5 ms·

Is that a historical thing? In the US you get a SNAP card and can buy fresh produce at the store. I shop at a low-income focused grocery store (because it’s the

Is that a historical thing? In the US you get a SNAP card and can buy fresh produce at the store. I shop at a low-income focused grocery store (because it’s the same stuff but cheaper) and most people are using SNAP benefits and carts are always a mix of healthy stuff to unhealthy frozen junk.

fbdab103 4y ago
When you are poor, you have to be frugal in all things. Even "free money" needs to be spent judiciously. Junk foods will extend your dollar further and are typically faster to prepare than alternatives.
- monero-xmr 4y ago
  Hmm… junk food is generally more expensive than rice, beans, canned veggies, frozen veggies. Look at the prices for a bag of chips and it’s pretty expensive.
  - troupe 4y ago
    I sat down with someone who said their family was starving because they couldn't get enough food from their snap benefits. We went through how much they had and put together a healthy basic menu (rice, beans, etc.) that would make sure no one was starving and they still had about 50% left over to use for buying whatever nice to haves they wanted. I suggested the look for items that were on sale to add to their basic menu. We had even factored in buying pots and pans. They looked at what we had put together and said, "My kids won't eat that." While they definitely had financial difficulties to overcome, it wasn't a lack of resources that was their biggest barrier.
    - mhuffman 4y ago
      >They looked at what we had put together and said, "My kids won't eat that." This is very common for people I know these days (including my own kids, sadly). It is interesting that when I was young (and we were very, very poor) we (the kids) never had an option. We could eat what we were given or not eat at all, that was the choice we got. And we mostly ate what we were given.
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  >Junk foods will extend your dollar further That's just not true. People who live in actually impovrished countries don't eat junk food; they eat rice and eggs. The US has a %40 obesity rate. That doesn't come from "extending your dollar." Poorer people have an even higher obesity rate on average in the US. That doesn't suddenly mean that "junk food will extend your dollar further." What we really need is to limit food stamps (or SNAP, EBT, whatever name) to healthier options. Junk food and fast food may be easier but becoming obease is a terrable financial decision which will increase medical cost, may cause diabetes, drain evergy ect. all which have a disproportionate effect on poorer people. I don't blame people for taking the faster and tastier option but the government should not allow food stamps to buy soda, doughnuts ect. in place of cheap eggs, rice and beans.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    > What we really need is to limit food stamps (or SNAP, EBT, whatever name) to healthier options. That'd be super fun for me, as a person with MS. I literally don't have the energy to cook a lot of the time, and am often only awake for 1-2 hours when I'm not at work, during which time I already have to shower, do chores, pay bills, etc. Oh, and I'm hypotensive and on medication that often means I don't feel hungry. Junk food is great because it's so easy to eat even when you don't feel hungry. Eating healthy foods often results in me severely undereating calorie wise which causes more problems. Junk food is also easy to snack on at work because I don't get sit down breaks some days. A little salt every few hours keeps me from fainting. And RIP anybody with any kind of dietary restrictions.
    - monero-xmr 4y ago
      The grocery store has food for all manner of diets and it takes SNAP. I don’t think your story negates the crux of the matter. It’s great junk food is healthy for you.
      - Mezzie 4y ago
        Yes, and currently I use my SNAP on junk food. If it were restricted, I'd have major issues eating because what is and isn't healthy would be determined by upper-middle class people who work in think tanks and based off of some weird ideal diet, completely ignoring the varying health needs and ability levels of the people actually using SNAP.
bluedino 4y ago
The excuse for this is they either don't know how to cook, or don't have the staples to cook, or they don't have the time to cook.
- monero-xmr 4y ago
  It’s hard for me to feel bad when everything possible is in front of you and you still make a poor life decision. You can be poor and still be willfully unhealthy, same as the rich.
  - steele 4y ago
    How many cancer treatments poor life decisions are you away from homelessness?
    - monero-xmr 4y ago
      I think that is a specious argument that is unrelated to the larger point - in 2022 SNAP benefits provide poor people with enough free food to eat healthy, if they choose to.
      - steele 4y ago
        sure, if they have papers, can navigate application, and can absorb the various stigma associated with it. but hey, you're only a debilitating illness away from SNAP benefits!
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  You sound out of touch with society. Many poor people don't have time to cook. They might have multiple jobs that take up all of their time. Transportation is a big issue as well. And any disability they may have. Most of America has horrible public transit. I don't know if it would even be possible for me to get onto a bus from my house to the nearest grocery store without first walking a mile. Some of the bus routes in this town turn what would be a 15min trip in a car to a ~2hr trip with a transfer in the middle. In 2011, I briefly lived in a house in Northeast Tacoma, right by Dash Point State Park. Beautiful area. No buses. There wasn't even a sidewalk on the road I had to walk along to get to the bus. It was a mile walk from my house to a bus stop in Federal Way. From there I could get to a hub and get on another bus to anywhere I wanted. It was awful.
dionidium 4y ago
You're going to get pushback on this commonsense understanding of the world, but I've been on food stamps and of course you're right. "It's more complicated than that." No it isn't. Poor people shop at the same stores as everybody else. The food is all there. "They don't know the difference between healthy and unhealthy meals." How stupid do you think poor people are? They know how to prepare a healthy meal. The notion that this is just completely beyond the abilities of poor folks is risible. "They don't have as much time to prepare meals." Yes, they do. They have time to prepare a meal. Of course they do. Maybe not every single night, but they can make it work. (In fact, in the United States upper-income earners work more hours than those at the bottom [0].) It's just an endless array of easily-overcome excuses (mostly from people who have never been poor and don't actually know any poor people). [0] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/working-hours-america-income-economy/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/working-hours-america...
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  "(In fact, in the United States upper-income earners work more hours than those at the bottom [0].)" I don't think this includes commute times or waiting in line for a security check. But maybe it does since these are all self-reported figures.
- UweSchmidt 4y ago
  Anything can be overcome, humans can do anything (get out of poverty, convert to healthy living, run marathons, stop smoking....) yet the majority (of a huge sample size of humans) is stuck in their way, held down by environmental conditions and, if you will, by limits in the human condition or whatever. If it could be fixed by telling people to "try harder" they would have by now, no? The answer is to alleviate the environmental conditions. You have mentioned in another post that you have benefitted from food stamps for a while (did I understand that right?), allowing you to eat healthy; other people need that and maybe a little additional help with food, housing and clothing (all of it basic human rights anyway and relatively cheap to provide for in a modern society) to reduce the pressure and higher order effects of not having that safety net.
  - 4y ago
steele 4y ago
Google food desert

fbdab103 4y ago

When you are poor, you have to be frugal in all things. Even "free money" needs to be spent judiciously. Junk foods will extend your dollar further and are typically faster to prepare than alternatives.

monero-xmr 4y ago
Hmm… junk food is generally more expensive than rice, beans, canned veggies, frozen veggies. Look at the prices for a bag of chips and it’s pretty expensive.
- troupe 4y ago
  I sat down with someone who said their family was starving because they couldn't get enough food from their snap benefits. We went through how much they had and put together a healthy basic menu (rice, beans, etc.) that would make sure no one was starving and they still had about 50% left over to use for buying whatever nice to haves they wanted. I suggested the look for items that were on sale to add to their basic menu. We had even factored in buying pots and pans. They looked at what we had put together and said, "My kids won't eat that." While they definitely had financial difficulties to overcome, it wasn't a lack of resources that was their biggest barrier.
  - mhuffman 4y ago
    >They looked at what we had put together and said, "My kids won't eat that." This is very common for people I know these days (including my own kids, sadly). It is interesting that when I was young (and we were very, very poor) we (the kids) never had an option. We could eat what we were given or not eat at all, that was the choice we got. And we mostly ate what we were given.
Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
>Junk foods will extend your dollar further That's just not true. People who live in actually impovrished countries don't eat junk food; they eat rice and eggs. The US has a %40 obesity rate. That doesn't come from "extending your dollar." Poorer people have an even higher obesity rate on average in the US. That doesn't suddenly mean that "junk food will extend your dollar further." What we really need is to limit food stamps (or SNAP, EBT, whatever name) to healthier options. Junk food and fast food may be easier but becoming obease is a terrable financial decision which will increase medical cost, may cause diabetes, drain evergy ect. all which have a disproportionate effect on poorer people. I don't blame people for taking the faster and tastier option but the government should not allow food stamps to buy soda, doughnuts ect. in place of cheap eggs, rice and beans.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  > What we really need is to limit food stamps (or SNAP, EBT, whatever name) to healthier options. That'd be super fun for me, as a person with MS. I literally don't have the energy to cook a lot of the time, and am often only awake for 1-2 hours when I'm not at work, during which time I already have to shower, do chores, pay bills, etc. Oh, and I'm hypotensive and on medication that often means I don't feel hungry. Junk food is great because it's so easy to eat even when you don't feel hungry. Eating healthy foods often results in me severely undereating calorie wise which causes more problems. Junk food is also easy to snack on at work because I don't get sit down breaks some days. A little salt every few hours keeps me from fainting. And RIP anybody with any kind of dietary restrictions.
  - monero-xmr 4y ago
    The grocery store has food for all manner of diets and it takes SNAP. I don’t think your story negates the crux of the matter. It’s great junk food is healthy for you.
    - Mezzie 4y ago
      Yes, and currently I use my SNAP on junk food. If it were restricted, I'd have major issues eating because what is and isn't healthy would be determined by upper-middle class people who work in think tanks and based off of some weird ideal diet, completely ignoring the varying health needs and ability levels of the people actually using SNAP.

bluedino 4y ago

The excuse for this is they either don't know how to cook, or don't have the staples to cook, or they don't have the time to cook.

monero-xmr 4y ago
It’s hard for me to feel bad when everything possible is in front of you and you still make a poor life decision. You can be poor and still be willfully unhealthy, same as the rich.
- steele 4y ago
  How many cancer treatments poor life decisions are you away from homelessness?
  - monero-xmr 4y ago
    I think that is a specious argument that is unrelated to the larger point - in 2022 SNAP benefits provide poor people with enough free food to eat healthy, if they choose to.
    - steele 4y ago
      sure, if they have papers, can navigate application, and can absorb the various stigma associated with it. but hey, you're only a debilitating illness away from SNAP benefits!
zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
You sound out of touch with society. Many poor people don't have time to cook. They might have multiple jobs that take up all of their time. Transportation is a big issue as well. And any disability they may have. Most of America has horrible public transit. I don't know if it would even be possible for me to get onto a bus from my house to the nearest grocery store without first walking a mile. Some of the bus routes in this town turn what would be a 15min trip in a car to a ~2hr trip with a transfer in the middle. In 2011, I briefly lived in a house in Northeast Tacoma, right by Dash Point State Park. Beautiful area. No buses. There wasn't even a sidewalk on the road I had to walk along to get to the bus. It was a mile walk from my house to a bus stop in Federal Way. From there I could get to a hub and get on another bus to anywhere I wanted. It was awful.

dionidium 4y ago

You're going to get pushback on this commonsense understanding of the world, but I've been on food stamps and of course you're right. "It's more complicated than that." No it isn't. Poor people shop at the same stores as everybody else. The food is all there. "They don't know the difference between healthy and unhealthy meals." How stupid do you think poor people are? They know how to prepare a healthy meal. The notion that this is just completely beyond the abilities of poor folks is risible. "They don't have as much time to prepare meals." Yes, they do. They have time to prepare a meal. Of course they do. Maybe not every single night, but they can make it work. (In fact, in the United States upper-income earners work more hours than those at the bottom [0].) It's just an endless array of easily-overcome excuses (mostly from people who have never been poor and don't actually know any poor people). [0] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/working-hours-america-income-economy/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/working-hours-america...

anonymouskimmer 4y ago
"(In fact, in the United States upper-income earners work more hours than those at the bottom [0].)" I don't think this includes commute times or waiting in line for a security check. But maybe it does since these are all self-reported figures.
UweSchmidt 4y ago
Anything can be overcome, humans can do anything (get out of poverty, convert to healthy living, run marathons, stop smoking....) yet the majority (of a huge sample size of humans) is stuck in their way, held down by environmental conditions and, if you will, by limits in the human condition or whatever. If it could be fixed by telling people to "try harder" they would have by now, no? The answer is to alleviate the environmental conditions. You have mentioned in another post that you have benefitted from food stamps for a while (did I understand that right?), allowing you to eat healthy; other people need that and maybe a little additional help with food, housing and clothing (all of it basic human rights anyway and relatively cheap to provide for in a modern society) to reduce the pressure and higher order effects of not having that safety net.
- 4y ago

steele 4y ago

Google food desert