It was when my daughter was on it years ago. Great for little kids but extremely basic and a real PITA to shop for. I can kind of see restricting soda but where do you stop? Candy? All snacks? White bread? Why deprive poor people the little things that might brighten their day?

…but that’s because it was designed for a very specific purpose, whereas SNAP is much more general purpose for all ages.

I was just commenting about why WIC is so restrictive.

See especially the other post by the new "member".

I simply responded to a post from someone about restrictive WIC is.

I'm a little mystified by your post, since I wrote "their" and not "your". I'm not sure how I could have been clearer. You posed a question and I answered it, referring to them, not you.

And, given that the government is paying for it, the government actually has a say in the matter.

Just like the blockade of Gaza is meant to starve and humiliate Palestinians

God forbid, a woman should buy a cake mix, icing and a six pack of pop to celebrate her child’s birthday

Because after all poor kids don’t need to have birthday celebrations

If the sugar in pop is ban worthy, why not ban bags of sugar? Why not ban high fructose corn syrup? Why not ban white flour?

Maybe the grocery police should put all the food with taste in one section and customers would have to prove they don’t use food stamps before they can shop in that section?

Generally democrats believe in people to do the best they can for themselves and their families, it’s republicans that want nanny state laws to punish and humiliate the poor

I honestly don’t know what your reply is supposed to mean

There’s no reason to give putrid repubs any cover

And there’s certainly no reason to act like them

“Wishing you the joy of a welfare Christmas “

They don’t need your help

We as a community are paying for it, including many who are receiving SNAP. It's called commons and we pay for it through taxes. And if the government wants to do something helpful to combat obesity, diabetes, etc., maybe they should try to make Americans lives better by addressing the real causes of financial insecurity, which causes anxiety and illness.

Also, SNAP-Ed, a program created to educated SNAP recipients on nutrition, healthy food choices and cooking, has been completely eliminated. So much for your theory that they're forbidding the purchase of certain foods in order to promote better health.

I was an Employment Specialist for out County's equivalent program to Welfare to Work - that's just background for explanation of my "cred" about this. Part of my job was to approve the continued issuance of food stamps.
I had pretty close relationships with my clients - I liked them.

What I found was that the vast majority were clueless about nutrition. Some didn't even know that vegetables grew from the
ground, but thought they just came in a can. They lived in food deserts - as did their parents and grandparents. I didn't fault my clients about that, it was just the result of generations not understanding or not being taught nutrition in school.

What's needed is instead of requirements for training or work, or in conjunction with that, that there be education in life skills - nutrition, parenting etc with peer support groups lead by informed social workers and educators. Not supporting purchase of foods that are harmful to health is important, no matter how harsh some people may think it is. Good nutrition is a foundation of physical and mental health.

Allowing harmful foods is not helping individuals, but financing their demise.

You never have a soda, or milk shake , or coffee, or any dessert, or potatoes with butter, no fatty gravy, no salty chips or anything unhealthy? Or are your restrictions just for the poor?

I don’t have a problem with education but I learned about food groups , vegetables and fruits in school. I imagine most people had a few classes in nutrition between science and home ec , none of that changes the fact that Americans are supposed to be a free people that can make our own choices

Since I was diagnosed as prediabetic - so no. I admit do drink coffee but not with sugar.
It's not that people must have a pure diet, but they need to know what's good for their health and what's a treat.

You're looking at the issue as a privileged person. No. My clients did not have classes in nutrition.
I taught in the South Bronx when it was considered Fort Apache - so I know a bit about education in underprivileged areas.

People on food assistance usually have a bit of cash and can purchase treats they want. The purpose of food stamps is to ensure that those receiving them get the healthy food they need.

And what can be stored without possible access to refrigeration, and prepared quickly (possibly by children) and requiring minimal equipment to prepare. Especially in a food desert, where if you can find fresh food in bulk, it will inevitably go bad before you can finish it.
Some poor families, especially those bordering on homeless, only have access microwave (if that) and a small ADU or bar refrigerator.
And asking parents who are working multiple shifts to babysit a healthy pot of stew or even dried beans and rice or a healthy baked dish for even the 40 minutes or so to prep and cook healthy meals can be problematic.
Not saying you aren't right, and we should all eat healthier, less processed foods, but I remember living in a van that had a hot plate and 1.5 cuft of "refrigerator" eating dented can tuna fish and expired ramen dinners. And I can remember growing up living in tiny, unfurnished rental homes where we had to wait three months to get a working refrigerator, eating much the same type of bargain bin diet.
In the 1960's.
Poor folks have always had limited options. And with the growing number of homeless and near homeless families out there, renting living space in someone's large Home Depot shed or RV turned into an ADU in the backyard, it's tougher to find ways to store and prepare healthy food.

And yeah, punishing people for being poor is part of the US tradition of avoiding Moral Hazard.
Doesn't matter if you don't have a pot or pan to your name, you're getting only health food and you've got to be able to cook it or eat it raw -and like it. Unlucky folks that need charity need to earn the right to have a treat or make choices...

I've always wondered - why can't Snap, WIC, or Food Stamps include "use once a month" coupons for every member of the household for an unhealthy treat - just for a special occasion?

are on public assistance. They can use that money for occasional treats. What I'm concerned about is that there are healthier options than diet sodas, candy and chips. Where I live there are 'soup kitchens' and food pantries and other programs that provide nutrition for homeless and needy families. Sometimes these meals include treats for children.

I don't think it burdensome to insist that people get food with their assistance rather than poison.

I'm on full disability, and I only get $35 in SNAP benefits per week. That is simply not enough to eat a healthy diet. The only way to survive is to eat highly processed food that is cheap.

I live in a food desert, and I don't even have a car. When I do manage to get a ride, the produce I buy spoils quickly because small town stores don't have a fast turnover.

And guess what's going to happen to food prices, as soon as Trump's anti-immigrant policies start affecting those prices...?

Spoiled produce is money out of my pocket, going into the garbage. Every other morsel of food I buy comes out of my disability benefits. I struggle desperately to eat a healthy diet, and I have managed to lose 50 pounds. I would have been able to lose a lot more, except there are so many times when I am stuck eating processed food, because I can only get a ride to Dollar General.

If my house weren't paid off, or if I had to pay rent? I wouldn't be able to afford food.

Just because you live in a place where there are food kitchens, doesn't mean that the rest of us do. Our food pantry doles out nothing but candy, salty snacks, stale baked goods on the verge of going moldy junk food, and highly processed food. So I don't even bother going there.

Until you've walked a mile in our shoes, you don't know what it's like. Quit commenting on topics you know nothing about.

SNAP-Ed, a program which is supposed educated SNAP recipients about nutrition, including healthy cooking, has been eliminated, proving that this canard about forbidding the purchase of certain food/drink to improve health is pure and unadulterated bullshit.

The GOP would be tickled pink if the poor only got a bag of beans and some rice.

Any form of happiness or indulgence is only meant for those with the financial means.

Sure, processed foods and sugary drinks are bad for our health. Instead of overhauling the nutrition content of what's available on a national level, the poor are shamed.

It's all our fault because the food sold isn't nutritious, therefore our bad health is also our fault. It's our fault we are poor, uneducated, underemployed, and uninsured. We get shamed for buying processed bread and blamed for buying too much steak or seafood.

I've personally been behind someone at the grocery store who had their cart filled with steak, fresh food, olive oil, etc. I saw the sharp looks they got for having the audacity to spend their SNAP benefits on things deemed "too luxurious" for their station in society.

Same for someone with a cart of soft drinks, chips, and hamburger helper. "Too junky"

The poor just can't do it right.

... that stranger pays for those groceries.

How do they know who to watch so carefully? When they see someone who "looks poor," do they poke their nose into that cart?

A lot of times you can hear the cashier ask if it's debit or EBT, because they have to hit a button on their end.

You have more privacy at the self check out, but that hasn't always been the case. Plus, if it's a Spanish looking family with kids, I've seen the glares they sometimes get. Even if they don't use EBT, it's assumed.

Granted I live in a ruby red rural town so that 's likely why I've noticed it. And unfortunately, they likely did learn the hate from their parents.

gets stares. I'm just always amazed every time someone posts on Facebook or writes an LTTE with a highly detailed accounting of what another person is buying, while complaining about the misuse of their tax dollars.

True, it can often be hard to miss what people are buying and how they are paying (and cards in my state are, or at least they were, distinctively designed with a particularly obnoxious color combination; someone even wrote a blog post about it once) -- but a lot of times it can also be easy to look elsewhere. Considering lot of card readers have hoods to keep bystanders from being able to see your pin, to my mind, there is (or should be) an unspoken bit of etiquette about making an effort to mind one's own in the checkout line.

Maybe it's just me going out of my way not to watch someone pay, and find other things to look at. But I'd bet that if I started screaming about people's Wells Fargo or Chase cards and 2 liters of Mountain Dew with any degree of specificity, people might be worried I was trying to skim numbers or something.

will harm them.
There's a middle ground here.
Processed food is harmful and a piece of fruit is a great substitute to a candy bar.

"Harm" how?

They can buy Twinkies, because it's a form of cake. There is no middle ground here. Further restricting what poor people on snap can buy isn't going to anything to help America's health at large. People are going to buy Coke and Twinkies rather they get snap or not. Republicans want to take all snap benefits away, which is why they've been cutting it for decades. Progressives shouldn't use the cruelty of republicans as opportunity to use poor people on snap as guinea pigs to see how much healthier we can make America if we just further control what the poorest people in our society can have.

I remember around 15-20 years ago seeing some Republican asshole spewing on one of the cable news networks about "food stamps." I think it was the scumbag who started the Tea Party. Can't remember his name. His proposal was to literally just hand out bags of beans and rice to the recipients, and that's it. No fruits. No vegetables. No seasonings to flavor the damn beans and rice. No eggs, no canned tuna. Just dried beans and rice, because you poor people don't deserve any enjoyment in life. But, yes. It's is absolutely all about shaming poor people.

BTW, there are states that prohibit the purchase of steak and shrimp/lobster/crab/etc. with EBT benefits. Only the "cheap: fish, like tilapia, whiting, canned tuna allowed. None of that "luxury" stuff for you poors. Not even to celebrate a birthday or other special occasion.

because you can't change how people eat.

It is far cheaper to eat healthy than unhealthy but people want what they want.

A can of Coke is $1 vs a serving of black tea with sugar $0.15

Medium fries $3.50 vs sweet potato $0.90

Bowl of breakfast cereal $1.20 vs 2 eggs $0.80

If that person has no access to a kitchen, you see the problem.

Last edited Wed Jul 30, 2025, 06:15 PM - Edit history (1)

He criticized 'poor people living on fast food and pre-packaged junk.'

I countered that these might be people whose most accessible stores have limited inventories.

These might be people without fully functional kitchens, or the time or capacity to cook "nutritious meals" from a pile of raw ingredients -- imagine if you're struggling with getting to multiple, cobbled together jobs and juggling childcare and parenting responsibilities ... and are maybe reliant on public transportation so have to factor those schedules in, too...

And then there's the basic decency of it. I recently saw a meme about not dumping on someone using SNAP for treats or a birthday cake, imagining the kid who's constantly being told "no."

As for the "government paying for it" -- actually, we the taxpayers do, and that includes many/most people receiving SNAP.
As a taxpayer, I'd feel better about policing someone's groceries if we were policing other beneficiaries of government support, too. Airlines, banks, covid-era programs for business ...

…on the one hand, the “N” in SNAP is for nutrition, and I don’t think too many people would consider sugary sodas and candy to be nutritious. Additionally, people eating/drinking lots of this stuff could well exacerbate health issues that then result in increased Medicaid costs.

On the other hand, doesn’t everyone deserve a treat every now and then? And isn’t it condescending to assume the people on SNAP would spend the majority of their benefits on sugary stuff?

It seems to me that there could be a middle ground, where no more than X% of the monthly benefit could be spent on sugary stuff, but maybe not.

Sugar is fine in moderation,like all foods. Fat is fine in moderation. Salt, likewise, meat, same. most food is fine unless you gorge on it. So focus less on the restrictions and focus more on education.

Track the percentage.

...would be to either have two amounts on one EBT card, and then the registers at checkout would determine which pot of money it comes from, or have a separate card completely, which would be a hassle for the customer.

Not sure you can even have two pots of money on one debit card though.

you have milk. And butter. (And a frig.) And a stove to cook it up.

25 cent box is not cheap.

I'll reassess my opinion that the humiliation currently is one major goal of it.

$6 healthy bread vs $2 processed white bread

Organic? Much more expensive.

The list could go on and on.

And like I mentioned up thread, you're blamed for buying the healthy "luxury" items and shamed for buying the cheaper unhealthy versions.

The focus should be on lifting folks out of poverty instead of chastising them for the food they choose to eat.

As someone who is disabled and depends on a small EBT benefit each month, I can't help but to feel admonished.

I’m very proud to pay taxes to help people eat, maybe it’s the “farmers daughter “ in me but I feel we have too much in this country for anyone to miss a meal

On the other hand I hate thinking my taxes go to pay for bombs that are killing and maiming people that are caged in like animals in Gaza

But that’s just me

Talk about kicking people when they're already down.

Tax money for wars, jets, and yachts are all good but heaven forbid a poor person buys themselves a coke or, as you mentioned upthread, a cake mix for a kids birthday.

Or a school party where u need to send cupcakes or cookies for your kid's class.

Banning certain foods is also offensive because it insinuates that poor people make poor decisions.

Access to healthy food should be a right, not a privilege, and the judgment people face for their choices only adds a purposeful cruelty to an already difficult situation.

And as for the heartless folks who mock, dismiss or minimize the need for food programs? May their pantries be as empty as their character.

No, it's not anyone's business what I buy. Do I get judgemental looks when I use my card? I don't know, and I couldn't care less what nosy nellies think of me.

I'm almost 70 years old, i can decide for myself what is best for me. I receive $300 per month for my disabled spouse and myself. Thats about $70 per week. It's not much, and far from being enough, so yeah, I'm gonna buy the $1.99 store brand white bread instead of the $4.89 healthy wheat bread. I may also purchase a pint of ice-cream once in a while as a treat.
If someone wants to blow their $300 on steak and lobster for one meal, let them. I would bet that 95% of recipients are more responsible with it, though.

I have cravings for ice cream so who would I be to judge that for someone else? And I am not a religions person but "judge not less ye be judged" sounds like very sound advice to me, yes INDEED.

I do have one question though,,,,,,what's wrong with store-brand wheat bread, is that available? That's what I get, I think it's fine.

have one small grocery here. The selection is slim, and the prices are high.
I can get store brand wheat bread, but not whole wheat. That's Sarah Lee brand 😕

I sometimes forget I live in a metroplex - I can get store-brand wheat bread for a couple of bucks and to be honest, I prefer it over Mrs. Bairds

For both, about 80 percent of every food dollar goes toward fruits/vegetables, dairy/eggs/meat, breads, cereal, rice and beans, and prepared foods, while about 20 percent goes toward sweetened beverages, treats and salty snacks.

non-nutritious food would affect very few recipients.

limits or restrictions is that it would add a ridiculous amount of red tape to one of the most successful and efficient programs out there for a "benefit" that can be neither measured nor justified beyond vibes. It simply doesn't want to mess with something that works extremely well. The hype around "unhealthy choices" is (ahem, subsidized) red meat for moral scolds on both the right and left, but in the end, it simply isn't worth the trouble it would cause.

Edited to remove a reference to the troll's screen name, lest people think I was being overly mean.

Fuck authoritarianism, paternalism, and master and slave ideology regardless of whatever political affiliation it rode in on. Some of the responses in this thread are beyond a disgusting exercise of punching down on "those less fortunate." This phony fucking society of "winners and losers" ends when the upper and middle class "responsible taxpayers" and "self-sufficient winners" get their karma and just desserts in the race to the bottom.

The more difficult it is to make use of a program (like snap, in this case) the less aid recipients will use.

Sure, it leaves people hungry, but it "saves money".

Coke and Doritos with their snap card. So that's just a bogey man cooked up by right wing propaganda.

I'll be going through the checkout line with my usual assortment of mostly stuff from the deli, dairy, bakery and produce sections (I do my best to abstain from food that comes in a box or a bag) and the person in front of me will have nothing but boxed and bagged crap on the conveyor. Who knows whether they're paying with EBT or not. The point is that it's astounding the food choices that some folks make.

You're out there doing your best to abstain from food that comes in certain packages, while in the meantime, other folks are out in these streets picking *exactly* the kind of food you're doing your best to abstain from. How very dare they. Using their own money, making their own decisions, right in front of your salad. Feels good, doesn't it?

seriously

and apparently auditing everyone’s grocery cart like it's a national security threat. Heaven forbid someone buys a Fity Fifty Bar for their kid instead of sackcloth and ashes.

I can honestly say I never even fucking NOTICE what others are buying

OR HOW THEY ARE PAYING

about us poor folk. I thought it was the Dems who wanted to uplift us, and the republicans that wanted to be all up in my personal business. 😡

is kind of a membership card where more nutritious foodstuffs are at a significant discount, so if a person on food stamps preferred to buy whole grain bread they would not be penalized because it's so much more expensive? Then there would be credit left over to buy treats.

I don't think that encouraging people to eat more nutritious foods is punishing them or looking down on them.