Should people only be allowed to purchase ingredients with food stamps?

Great Debates
81

And those cashiers deserve to be written up and fired if they keep doing. It does not matter what the customer bought or how much they held up the line it’s illegal* to violate their privacy. The store could, in theory, lose it’s contract over that. That was drilled into us when I was a supermarket cashier and I did enforce that on other cashiers when I was promoted to front-end supervisor. We weren’t even allowed to say “foodstamps” out loud. We just called is a “card” and were only supposed to say “EBT card” unless there was confusion.

I’d also have other customers ask me if X had used foodstamps and get pissed off when I told them it was none of their business (note I didn’t actually say “none of your business” until after kept asking a couple times.

It’s also illegal for a store make EBT customers use designated “Foodstamp Lanes” or not let them use any lane that takes debit cards (including Express & self-checkouts).

82

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t California allow the purchase of bread ingredients?

83

Something not mentioned - people who have been eating junk food their entire lives - soda, cookies, McDonalds, processed, prepared foods - what’s gonna happen if the family cook starts ladling out some kind of home-made soup from the crockpot, instead? Do you imagine they’re going to say, wow, this stuff is really great?? FUCK, NO. They are going to demand Ho-Hos, hot dogs, and tater tots. The uproar would be heard on the moon.

84

I AM a broke college student, right now, even as we speak! It is usually not cheaper to live on ingredients. I can buy ramen and frozen pizza for much cheaper than I can buy eggs, flour, butter, meat, and fresh vegetables. I can drink kool-aid for cheaper than I can make a gallon of sweet tea. In addition, I don’t have the time to cook for myself. I get up at 7 AM and go to school, get home around noon, leave for work at 2: 30 pm and come back home around 11: 30. I eat, go to bed, and get back up again at 7 and do it over. Tell, O Wise One, when I am to cook with these (not cheaper) ingredients?

85

You know, you can buy food plants with food stamps, and a tomato plant is cheaper than buying tomatoes week after week. Why not require them to buy plants in spring instead of giving all that money for ingredients?

86

You may be right (and we won’t know for sure unless those arguing back and forth bother to list prices and compare) but I eat a relative healthy diet and it’s not as expensive as some think it is, although of course it (sometimes) takes a little more time to prepare.

Every morning I eat eggs and oatmeal. I buy steel cut oats at $1.19 a lb. at Whole Foods. That has to be pretty comparable to ramen noodles calorie for calorie and I think most would admit it’s a healthier choice (and if you soak them in pre-boiled water the night before, they cook in seven minutes with occassional stirring in the a.m.). Eggs are more expensive, but full of protein and nutritious. Three times a week my lunch consists of two cans of sardines and a few slices of whole wheat bread. No preparation time needed and the sardines are a buck a can. The bread probably breaks down to less than a quarter. Plenty of protein healthy fats, complex carbs and some fiber.

Plenty of my other staples are cheap too, such as potatoes, frozen veggies, nuts, bananas, rice and beans.

87

Thank you.

Not to mention the fact that feeding poor people is the most direct form of stimulus with the highest return on investment.

I just got back from CostCo, and checked the prices of a raw chicken and a cooked one. Shockingly, the already roasted chicken was cheaper at $4.99 compared to the two bagged fresh chickens at $2.19 a pound.

88

As I suggested in one of the other threads, perhaps another idea would be a newsletter advising on WAYS to save money – using coupons from circulars (and looking for various sales). Buy a local news paper – the Sunday addition has coupons out the wazoo. You can save a hell of a lot using coupons.

I also never got the whole, “people should only be allowed to buy this this and that and that and this and blah blah blah” with food stamps. It’s not like your tax money is going to go up. (It’s like the whole “lobster with food stamps” bullshit. Yeah, you can buy lobster, but then you won’t have any money for anything else)

Some people have different NEEDS – some can get by with purchasing ingredients to cook, others need to have instant foods. (A lot of those pudding cups and such are for children’s lunches, for example.) There’s no “one size fits all” solution.

89

Other than the cost, this is very feasible. I already get a monthly newsletter about basic health due to being on the county HMO

90

Ramen, sure, but where are you getting frozen pizza that cheap? I buy them when they’re on sale for 30 cents an ounce (the usual price is more like 40), and all the other foods you mention are 10 or 20 cents an ounce. Heck, even home-grown vine-ripened fresh organic heirloom tomatoes from the farmer’s market are only 25 cents an ounce, and those are absolute luxury as vegetables go.

91

I would stand up a bag of dry rice against a bag of potato chips any day both in cost and nutritional value.

92

When I was a poor college student one of my many jobs (had to change them every time my school schedule changed) was working as a cashier at a grocery store. There were definitely people on public assistance who seemed to be very conscientious about what they bought and you could tell they were truly trying to make their food stamps last.

The majority of people I saw were not this way. While I lived on rice, a bag of potatoes, the cheapest canned veggies I could find and 90 cent packs of hot dogs they bought shrimp, steaks, pork chops, doritos, etc etc. I recall two ladies shopping together and the one said “You’d better watch out. You’re gonna run out of food stamps in a week!” because she had steaks, etc. The lady’s answer? “When I do I just go to the food pantry.” Nice.

I do think there is something to be said about time. Yes I cooked rice and potatoes but I did use canned veggies and hot dogs or other canned stuff like tuna because between full time college and part time work, I really was short of time.

I really, really, really wish that people would be smarter about their purchases and make an effort to try to make what the government gives them last until their next disbursement, but I’m definitely not for regulating it by forcing “ingredients only” purchases.

I’m fairly conservative on money issues, but I think it would be a big mistake to move in that direction. I think there are a lot of ways to improve the welfare system, but the OP’s idea isn’t one.

93

Equating good nutrition (at tax payer expense) with sadism is certainly an interesting take.

94

The UN doesn’t ship Ramen noodles to those in need. they ship rice. and weight is not a consideration in the transportation of food unless it is moved by plane. Transportation costs are based on volume. A truck doesn’t care if it’s hauling Ramen noodles or apples.

95

Wal-Mart.

96

Families receiving food stamps qualify for free school meals.

97

If you rely on rice too heavily, especially polished white rice, which is the cheapest I have found, you will not get enough variety of nutrients. I found that after a while, my tongue would get sore and eventually crack and bleed.

98

Actually I frequently make fast soup for lunch. I had a basic poverty student soup that the least healthy component was a brick of ramen, that would cook in 10 minutes and was reasonably cheap. If you want to get fancy you could sub in homemade and frozen chicken stock that you make in bulk on weekends and generic pasta if you dont want the sodium of ramen.

Take brick of ramen, put in a pot of cold water [measured amount = ramen soup recipe on brick] with 1 chicken thigh deboned, skinned and chopped into small pieces, 2 carrots peeled and cut into quarter inch discs, half a tennisball sized onion, chopped about the same size as the carrots, 2 ribs celery, sliced quarter inch thick and the flavor packet. Turn heat on, bring to boil. Once it comes to boil turn heat off, wait 5 minutes. The food being cut thinly cooked in the time of the water coming to boil and the 5 minute period, as did the noodles. Total time of prep roughly 15 minutes. noodles 1 grain serving, 2 veggie servings, 1 protein serving. Add a piece of fruit for dessert and you have a reasonable meal, albeit high in sodium which is not necessarily the evil it is portrayed as if you are athletic and sweat a lot doing sports or in the summer. I frequently added chopped cabbage, assorted greens such as kale or spinach [raw not frozen or canned] or part of a bag of assorted mixed frozen veggies.

The principal of the soup is cut the raw veggies thinly so they cook in minimal time. Most of the time of making ‘homemade soup’ the long way is making stock, which to be honest is purely flavoring, which can be substituted by either a bouillion cube, soup base [a paste version of bouillion that can be way less salty and taste a heck of a lot better] canned/boxed commercial broth or premade and frozen homemade broth which can be made in bulk on weekends and frozen if you have freezer space. You can even make a pureed soup of a hard winter squash like hubbard rather quickly as long as you take the time to thinly slice the squash meat instead of cooking it in large chunks [a mandoline helps with this, you can get eighth inch thick slices rather quickly with one]

Poverty level kitchen equipment:
knife
http://www.comforthouse.com/cuisprepcuts.html?feed=ysw"]cutting board
2 qt pot
mandolin
veggie peeler
hot plate

or something like this kitchen set is very commonly available.

You can set up a cheap ‘rooming house kitchen’ if you are determined to … and it can all live in a tote under the bed when you are not using it. Although I did have a friend who lived in a rooming house, and they had access to the kitchen, they just had to keep the food stocks in their room - so you would have to buy the piece of chicken on the way home if you wanted it for dinner that night. One used to be able to ask the guy at the supermarket for a single piece of chicken if someone in the back area of the meat department was there and they would break out one from a package in back. [that is why I loved shopping at the Real in Germany when I was there a few years ago, you could buy enough meat of your choice for a single serving, and it was generally already packaged and in the display case. Much of europe is set up for people that shop for dinner on the way home, so you can buy foods for a single person instead of by the kilo or whole beast like in the US]

99

So many misunderstandings…

You do realize that food stamps aren’t always free.

In Illinois if you’re on food stamps you have to work for them. For example a single person gets $200 worth of food stamps you have to WORK FOR THEM at $8.25 (Illinois minimum wage.)

Of course there are exceptions, people over 50 don’t have to work for them, mothers who can’t afford child care while they work and so forth can get exceptions.

I don’t know about other states, but if you’re working for your food stamps, you can’t tell someone what to buy with them. Since they worked for minimum wage to get their food, if you can tell THEM what to eat, then you could tell anyone what to eat.

I know people on food stamps that work in factories, in parks, at the library, at Walgreens, they all work about three days a month to pay off their food stamps.

Obviously you’d have to set up two systems for food stamps. One for people that work for them, and one for people who don’t. If a person is working at Walgreens or the public library or at a factory earning his money, I think we all would agree he’s entitled to spend it how he pleases.

As for “sacks of flour to Africa.” Those people aren’t getting sacks of flour, what they are getting is gruel. This is a soy based, vitamin enriched gruel. You mix it with water and it makes a complete meal. It’s kind of like the product Ensure. You can live on Ensure as it’s complete food in a bottle.

Perhaps that’s the solution. Just give food stamp people generic bottles of Ensure, and ration them out so they get no more than the USDA average of 2,000 calories a day

100

Sit the kids at the kitchen table and chat with them, ask schoollish questions/help answer tougher questions and crack jokes while cooking. Heck, my mom cooked diner ever night while my brother and I did homework on the kitchen table and we weren’t poor … think of the classic pictures from the 30s and 50s of the kids doing homework in the kitchen while mom cooked … when my roomie Sandra of the mid 1990s who had an 8 year old kid lived with us, he would do his homework on the kitchen table while we made dinner pretty much every night … and we weren’t deprived of quality hang out time in the evening [and he occasionally got to help and learn to cook on the side when he was done with homework, or on weekends. I taught him to make an egg custard from scratch. The kid can now plan a shopping list, cook a basic meal and knows how to clean up after himself.]