Problem is a lot of shitty food is cheaper than good food.
Also, if you grew up around shitty food you don’t know how to prep good food from whole, cheaper fresh or bulk foods.
Sugar industry is gonna Kennedy this dude.
I would raise a rootbeer to that.
The problem is that there is no will of trying to educate the recipients to help them choose healthier snacks. There will be a way for the snap recipients to get what they want through loopholes. Putting a band aid on the problem of poverty obesity won’t solve it.
A chunk of my clients from low socio economic backgrounds live on soda and candy. It’s how they’re raised, a massive packet of crisps, can of coke and chocolate bar is their dinner. Realistically they’ll just sell their stamps to buy the food THEY want.
The result of this is parents will sell stamps, have less to feed kids and kids will go short.
That’s horrifying. That’s not a dinner.
I know. It’s how so many of them live though
RFK jr is a broken clock that became sentient.
Uhhhhhh… It already does. Snap changed from actual stamps to a digital card that declines any purchase that does not fit in the categories that justify a snap purchase. I worked a couple of years ago with a non-profit org that helped the needy, and I distinctly remember being at walmart with someone was buying groceries, when they used their snap card the payment covered everything but junk food and the person I was with had to pay with their own money for the rest of their things.
In short RFK is working on stopping something that never has ever existed.
Because that’s not the goal, i can almost guarantee it. Every time they try to “fix” something they are trying to break it and privatize if possible.
Which sort of sums this whole regime’s work up, doesn’t it?
This is the kind of BS that leads to you being unable to buy warm food with food programs. A box of fried or baked chicken costs $26 for 24 pieces, which can feed me for 2-3 days, saving me money in the long run. A hot pizza is $13. A rotisserie from CostCo is about $6.
People should make the decisions about their food stamps, because they are familiar with how to best feed themselves. Your typical WalMart employee has to rely on food stamps and other benefits, because WalMart doesn’t want to pay a living wage. An initiative like RFK’s is designed to punish the poor for failing to be born with a silver spoon.
This isn’t about helping people to make better decisions, it is about depriving them the good things in life.
These same assholes were the ones freaking out when Michelle Obama was trying to get healthier food for school lunches and making up shit like “Turning Cookie Monster into Veggie Monster” to get mad at.
Many right-wingers don’t care about words or truth or consistency. They just want to hurt their out-group.
Buying soda and candy. I can get behind a worm for that one. Just ban those things already. But I would step on that worm right after. The guy is clearly crazy. And too old. I wouldn’t want anyone to suffer from whatever self inflicted speech impediment this guy has.
Ever try to water down a fountain drink with carbonated water? You can add 300% soda water and it still tastes sweet. But that overwhelming level of sweetness seems to stimulate appetite. And it’s one of many reasons why manufacturers use high fructose instead of table sugar. It’s slightly sweeter and more stimulating.
The products are designed to trick our bodies into eating and drinking more. Super sweet spikes the insulin but has nothing to digest so you’re hungry and now it’s salty snack time making you thirsty for more soda. Consume.
Heaven forbid someone enjoys their life. I’d rather pay for this than billionaire tax cuts and the bloated military budget.
We can do both. A stopped clock is right twice per day. It would be a good idea, except that you already cant buy junk food with food stamps…
Someone has to police that though guess RFK jr won’t be picking up that cost.
There was time in my life when most of my food came from a public pantry. I know it’s not the same as stamps, bit same principle.
Anyway, birthday rolls around; didn’t think anything of it cuz I was in the “it’s just another day…” phase of life, and even if I wanted to do something for it, I wouldn’t have been able to afford it. Roll up to the pantry for that week’s pickup, and they break out a fucking cake and a hand-written birthday card! Nothing crazy - maybe 6-inch diameter, enough for the wife and I to split. But that shit pulled my ass right out of a depression spell like nothing else came close to before or since.
When I finally got a reliable income coming in and paid off the critical stuff and got a little bit of savings, my first ‘splurge’ was a $1k donation to that pantry with a note saying that their assistance pretty much single-handedly saved me from homelessness and probably from suicide; and enabled me to take the steps I needed to get the job I have now and ultimately become self sufficient.
Food is more than just nutrients; and junk food is more than just food that’s junk.
And pantries are bad ass. If anyone reading this is struggling and not yet using one, GO SEE IF YOU’RE ELIGIBLE! Many people are resistant to ask for help prior to hitting absolute rock bottom, but a little help now (even if you only-kind-of need it) could save you from needing a LOT of help later. They’re also an awesome source of info on local resources - whatever your unique situation is, they can probably point you in the right direction to start getting shit under control.
…I should make another donation - shit’s extra fucked nowadays.
Thanks for sharing, I feel like people forget we’re all just people at the end of the day.
I bet it would feel very different if you just used food stamps to buy your own cake
Probably, but then that would have enabled me to give my wife that or vice versa. We don’t have kids, but a lot of food stamp recipients do - same spiel.
And even outside of special events, maybe that can of soda with dinner is the carrot-on-a-stick that gets a person through an otherwise miserable day cuz, shocker: poverty fucking sucks.
That’s the cool thing about not having arbitrary restrictions on shit like this: people are free to handle their own unique situation at their own discretion, including whether or not junk food is worth including in that week’s budget.
Yeah, less autonomy is never a solution in situations like those. It’s just a form of petty oppression.
It’s like painting over murals at detention centers where kids are housed… with gray paint. It definitely sends a message.
No, it’s like removing soda machines from school cafeterias. It’s a good idea. It’s so good, in fact, that you already can’t buy junk food with food stamps!!
Oh goodie, Roadkill Fucking Kennedy is deciding what poor people can and can’t drink.
Gotta stop those poors from having any joy. Only misery will suffice.
Why is it in our interest to pay for food that causes obesity and health issues?
No food individually “causes” obesity and health issues. Overuse of some foods can. If we want people to be healthier, maybe we should offer free accessible cooking classes, or (gasp) not put people in the position where they have to work so much to pay the bills they don’t have time to prepare healthy food.
All this does is punish people who are already in shit circumstances. Maybe they want a treat for their kid, maybe they want to have a fun movie night, maybe it’s none of your business?
Sugar causes obesity and health issues. There’s no recommended daily intake for sugar because it’s not required by the body.
I want you to consider what you would do if you had $300 per month to buy food. How often would you use any of that money to buy soda and candy? Would you do it on a regular? Or would you do it just for special occasions to lift your spirits when things were bad?
This isn’t about health this is about punishing the poor for being poor.
I would buy it literally never, because I already never buy it, because I know it makes me fat and depressed.
I would spend very little of it on candy and soda, but not every person makes the same choices
That doesn’t give anyone the right to choose for them.
If I’m paying for it, I have the right to vote for this law. It affects me
I was very poor for two or three years in my early 20s. I was maniacally disciplined in only buying healthy, affordable food, no alcohol, no junk food, no sweets. Brown rice, beans, fish off the boat (a fishing fleet operated from our city’s harbor), tofu, miso, green veg. So I stayed healthy. If I had received any assistance, interference in my choices wouldn’t have helped. But the purpose of the interference isn’t to help, it’s to disempower, infantilize and humiliate.
It wouldn’t interfere in your choices because you didn’t buy those things
So you agree that there is some amount of acceptable spending on sweets.
As long as it’s from your own pocket
If the concern was really about health, they’d be regulating maximum sugar % in all sodas and candies, not banning them to the poor.
And if the concern was about people’s health, Trump wouldn’t have put RFK Jr into that job.
If you want to buy sugar on your own dime, you can hurt your own health. But why should the government pay for it?
You do realize that banning candy and soda is not going to ban sugar. Sugar is a staple product and will always be available on food stamps. Soda is just a processed item, same as candy. In exactly the same way as Dinty Moore canned stew and Campbell’s soups. Should those be banned too? How about bread? It’s a carb and it’s processed. Let’s make the poor people make their own bread cause fuck them for being poor.
Where should the line be drawn?
The line should be drawn on the category of candy and soda. I’m not saying ban all sugar
It is their own dime. The government is everybody, and it’s here to serve. Somehow they got in your head that they aren’t entitled to that, but they are.
Edit: had/head
No, public and private funds are different things
Why should the government regulate how people eat based on their income?
It’s not based on income. It’s based on whether the government is paying for it or the person is paying out of their own pocket.
Similarly, school meals should be healthy and not include sweets and soda
Just kill that market. They basically make money off creating a health epidemic in the first place, at what point will we say maybe greed shouldn’t be more important than our health? Remember who was lobbying fat is bad?
What if it’s not happening that much and this is just a shoe horn to get legislation to destroy benefits? What if most states already remove some purchases from the EBT/food stamp total?
It’s like drug testing for welfare. It’s sounds like a good idea until you realize it costs millions, produces almost no results and the government performing said drug tests can’t be bothered to not do it in s corrupt way?
Unlike means testing, it will cost nothing. You just update the list of what is covered. Then it’s forever banned from food stamps
as someone else pointed out a specific example that comes up regularly (this is apparently already how it works): 1 particular brand of peanut butter was available, but their lite version wasn’t… with a cart full of groceries, figuring out exactly what gets paid for with what or what needs to be put back isn’t a fast process… this takes not only the persons time, but the cashiers time and everyone behind them in the queue
these are things we call negative externalities: costs forced to other places in the system without being accounted for in price
there are many, many, MANY more costs associated with any government program and intervention but this specific example would cost the country as a whole far more than the occasional unhealthy snack
But it’s not lite peanut butter. It’s all items that are marked candy and soda. That’s a clear category
that’s not how any of this works… UPC codes (barcodes) only have the category as broad as “Food, Beverages & Tobacco”, brand names, product names, etc
you have to maintain some database of UPC numbers to categories, which is how things like variants of peanut butter slip through… and good luck if you want to buy some smaller brand that isn’t on the governments radar
Why do you consider what someone else eats to be a matter of “your interest”, at all?
Do you think your boss…who pays your salary…should be allowed to dictate what you spend it on? Is it in “their interest” to make sure you’re spending their money on “the right things”?
Do you think your boss…who pays your salary…should be allowed to dictate what you spend it on?
Historically, that was a thing until very recently. Henry Ford used to send inspectors into people’s homes to snoop on them, not only food and alcohol, but what language they spoke in the home. Thank the unions for that bullshit having been stopped.
If I’m paying for it, it’s my interest. If it’s your personal decision, then do what you want
If that’s your stance you might wanna leave the low hanging fruit where it is and pick something that actually matters. Just my two cents. Like defense spending.
Defense spending is the most important function of government. Without it we can’t help Ukraine
Because giving more people reasons to enjoy life benefits us all. Also, fuck rich people. We should all be clamoring to take as much from them as possible to improve the lives of those who have less.
You can drink soda and eat candy without becoming obese or having health issues as a result.
Then start with ag subsidies. But that’s if you’re serious about fixing the problem and don’t just want to punish poor people for being poor.
Fuck ag subsidies and fuck tariffs
But mostly fuck poor people. Since that’s the most immediate priority.
