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Yes, but if you read through the thread, there are people here who would like to outlaw the purchase of SUGAR, let alone a cake mix...
I'm all for teaching people about the importance of nutrition, and getting the biggest bang for your food dollars--especially people struggling to make it between food stamps and the food bank. I don't think we have the right to make decisions on what they eat once they have that information.
I agree to a certain degree. I'd like to see food stamps run more like the WIC program where you could only purchase certain items. I received WIC for a few months and I loved the way it worked. A lot of people said the program was too restrictive but if you ever looked at the back of those checks there were lots of things you could buy; they just tended to be the healthier things. For example, I was able to buy peanut butter and oatmeal, but it had to be the regular kind not the honey whipped crunchy peanut butter or the apple cinnamon oatmeal.
I'd love to see a survey that shows what people with food stamps are purchasing the most. I know when I had mine, my big ticket items were fruit. I went fruit crazy - it was the only time I'd been able to buy all the fruit I wanted.
I agree to a certain degree. I'd like to see food stamps run more like the WIC program where you could only purchase certain items. I received WIC for a few months and I loved the way it worked. A lot of people said the program was too restrictive but if you ever looked at the back of those checks there were lots of things you could buy; they just tended to be the healthier things. For example, I was able to buy peanut butter and oatmeal, but it had to be the regular kind not the honey whipped crunchy peanut butter or the apple cinnamon oatmeal.
I'd love to see a survey that shows what people with food stamps are purchasing the most. I know when I had mine, my big ticket items were fruit. I went fruit crazy - it was the only time I'd been able to buy all the fruit I wanted.
Most people that are WIC beneficiaries are HAPPY to have the items allowed, and I haven't heard any of them complain about the items allowed being "restrictive or intrusive" at all. They're healthy nutritional foods (as they should be) supplied for the benefit of expectant and new moms and their VERY young offspring.
Should you be able to buy a Wedding Cake with Food Stamps ?
You left out...Only people who are not too fat to walk through the store and do not need to use the electric shopping carts to haul their enormous flabby backsides can use food stamps.
Most people that are WIC beneficiaries are HAPPY to have the items allowed, and I haven't heard any of them complain about the items allowed being "restrictive or intrusive" at all. They're healthy nutritional foods (as they should be) supplied for the benefit of expectant and new moms and their VERY young offspring.
There have been talks before about having the SNAP program run similarly to WIC and that's when people have complained about WIC not giving you enough options, limiting the portions you buy, etc. Let me see if I can find the article on it. I don't think it was actually being considered by the government but just one of those hypothetical questions people pose when talking about the misuse of food stamp money.
* I quit. I did a couple of searches and it's a bunch of forums (like CD) coming up and I don't feel like wading through them. I wish I could remember what it was though...I either read it or heard it (on the radio) around the same time that Sams started taking food stamps so it can't be that old...hate when I can't remember something...makes me feel old
When I was on food stamps the rules were odd regarding prepared foods. You could buy the prepared chicken that got put in the frig and sold cold, but you couldn't buy it hot. You could buy things like ice cream in the freezer section, but if the store sold icecream cones you couldn't buy them. It made no sense. I recall you could not buy alchol but you could soda. We'd buy milk with cash and soda with stamps since the state tax wasn't charged that way.
It was kinda like how the bottled water was not taxed but the ice was since it was "changed". huh?
I could see a portion of the stamps fixed to apply only to things like WIC supplies but it would likely be a logistical nightmare.
As kid growing up poor in NY we were denied any benefit not on the basis of actual need but on the basis of strange criteria and hoops they wanted my mother to jump through that she could not jump. I was too young to know the details but it was tantamount to proving things she didn't do, and proving to a doctor who delivered her babies that we were legal citizens. Our family traveled to invitations for a meal or ate ketchup sandwiches for weeks as a result. At one point in our lives we were that homeless family living in their car that every one of you dreads ever becoming. I think that's what deluse means to prevent, and I do agree that welfare once upon a time became a tool to bash people in the head over circumstances that were often beyond their control. That's simply wrong.
As for whatever these arbitrary rules are... if we have a hard and fast rule of non-processed food and water, that would solve most things right there. Partially processed food... lets just say that 90% of content should be actual food. Convenience foods such as deli meat or pre-cooked chicken have premiums added onto them that give you less bang for your buck, so I can see why that exclusion would exist. Excluding water- it's necessity of life and if residing in substandard housing where water is suspicious, please use bottles, I'll gladly pay another dollar in taxes to shield your kid from lead poisoning. Bottled water isn't the luxury some make it out to be, and anyone who spent time living that close to the pavement would know that.
I've had a blessed life and lifted myself out of that poverty. I hear these days that people use foodstamps/ wic/ whatnot as bartering tools for drugs. I'm not in that circle to know what they do so I'm listening to hearsay. If it's true, I agree they're abusing the system and drug users cannot benefit from the program as it was intended until their underlying disease is confronted. I'd also like to point out that if you get too militant with drug testing it gobbles up the money we're spending in good faith.
I'd say we need a better policy for handling addicts in America. This one isn't working and the vampire life they chose is not compatible with the standards of personal responsibility our civilization is founded. I heard an idea from a friend-- ship them off to a kibbutz type compound somewhere outside mainstream community to earn their drugs and feed/ bury themselves. I really like that idea of terms and conditions for legalized drugs. I don't think tolerating their irresponsible nonsense dumped all over the rest of us is good for America. If you're sick, we'll send you to the sick kibbutz and let you heal yourself on your own dime. If you're willing to wear the t-shirt "will work for drugs" for the rest of your life, fine.
You left out...Only people who are not too fat to walk through the store and do not need to use the electric shopping carts to haul their enormous flabby backsides can use food stamps.
The poorest least educated in America are the most susceptible targets of madison ave marketing. They're living on junkfood believing that's normal. Food to many people is being used as a mini- vacation because it's the closest thing to an affordable indulgence. Stop judging and see the big picture.
Some great points. Did you see Super Size Me ? The movie ?
No I didn't. I'd like to make it clear I'm not trying to pick on a single franchise, but I am saying that getting too far away from the farm stand nutritionally is harming us. Roysoldboy arguments... I respect the farm selling produce. I lose respect for the farm generating mass quantities of fructose that have not only squandered nutrients from the soil but failed to deliver nutrients to the humans and animals they're tasked with feeding. If you look at it honestly I bought an apple that isn't as much of an apple as it was years ago.
Your highest paying customers being fans of vices like moonshine or fructose at the expense of the noble profession farming is... I disagree with agribiz letting itself off the hook. I agree with subsidy for that responsible family farmer but corporations divorcing themselves from ethics is not something I want to support, nor do I have any earthly clue how to defend legit farmers when agribiz lobbyists gobble up 80% of what I'm sending to you in good faith support. How do we fix this? Shall we restrict all govt subsidy to organics and non patented seed crops? Monsanto herding farmers into monopolistic conditions really burns my chops. It's wrong. How do I say so without hurting real farmers? How can ordinary americans help real farmers?
Wow another thread for people to gather 'round, play judge and jury so they can beat up on a group of people less fortunate than themselves. What a fulfilling life that must be for you all.
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