study shows how 42M recipients spend their food stamps

[Anonymous]

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Junk food is easy. It's tasty! I'm UMC and I love junk food too It's awful for you and I know it. I'm highly educated and I still love it! I don't eat it every day and it's certainly not my go-to meal. But I'm just saying - if you are poor and uneducated - you go for what is easiest, tastiest and that's junk food.

Do you know how much damn time it takes to cook a nutritious farm fresh meal? Sorry but fresh ingredients may be healthy but without a way to make it delicious, it's bland as hell.

I find a lot of healthy stuff like coconut water gross. I find a lot of healthy snacks gross. On the other hand, 3/4 of what you eat that isn't considered junk food - like Kraft Mac and Cheese is not as healthy as you people think. REAL healthy meal take time and effort to prepare. A salad is less yummy without yummy salad dressing. Who sits there and just eats raw veggies all day - are you a rabbit or something?

It's more than providing SNAP benefits to the poor. IT's a cultural thing in the US in terms of eating well prepared foods. Let me just say for the record that 1/2 the stuff sold in Safeway/Giant are pretty bad for you even if it's not Doritos. Between the food coloring, preservatives and salt/sugar content, seriously, you all are eating junk food as well. I'd define most of what's served in our K-12 public schools as junk food - we should probably start defining what healthy food is first!

Who is advocating cooking a farm to table fresh meal? This isn’t a Michelin star restaurant. Tax payers are simply tired of subsidizing high fructose corn syrup. Give the poors a sweet potato. So many cry babies in this thread. Fking grow up.

So what do you eat consistently? You really eating sweet potatoes weekly and drinking only juice and water? Cause your subsidizing something unhealthy even if it's not high fructose corn syrup unless you eat like a rabbit or have a personal chef or devote hours to creating healthy meals for EVERY SINGLE MEAL! It's not about eating Michelin. It's about eating stuff that doesn't contain a ton of chemicals. You have no idea how hard that is - you may not have a ton of it but I guarantee that unless you live on a farm or have a ton of money, you are subsidizing junk food just like we all are.

I am advocating snap benefits exclude soft drinks, and a lot of deserts, and chips and a panel of experts or consultants design a menu of foods that don’t cause cancer and childhood obesity.

We pay for this stuff. Why overburden our health care system? You’re not doing anyone any favors defending cola as a snap choice.

And yes, I generally eat chicken, rice, veggies, a lot of peanut butter and cheap veggies and it’s not
weird and it takes the exact same time to make as any food. Not sure why you’re willing to die on this hill.

How many hours do you work/week? What's your HHI? How old are your children? What's your child care coverage?

Yeah, none of that impacts eating healthy. It’s about choices. We should limit those to healthy foods for snap recipients. You can keep yelling, but it’s just the truth.

If I can go on fking YouTube and learn how to make a huge thing of granola for $5 that will feed me for a week at breakfast, so can the person receiving free subsidized internet. Just saying your excuses are perpetual. We subsidize bad choices at present.

Please source the ingredients and their cost for your 4 lb of homemade granola for $5. Because I don't believe you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Junk food is cheap. Healthy food is expensive. Work from there.

The reality is that preparing healthy food is time-consuming, especially if someone is juggling two jobs or one job and childcare (e.g., getting kids to and from daycare, school, etc). It is exhausting to stand on your feet all day, then stand to cook as well as be present for your kids.

It effing sucks to not have money. My parents stressed over every meal as there were more mouths than portions. I grew up hating cooking because it = stress. Now I generally love to cook, but it took some years to get to that place.

American society is devolving. People ate too quick to make excuses for laziness and nothing is every someones fault anymore. Only slightly more than half of households receiving food stamps, have at least one person that works full-time. So close to half of these people don't even have a full time job and they have plenty of time to cook their own food, if they weren't so lazy. Many of the remaining people on food stamps that can't support themselves are making irresponsible decisions having more children than they can afford. We are subsidizing irresponsible behavior and then many of these people turn around use the money to buy unhealthy food. Once these people get diabetes, Uncle Sam also picks up the tab for their medical bills and the responsible members of society are forced to pay for all of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Junk food is easy. It's tasty! I'm UMC and I love junk food too It's awful for you and I know it. I'm highly educated and I still love it! I don't eat it every day and it's certainly not my go-to meal. But I'm just saying - if you are poor and uneducated - you go for what is easiest, tastiest and that's junk food.

Do you know how much damn time it takes to cook a nutritious farm fresh meal? Sorry but fresh ingredients may be healthy but without a way to make it delicious, it's bland as hell.

I find a lot of healthy stuff like coconut water gross. I find a lot of healthy snacks gross. On the other hand, 3/4 of what you eat that isn't considered junk food - like Kraft Mac and Cheese is not as healthy as you people think. REAL healthy meal take time and effort to prepare. A salad is less yummy without yummy salad dressing. Who sits there and just eats raw veggies all day - are you a rabbit or something?

It's more than providing SNAP benefits to the poor. IT's a cultural thing in the US in terms of eating well prepared foods. Let me just say for the record that 1/2 the stuff sold in Safeway/Giant are pretty bad for you even if it's not Doritos. Between the food coloring, preservatives and salt/sugar content, seriously, you all are eating junk food as well. I'd define most of what's served in our K-12 public schools as junk food - we should probably start defining what healthy food is first!

Who is advocating cooking a farm to table fresh meal? This isn’t a Michelin star restaurant. Tax payers are simply tired of subsidizing high fructose corn syrup. Give the poors a sweet potato. So many cry babies in this thread. Fking grow up.

So what do you eat consistently? You really eating sweet potatoes weekly and drinking only juice and water? Cause your subsidizing something unhealthy even if it's not high fructose corn syrup unless you eat like a rabbit or have a personal chef or devote hours to creating healthy meals for EVERY SINGLE MEAL! It's not about eating Michelin. It's about eating stuff that doesn't contain a ton of chemicals. You have no idea how hard that is - you may not have a ton of it but I guarantee that unless you live on a farm or have a ton of money, you are subsidizing junk food just like we all are.

I am advocating snap benefits exclude soft drinks, and a lot of deserts, and chips and a panel of experts or consultants design a menu of foods that don’t cause cancer and childhood obesity.

We pay for this stuff. Why overburden our health care system? You’re not doing anyone any favors defending cola as a snap choice.

And yes, I generally eat chicken, rice, veggies, a lot of peanut butter and cheap veggies and it’s not
weird and it takes the exact same time to make as any food. Not sure why you’re willing to die on this hill.

How many hours do you work/week? What's your HHI? How old are your children? What's your child care coverage?

Yeah, none of that impacts eating healthy. It’s about choices. We should limit those to healthy foods for snap recipients. You can keep yelling, but it’s just the truth.

If I can go on fking YouTube and learn how to make a huge thing of granola for $5 that will feed me for a week at breakfast, so can the person receiving free subsidized internet. Just saying your excuses are perpetual. We subsidize bad choices at present.

Just another person with no understanding of how poor and working people live. All of that impacts eating healthy. All of it.

LOL on granola - one big sugar carb fest.

You do realize that the majority of folks on SNAP - poor rural whites - often do not have access to an internet because the areas are not wired.

But keep riding your high horse.

Granola can easily be made with no sugar.

As for carbs, you sort of need them to survive. Complex carbs that is.

I mean this. I made like 4 pounds of it for less than $5. I added a less than 1/5 a cup of honey. It’s heart healthy. I really think we are doing the country a disservice by subsidizing so many unhealthy foods like heart clogging chips and diabetes inducing soda. I don’t know why that’s so controversial. We can get a panel of experts (hopefully excluding too much of the junk food industry) to decide which foods should qualify for food stamps. We’d have better outcomes in society.

Go to a Dollar Tree or a Dollar General and make your heart-healthy granola for under $5. It’s called a food dessert, hon. Look it up. Poor people don’t have a Whole Foods or even a Safeway within an accessible distance.

I used to live near a Safeway in one of the poorest parts of my county and the poor people loved to shop there despite the high prices and low-quality food. There was literally a Food Lion that is less than 10 minutes walking distance from the store (prices are significantly lower). However, these people on food stamps did not care, because they view the EBT card as free money. many of them would go to Safeway around the begging of the month (when money is loaded onto the EBT card) and spend the entire monthly budget on one trip at Safeway. They would add soda, chips, and other junk food to their cart at prices that were easily 30-40% than the food lion down the street. Also, I am 100% sure they were using food stamps because I saw them pay with an EBT Card. This program is an utter failure and they need to establish stores specifically for food stamp recipients that do not have junk food. If the government is paying for the food, they should only be allowed to shop at these healthy food stamp stores and no where else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is this regressive, cruel, right wing nonsense?

"SNAP is good for local economies – each dollar in federally funded SNAP benefits generates $1.79 in economic activity."

“children in families receiving SNAP were significantly more likely to be classified as ‘well’ than young children whose families were eligible but did not receive SNAP.”

"There is strong evidence of SNAP’s effectiveness in alleviating food insecurity. Two studies included in the recent “Long-Term Benefits of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program” White House Report demonstrate this point. Mabli and Ohls (2015) compared households’ state of food security before and after receiving SNAP benefits and found that “SNAP participation reduced the overall fraction of households that were food insecure and the fraction that were very low food secure by around 17 percent and 19 percent, respectively. "

https://frac.org/programs/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap/positive-effect-snap-benefits-participants-communities#:~:text=Economic%20Impacts&text=For%20example%2C%20SNAP%20is%20good,supports%20for%20low%2Dincome%20families.

SNAP is a fantastic program that has significantly improved access to food and childhood nutrition. Poor people should be allowed small edible luxuries like chips and soda just like you and I are. To suggest otherwise is heartless and inhuman. Shame on everyone spouting this horrible anti-poor filth in this thread.

I am on SNAP and I actually agree that sodas shouldn’t be allowed.

[Anonymous]

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How about this? Defund the government.

How about no? I like having schools, roads, police and fire departments, airports, etc.

How about we just take soda off SNAP benefits?

Jinx!

*you owe me a soda, and please don’t use SNAP to buy it.

(haha like anyone here uses SNAP)

DP.
I do, but I support the soda idea

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a pretty significant stat from OP:

“Food stamp enrollment has increased significantly, surging from 17.3 million individuals in 2001 to 42.1 million in 2023.”


Maybe we should look at the reason for the surge and how to get people off food stamps.

Willing to bet it’s all the refugees - Central America continues to deliver but now there’s also Ukraine and to some extent Russia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Junk food is cheap. Healthy food is expensive. Work from there.

The reality is that preparing healthy food is time-consuming, especially if someone is juggling two jobs or one job and childcare (e.g., getting kids to and from daycare, school, etc). It is exhausting to stand on your feet all day, then stand to cook as well as be present for your kids.

It effing sucks to not have money. My parents stressed over every meal as there were more mouths than portions. I grew up hating cooking because it = stress. Now I generally love to cook, but it took some years to get to that place.

American society is devolving. People ate too quick to make excuses for laziness and nothing is every someones fault anymore. Only slightly more than half of households receiving food stamps, have at least one person that works full-time. So close to half of these people don't even have a full time job and they have plenty of time to cook their own food, if they weren't so lazy. Many of the remaining people on food stamps that can't support themselves are making irresponsible decisions having more children than they can afford. We are subsidizing irresponsible behavior and then many of these people turn around use the money to buy unhealthy food. Once these people get diabetes, Uncle Sam also picks up the tab for their medical bills and the responsible members of society are forced to pay for all of it.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:And it’s not pretty. Or healthy.

EPIC Report: Food Stamps: A Culture of Dependency
Matthew Dickerson
May 8, 2024
The story of the food stamp program is one of expanding enrollment, higher spending, benefit payments growing faster than inflation, little work by recipients, and ultimately, a greater dependence on taxpayers.

Food stamp enrollment has increased significantly, surging from 17.3 million individuals in 2001 to 42.1 million in 2023.

https://epicforamerica.org/blog/epic-report-food-stamps-a-culture-of-dependency/


— Coca-Cola, Sprite and other soft drinks are the most commonly-bought items via the $135 billion-a-year Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a new study says.

— Candy, potato chips, frozen pizza, ice cream, cookies, and other ultra-processed food dominates the top 20 items, says a report from the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC).

— Recipients spend much of their benefits on junk food, such as soft drinks, chips and other bag snacks, breakfast cereals, frozen handheld snacks, candy, frozen pizza, ice cream coffee creamer, and cookies.



SNAP costs have exploded from $31 billion to $135 billion, his report says, using inflation-adjusted numbers.

Should the government adjust the benefits so that some foods or drinks are not covered? I would think at least making soda unable to be purchased on SNAP would be a good thing.

OMG. You are a monster. I work with the disabled population.

You try being disabled and eating on $35 a week.

Just STFU.

I am the disabled population. So you STFU you abled, lying monster.

And so you want no money at all for food?

What is wrong with you?

Unlike you, I want the disabled to have money for food, and don't want to punish them by deeming certain foods unfit for them.

Because 1 person says no soda, the other says no chips, another doesn't want SNAP people to buy meat, another says no seafood.

This has all been talked about in the past.

And I can see from the website that the EPIC aholes that published this are right wing hatchet pen.

Snap recipient here. Ban the foods that have been scientifically proven to cause more harm than good and to have zero nutrition value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think eliminating soda is a pretty easy fix. Soda has no nutritional value and is bad for your health. Do people realize that SNAP mothers give their very young children soda? Would you give your own toddler soda? I have seen soda given to children still in diapers.

Why do you get to make the call on what the poor and disabled eat?

DP but some decisions have to ve made for people who are too dumb. Like seatbelts for example

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Judge not lest ye be judged.

I imagine life is pretty miserable if you rely on SNAP. Why is it so awful to let people make their own choices, even if they are not the choices you would make?

Snap recipient. I am fine. I don’t need soda to feel better

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dad was one of the authors of the 1964 food stamp act and he became extremely disillusioned with how it evolved following his time in the government. It really was a good idea at its core but quickly gave way to special interests and lobbyists and stopped being something designed to help those in need.

Just as about any noble cause in the U.S.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These conversations always hinge on the idea that we have any right to judge what poor people choose to eat. It's pretty gross. Would you want people telling you what you can and can't purchase for your family?

I don't care if taxes are paying for it. Our taxes pay for a lot of stuff we have no say in, especially tax breaks for rich people and bailouts for corporations which they then spend on stock buy backs.

You are not morally superior to poor people. There are systemic reasons for the choices they make. Fix those.

This is almost like leaving mentally ill people to fend for themselves for fear of involuntary commitment… we see the results every day, it’s zombie apocalypse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Judge not lest ye be judged.

I imagine life is pretty miserable if you rely on SNAP. Why is it so awful to let people make their own choices, even if they are not the choices you would make?

Because those choices are not in the best interest of the person. Why should we subsidize “foods” with no nutritional value that will likely contribute to the person becoming overweight and diabetic. This seems like common sense to me.

But, but, but… the freedumb!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In looking at the data from the report, soft drinks top the list, but they are followed by milk, beef, cheese, bread, cereal, chicken, water, etc. Candy is at no. 11. At least half of the list are "normal" foods. But also, many items on the list can be bought for cheap. Totino's frozen pizza is less than $3; a large bag of low-end corn chips is also less than $3. If you are working two jobs to make ends meet, frozen meals or Hamburger Helper meals are easy and cheap.

It sounds like the organization that published the report is very right-leaning (and a little googling shows it is indeed conservative), so there is a certain slant to it -- the talk about "able-bodied" recipients is a dead-giveaway. Remember, some families with young children cannot work if they do not have care for their children.

Able bodied adults without dependents (ABAWD) is actually an official snap program term

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And it’s not pretty. Or healthy.

EPIC Report: Food Stamps: A Culture of Dependency
Matthew Dickerson
May 8, 2024
The story of the food stamp program is one of expanding enrollment, higher spending, benefit payments growing faster than inflation, little work by recipients, and ultimately, a greater dependence on taxpayers.

Food stamp enrollment has increased significantly, surging from 17.3 million individuals in 2001 to 42.1 million in 2023.

https://epicforamerica.org/blog/epic-report-food-stamps-a-culture-of-dependency/


— Coca-Cola, Sprite and other soft drinks are the most commonly-bought items via the $135 billion-a-year Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a new study says.

— Candy, potato chips, frozen pizza, ice cream, cookies, and other ultra-processed food dominates the top 20 items, says a report from the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC).

— Recipients spend much of their benefits on junk food, such as soft drinks, chips and other bag snacks, breakfast cereals, frozen handheld snacks, candy, frozen pizza, ice cream coffee creamer, and cookies.



SNAP costs have exploded from $31 billion to $135 billion, his report says, using inflation-adjusted numbers.

Should the government adjust the benefits so that some foods or drinks are not covered? I would think at least making soda unable to be purchased on SNAP would be a good thing.

OMG. You are a monster. I work with the disabled population.

You try being disabled and eating on $35 a week.

Just STFU.

I am the disabled population. So you STFU you abled, lying monster.

And so you want no money at all for food?

What is wrong with you?

Unlike you, I want the disabled to have money for food, and don't want to punish them by deeming certain foods unfit for them.

Because 1 person says no soda, the other says no chips, another doesn't want SNAP people to buy meat, another says no seafood.

This has all been talked about in the past.

And I can see from the website that the EPIC aholes that published this are right wing hatchet pen.

Snap recipient here. Ban the foods that have been scientifically proven to cause more harm than good and to have zero nutrition value.

Ban them for everyone.