food is not taxed at all in practically every state.
So actually, no - it’s not their tax money.
My family was -dirt- poor when I was growing up. My mom got food stamps for years, and I think all my siblings except possibly my youngest brother got free lunch at school. The food stamps went to buy, you know - food. Milk, bread, eggs, cereal. By the time my youngest brother was in junior high school my mom was making enough to not qualify for food stamps, and now all of us are not only doing ok, we’re all in the higher end of the tax bracket. The system helped us in a big way, and none of us have a problem paying the system back.
But food stamps being used to buy potato chips and Hostess donuts is flat-out wrong.
They likely paid in the past, and will in the future.
And they are after all Americans. In this and other cases it amazes me how little loyalty or concern Americans have for their own. We’re big on patriotism for the country, but not for the people that the country is made out of.
I’ve read this all thread - and I can’t believe such hardship happens in the richest country in the world.
Might be the highly unequal repartition of wealth.
Dude, you’re talking to someone that used the system. I’ve seen it first-hand. In no way, shape, or form do I think that being forced to use food stamps on nutritional food instead of junk food is somehow ‘un-American’.
The food stamp program was, and I quote again, supposed to ‘assist low-income households in obtaining adequate and nutritious diets’. What part of ‘obtaining adequate and nutritious diet’ do you not understand?
If you think families need to be able to buy potato chips, Hostess ding-dongs and twinkies to have ‘entertainment’… you have bigger problems to think about.
Isn’t the theory of public money that it belongs to all of us, not to those who happened to pay in those particular dollars?
Restricting what people can purchase with EBT will not make them eat any healthier.
Here in Iowa you do not need to look for a job to benefit from an EBT card. SWIM received EBT benefits while in college, he was very clear of his desire not to work while attending college during the in-person interview but was still approved for $150 per month. He also lived in the dorms and was required to purchase a meal plan with the campus cafeteria which he had no problem paying for. On a side note I know multiple people who needed their EBT card at the same time and were not taking advantage of the system.
IMO the only way it is feasible to make a positive change in diet is education. Our schools need better classes to teach teenagers how to cook, and what to cook. Many of the people I graduated high school with(2006) could not cook a box of hamburger helper. Throughout my 12 years in the public school system, even in my foods class I was never taught anything about nutrition.
I failed my Foods 1 class (junior high) because of a written test which accounted for something like 40% of my grade (measurements/reducing recipes). I had no problem cooking the basic things they would teach in that class, but that wasn’t the point of my foods class. This class was an elective, I took it because I wanted to learn how to cook. The majority of class time was dedicated to reducing recipes, on paper. Here we are sitting surrounded by cooking ranges with pots and pans, sitting at a table learning absolutely nothing about cooking food. Since I failed, I was unable to take further courses in the area which were much less math oriented. The mathematics of cooking is important (somewhat) but it should not be taught as a prerequisite to cooking it should be intertwined. What we need is cooking programs wherein students spend around half the time cooking. People learn best through experience.
Here is a radical idea, how about a TV channel funded by the government which educates the average joe about nutrition/cooking? I say TV because I cannot think of an easier method of reaching a larger number of people. This does fall outside the realm of normal government activity, but can anybody think of a better method to educate adults? The private sector isn’t doing a good job, anybody ever tried to find half the ingredients they use on the food network?
Just because YOU were on food stamps long term doesn’t mean everyone else on food stamps is. Most people who use the problem use it on only a short term basis. Such as myself, who paid into the system for nearly 30 years before I used a dime of such benefits. Hell yes, I paid my taxes. And in my state food is taxed at the exact same rate as everything else. So in that sense when someone buys food with EBT in my state there is tax money going to pay sales tax on the food.
As I’ve said, the system is not perfect.
Yes, I agree - though I will confess to having bought a few bags of chips with my EBT. Gee, maybe it’s because when I’m working outside in 90+ degree heat for 8 or more hours a day trying to get OFF food stamps I don’t have to worry about the chips going bad in the cooler, whereas some less-convenient healthier food might, in fact, go bad between breakfast and lunch. Construction sites often don’t even have toilets, much less refrigerators and microwave ovens with which to construct a highly nutritious and wonderful lunch.
I’d prefer people buy healthy food, but the effort to FORCE them to do so will not only be expensive due to increased rules and bureaucracy, but it may wind up being totally ineffective as well.
All the people bitching about people buying junk food with food stamps should start by donating healthy items to your local food bank. The “food” you get there is dreadful–mostly white bread and pasta and junk food. One month I was estatic becausee someone donated some pumpernickel bread with raisins and caraway seeds in it. It was past its due by date and a little dry, but with butter on it and washed down with water, it tasted like heaven/ In July I got a kit for making a gingerbread house, used by 3/31/2010. But the gingerbread was good with the frosting, and the Wonka Candies were a nice treat.
There’s an emergency food program in my state where you get vouchers everyday for food. Your choices are limited to cereal and milk or juice for breakfast, and two of the following for the rest of the day: pasta, pasta sauce, canned baked beans, raw hamurger, Hamburger Helper or Tuna Helper (but, oddly, no tuna to be helped). If you don’t have cooking facilities, what would you choose?