Food stamps should not be used for junk food

Yes, this is America. Yes, we have a right to eat what we want until we drop from clogged arteries, but should welfare recipients get to use their SNAP benefits to buy hundreds of dollars in junk food?

At the grocery store check out today, there was a young, very obese woman in her mobile cart in front of me. She had four children around her, manning their two carts which was filled to the brim with little debbie snack boxes, sweet rolls, Lays chips, bags of snickers bars, cases of mountain dew, numerous 2 liters of Sam's orange soda, boxes of frozen banquet dinners, stacks of frozen pizzas, big bags of malt o meal sugar puffs and fruity pebbles, etc.

No where in sight was fruit or veggies. It made me really sad for those kids. One of the boys picked up the bag of snickers and his mother snapped and told him "That's mama's, you don't get that!".

Once the kids got all of the stuff up on the conveyer belt and it was time to pay, she got out the EBT card and handed it to her daughter to take care of the bill. They spent $237.00 in nothing but JUNK. Needless to say I was angry once I saw all of that go on an EBT card. If the mother wants to eat crap, then fine. But the kids? Those kids need to be eating real food. In our state, EBT cards can be used at the farmers markets, so that families can get access to healthy food.

I think it's time that the state or fed govt puts some restrictions in place about what can be bought on those cards. I don't see how that is a loss of freedom, if you are going to welfare and asking for those cards. There needs to be some rules in place, same as WIC. There are things on WIC you cannot buy.

Oh, there are limits, here in MO. I once talked a friend into buying sugar-free candy and cookies for her kids, using her EBT card. When we got up to the register, we were informed that sugar-free candy and snacks are not allowed to be purchased with food stamps. My head almost exploded!

Instead they got Cherry Mash and chocolate chip cookies - the worst of the worst! Which were allowed, of course. Very frustrating.

I saw 2 nasty 400 pound women in a convenient store, each with 12 half gallons of ice cream. My first thought was, y'all really don't need any more ice cream.

Then I heard them say, "I hope we have enough food stamps for these."

I was wicked pissed

there should be a bread stamp, an egg stamp, a milk stamp, etc etc

Some people just do not know how to eat. They do not realize that it effects more then their wight. Food can make your emotions and your mind set especially food that is filled with chemicals witch are made to be addicting. I know that allot more then half the stuff in a regular grocery store is unfit to eat it just got approved by the FDA for Agenda 21 and dumbing down?

But what about the economy? If it was made illegal to buy junk food with your food stamps what would happen to our economy? I am sure these junk food company's are a large part of our economy. Allot of people use food stamps and most of them eat that crap.

You should have said something to the women, I am sure did not think what she was doing was wrong, probably because it has never been brought to her attention. If she started to worried about people judging what she buys with her stamps she might have a second thought.

reply to post by Thunder heart woman


Is it really possible to live off a healthy, nutritious, varied and above all expensive diet on food stamps?

Last time i checked a bottle of Natural finest orange soda was AT LEAST thrice the price of the Junk equivalent.

Originally posted by BadBoYeed
I saw 2 nasty 400 pound women in a convenient store, each with 12 half gallons of ice cream. My first thought was, y'all really don't need any more ice cream.

Then I heard them say, "I hope we have enough food stamps for these."

I was wicked pissed

there should be a bread stamp, an egg stamp, a milk stamp, etc etc

You should have said something.

reply to post by Thunder heart woman


Dear Thunder heart woman,

While I may agree with you that the woman should feed her family better quality food, I completely disagree with your reasoning. It is not because she is on food stamps that she should feed her children better, it is because it is best for her and her family. Lets say the woman was not on food stamps, would you think it was okay to feed her kids junk food. My guess is you would probably feel the same; but, because it is food stamps you seek to control her actions and choices.

When I still had my house, I had a number of homeless people living with me. Three of them were sort of a family, two adults and a child. They were on food stamps and I hated their choices of food. They were welcome to eat my food (fairly healthy and home cooked); but, preferred to eat what I considered junk food. It was their money and their choice.

If we choose to help people, we don't have to take away their choices. We run a food bank for the homeless and to tell you the truth, any food I can get for them is good. Sometimes we may get some cakes or soda and I will give it out, not because it is the best thing they could eat; but, because it is what we could get.

yeah we should force them to eat what our approximation of healthy/good food is........or maybe we don't need anymore laws restricting what we do. Just maybe

Originally posted by TedHodgson
reply to post by Thunder heart woman

 

Is it really possible to live off a healthy, nutritious, varied and above all expensive diet on food stamps?

Last time i checked a bottle of Natural finest orange soda was AT LEAST thrice the price of the Junk equivalent.

What kind of question is this? Of coarse it is. The way you save money is not buying this stuff. It has no nutrition, so you do not get your money worth. Its addicting so you eat more then you should. Last I checked seasonal fruit is really cheap, you can get a loaf of bread and some meat for a good price, spaghetti, .... all the basic meals are cheap.

I'm not opposed to people spending SOME of their money on junk food, but at least 95% of it should be spent on non junk food items.

Plus, there are stores that do sell food cheap so you can go pretty far on EBT. For example, check out the dollar stores in your area.

reply to post by Infi8nity


I have no idea how food stamps work to be honest, But yes, I imagine fruit and veg would be an acceptable item to purchase with them, however could good quality food be bought in such abundance as the cheaper and less nutritious alternative? More to the point do food stamps allow for specialist nutritious foods?

Originally posted by AQuestion
reply to post by Thunder heart woman

 

Dear Thunder heart woman,

While I may agree with you that the woman should feed her family better quality food, I completely disagree with your reasoning. It is not because she is on food stamps that she should feed her children better, it is because it is best for her and her family. Lets say the woman was not on food stamps, would you think it was okay to feed her kids junk food. My guess is you would probably feel the same; but, because it is food stamps you seek to control her actions and choices.

When I still had my house, I had a number of homeless people living with me. Three of them were sort of a family, two adults and a child. They were on food stamps and I hated their choices of food. They were welcome to eat my food (fairly healthy and home cooked); but, preferred to eat what I considered junk food. It was their money and their choice.

If we choose to help people, we don't have to take away their choices. We run a food bank for the homeless and to tell you the truth, any food I can get for them is good. Sometimes we may get some cakes or soda and I will give it out, not because it is the best thing they could eat; but, because it is what we could get.

You do not know the women so you cant really say " it is best for her and her family."

The reason i think we should their should be laws regulating this is because its our money that's paying for their food. I am paying to poison some one, and give money to a corporation that is poisoning millions. What if only basics wear allowed? Fruit, milk, bread, vegetable,egg, sugar, cereal ect.... I wonder how fit the country would start looking. I wonder if fat people that wanted to eat that junk food would find a way to make money to buy it them selfs? Its not like we are asking to let them starve if any thing we are asking to eat more nutritious food so they can be healthy and smart.

Originally posted by Infi8nity
What kind of question is this? Of coarse it is. The way you save money is not buying this stuff. It has no nutrition, so you do not get your money worth. Its addicting so you eat more then you should. Last I checked seasonal fruit is really cheap, you can get a loaf of bread and some meat for a good price, spaghetti, .... all the basic meals are cheap.

I eat pretty healthy these days, I didn't always - I used to be 300lbs ( 185 now ) .. but eating healthier does tend to cost more in the long run.. not only that but it doesn't keep as long so it's harder to stock it .. leading to more frequent trips which means more in fuel cost.. the fact is that the bad stuff is much cheaper and keeps longer so people tend to stock up on it like it's the end of the world and get unhealthy ..

I have absolutely NO problem with the idea of restricting what food stamps can buy because it's funded by society and allowing someone to destroy their body with it only drains the system more in the long run.. the PROBLEM though is people will always find a way around it.. I know people who trade those credits for cash so they can turn around and buy cigarettes and booze as well .. all they do is go along with a friend, let that friend use the card and then that friend hands over money.. once that person has cash on hand, you can't control how they use it.

Originally posted by TedHodgson
reply to post by Infi8nity

 

I have no idea how food stamps work to be honest, But yes, I imagine fruit and veg would be an acceptable item to purchase with them, however could good quality food be bought in such abundance as the cheaper and less nutritious alternative? More to the point do food stamps allow for specialist nutritious foods?

Maybe not but you do not need as much in the first place because it hold more nutrition then the junk food. I do not know much about food stamps neither but dont you get more if you have more to take care of?

Originally posted by Infi8nity
You do not know the women so you cant really say " it is best for her and her family."

The reason i think we should their should be laws regulating this is because its our money that's paying for their food. I am paying to poison some one, and give money to a corporation that is poisoning millions. What if only basics wear allowed? Fruit, milk, bread, vegetable,egg, sugar, cereal ect.... I wonder how fit the country would start looking. I wonder if fat people that wanted to eat that junk food would find a way to make money to buy it them selfs? Its not like we are asking to let them starve if any thing we are asking to eat more nutritious food so they can be healthy and smart.

edit on 24-6-2012 by Infi8nity because: (no reason given)

You'll never stop it.. they will trade those credits for cash, it happens all the time.. someone suggested to me maybe that we need to have a system where food credits aren't provided but instead you would have a weekly shipment of the necessities by a local service.. they provide you the wheat, eggs, milk, vegetables.. etc .. but even THAT has the ability to be abused by someone who would in turn sell it for cash to do with as they wanted..

Suffice to say you will also have the corporate lobbyists up in arm as you cut into their deep profits from all the people buying their trash with food stamps..

When I travel, if I end up in a grocery store, I always check out the frozen vegetables just for this type of argument - YES, a bag of frozen vegetables is still about $1 everywhere.

In other words, three bags of frozen broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, etc is equal to the price of ONE bag of chips.

In-season fruit is cheap almost everywhere. Heck, Aldi has a lb of strawberries or blueberries for 99 cents!

Whole-grain pasta costs roughly the same as bleached-wheat, same with bread.

Hy-Vee grocery stores take EBT, and have a huge variety of healthy foods, including bulk quinoa and flax seed.

What we are talking about here is greed, gluttony, and ignorance - NOT price.

I've seen the opposite of this opinion. A friend of mine tried to buy organic carrots with her food stamp card. Giant Eagle refused to sell them to her saying it wasn't covered by EBT (which is a lie.) When she called the corporate office and posted comments about it she got attacked for trying to buy expensive food on the tax payers dime.

Originally posted by miniatus

Originally posted by Infi8nity
You do not know the women so you cant really say " it is best for her and her family."

The reason i think we should their should be laws regulating this is because its our money that's paying for their food. I am paying to poison some one, and give money to a corporation that is poisoning millions. What if only basics wear allowed? Fruit, milk, bread, vegetable,egg, sugar, cereal ect.... I wonder how fit the country would start looking. I wonder if fat people that wanted to eat that junk food would find a way to make money to buy it them selfs? Its not like we are asking to let them starve if any thing we are asking to eat more nutritious food so they can be healthy and smart.

edit on 24-6-2012 by Infi8nity because: (no reason given)

You'll never stop it.. they will trade those credits for cash, it happens all the time.. someone suggested to me maybe that we need to have a system where food credits aren't provided but instead you would have a weekly shipment of the necessities by a local service.. they provide you the wheat, eggs, milk, vegetables.. etc .. but even THAT has the ability to be abused by someone who would in turn sell it for cash to do with as they wanted..

All laws are broken..... that does not mean they should not be.

Quite a while back, when my daughter was a little kid, I qualified for food stamps. It took 3 months for them to kick in, so when I did receive them I got 3 months worth all at once. So I stalked up on things like rice, mustard, mayonaise, tuna fish, bread, and generally healthy stuff, but gosh darn, we were having steak that night!

The cashier was so livid with me that I had the gall to buy steak with food stamps, she refused to cash me out, and walked away, making the manger finish the job, tsk, tsking me.

Nutritious food is expensive, Junk food happens to cost less and is smeared all over the groceries stores.
This woman should be spending her stamps on healthier food for her children, no doubt.
If you had seen her hand cash out to pay would you have been so upset?


They are changing now what is being sold in fast food companies. I think it will be just a matter of time when they regulate what's in our stores. We All need to eat better.