5 ms·

you know how much fruit/vegetables cost right? stop policing what people buy with their food stamps. what's the #1 item people on SNAP buy? Soda. what's the #2

by swang 7y ago

you know how much fruit/vegetables cost right? stop policing what people buy with their food stamps. what's the #1 item people on SNAP buy? Soda. what's the #2 item people not on SNAP buy? Soda. What's the #2 item on SNAP? Milk #1 on non-SNAP buyers? Milk It's not much difference between what people on SNAP and not on SNAP buy. It's just people not minding their own business because they think people don't deserve food stamps. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/food-stamps-diet_n_582f4bd7e4b058ce7aaadea0 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/food-stamps-diet_n_582f4bd7e4... You want to force people to buy healthier food? Provide more for food stamps.

siphon22 7y ago
What makes you think they'll buy more healthier food instead of just getting even more junk? That's like giving more heroin to a junky in hopes that'll he'll shoot up less.
- swang 7y ago
  OP said we should restrict items to healthier foods. My response to that is I'm for that if you increase the amount to match the cost of fruits, vegetables, and meats. And honestly comparing people on food stamps to heroin junkies is disgusting. These people aren't addicted to potato chips. There are obviously people who abuse the SNAP program but you think people want to remain fat and unhealthy? The amount given to people on SNAP is not enough to pay for healthy foods. So given the choice between eating potato chips and not eating.. What options are you giving them?
  - siphon22 7y ago
    I think anyone who overindulges in soda and other junk are junkies. The people who buy them off SNAP are no better. I think it may be a lack of education or cultural or even psychological thing. If the SNAP isn't providing enough, and you have this little amount of money to spend on soda and chips which provide 10x more pleasure than spending the same money on some fruit, I would probably be a junkie too. (Personally I have lived like that before). But I doubt that giving more money would help unless we try to push people toward better options at the same time. Now I avoid soda(especially) and junk like the plague, because I've changed my mindset and outlook on things. For me, it's better to eat less overall(not enough calories) or just miss the meal until the next opportunity than eating junk food. That's because I've experienced what consuming that trash is like versus eating healthily. But other people may not have the same experience or education or culture to reach the same conclusion. I am quite fond of the Japanese portion sizes for instance. I'm also really into fasts. I think everyone should learn that you don't need to always be eating 3-4 meals every single day outside of specific situations.
    - qwsxyh 7y ago
      > For me, it's better to eat less overall(not enough calories) or just miss the meal until the next opportunity than eating junk food. This is called an eating disorder.
      - siphon22 7y ago
        Well that's uncalled for. I regularly lift weights and consider myself fairly healthy. I have an eating disorder if I skip a meal in a scenario where the only option is junk food? To be fair, I skip the meal until I get a chance to eat something nice, and I'll usually eat an extra big meal to make up for the missed one.
logfromblammo 7y ago
The more I think about it, the more I convince myself that charitable food security benefits should not be distributed as a cash-equivalent. Food stamps don't bring grocery stores into food deserts. And food stamps don't stop the corner store from charging $2/lb for bananas when a suburban grocery store is charging $0.60/lb for them. If you pump more money into EBT/SNAP/WIC, the bananas go up to $3/lb, and the people still get fat while hungry. There's always a way for someone to siphon the value out of a cash entitlement benefit. I think food security might be better served in the short term by using the funds to buy market baskets similar to those provided by farm shares, and deliver the food directly to the recipients, or at least to walkable distribution points. In the long term, the money has to be used to produce a surplus of food beyond what the cash market currently provides, to be put into a separate supply chain that is resistant to diversion or manipulation by middlemen. This goes hand-in-hand with housing security, where the government builds new housing units, to rent or condo, then uses some percentage of them for housing-insecure people, at reduced cost to them. It doesn't do as much good to get a free (to you) 10# bag of government potatoes if you don't have anywhere to safely cook them. You can't push a string. You can't pull sand. Pumping more money into a community is not going to change anything when its defining characteristic is that the mechanisms to move money out are already limited by the amount of money left inside.
- milesokeefe 7y ago
  This already exists in a form alongside SNAP, called TEFAP[1]. Except food isn't directly distributed to receipts, instead it goes to soup kitchens, food pantries, local distribution organizations and the like. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Emergency_Food_Assistance_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Emergency_Food_Assis...

by swang 7y ago

siphon22 7y ago

What makes you think they'll buy more healthier food instead of just getting even more junk? That's like giving more heroin to a junky in hopes that'll he'll shoot up less.

swang 7y ago
OP said we should restrict items to healthier foods. My response to that is I'm for that if you increase the amount to match the cost of fruits, vegetables, and meats. And honestly comparing people on food stamps to heroin junkies is disgusting. These people aren't addicted to potato chips. There are obviously people who abuse the SNAP program but you think people want to remain fat and unhealthy? The amount given to people on SNAP is not enough to pay for healthy foods. So given the choice between eating potato chips and not eating.. What options are you giving them?
- siphon22 7y ago
  I think anyone who overindulges in soda and other junk are junkies. The people who buy them off SNAP are no better. I think it may be a lack of education or cultural or even psychological thing. If the SNAP isn't providing enough, and you have this little amount of money to spend on soda and chips which provide 10x more pleasure than spending the same money on some fruit, I would probably be a junkie too. (Personally I have lived like that before). But I doubt that giving more money would help unless we try to push people toward better options at the same time. Now I avoid soda(especially) and junk like the plague, because I've changed my mindset and outlook on things. For me, it's better to eat less overall(not enough calories) or just miss the meal until the next opportunity than eating junk food. That's because I've experienced what consuming that trash is like versus eating healthily. But other people may not have the same experience or education or culture to reach the same conclusion. I am quite fond of the Japanese portion sizes for instance. I'm also really into fasts. I think everyone should learn that you don't need to always be eating 3-4 meals every single day outside of specific situations.
  - qwsxyh 7y ago
    > For me, it's better to eat less overall(not enough calories) or just miss the meal until the next opportunity than eating junk food. This is called an eating disorder.
    - siphon22 7y ago
      Well that's uncalled for. I regularly lift weights and consider myself fairly healthy. I have an eating disorder if I skip a meal in a scenario where the only option is junk food? To be fair, I skip the meal until I get a chance to eat something nice, and I'll usually eat an extra big meal to make up for the missed one.

logfromblammo 7y ago

The more I think about it, the more I convince myself that charitable food security benefits should not be distributed as a cash-equivalent. Food stamps don't bring grocery stores into food deserts. And food stamps don't stop the corner store from charging $2/lb for bananas when a suburban grocery store is charging $0.60/lb for them. If you pump more money into EBT/SNAP/WIC, the bananas go up to $3/lb, and the people still get fat while hungry. There's always a way for someone to siphon the value out of a cash entitlement benefit. I think food security might be better served in the short term by using the funds to buy market baskets similar to those provided by farm shares, and deliver the food directly to the recipients, or at least to walkable distribution points. In the long term, the money has to be used to produce a surplus of food beyond what the cash market currently provides, to be put into a separate supply chain that is resistant to diversion or manipulation by middlemen. This goes hand-in-hand with housing security, where the government builds new housing units, to rent or condo, then uses some percentage of them for housing-insecure people, at reduced cost to them. It doesn't do as much good to get a free (to you) 10# bag of government potatoes if you don't have anywhere to safely cook them. You can't push a string. You can't pull sand. Pumping more money into a community is not going to change anything when its defining characteristic is that the mechanisms to move money out are already limited by the amount of money left inside.

milesokeefe 7y ago
This already exists in a form alongside SNAP, called TEFAP[1]. Except food isn't directly distributed to receipts, instead it goes to soup kitchens, food pantries, local distribution organizations and the like. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Emergency_Food_Assistance_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Emergency_Food_Assis...