SNAP study is just gross
janeite1990
Posts: 671 Member
Caution, you may see this as a political rant. If you don't like those, hit the back button.
This link:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/menu/Published/snap/FILES/ProgramOperations/FSPFoodRestrictions.pdf
Will take you to the federal government's justification for not restricting the type of food items bought with SNAP, or food stamps. For example, the SNAP website says
oft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items
Seafood, steak, and bakery cakes are also food items and are therefore eligible items
Since the current definition of food is a specific part of the Act, any change to this definition would require action by a member of Congress. Several times in the history of SNAP, Congress had considered placing limits on the types of food that could be purchased with program benefits. However, they concluded that designating foods as luxury or non-nutritious would be administratively costly and burdensome.
That last sentence is just dumb in the first place. Really? It is too costly to say sodas can't be bought with SNAP, so it costs less to pay for them?
Then, within the document, there are the most idiotic comparisons. An example:
"Some candy bars have a lower percentage of calories from fat and less saturated fat than a
serving of cheddar cheese."
Yeah, no ****. Except the cheese also has nutrients, and most candy bars are just sugar and fat. Bud don't look at that part, it is too administratively burdensome to think about that.
Ug, I had a feeling that program was a waste. Now I'm sure.
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This link:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/menu/Published/snap/FILES/ProgramOperations/FSPFoodRestrictions.pdf
Will take you to the federal government's justification for not restricting the type of food items bought with SNAP, or food stamps. For example, the SNAP website says
oft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items
Seafood, steak, and bakery cakes are also food items and are therefore eligible items
Since the current definition of food is a specific part of the Act, any change to this definition would require action by a member of Congress. Several times in the history of SNAP, Congress had considered placing limits on the types of food that could be purchased with program benefits. However, they concluded that designating foods as luxury or non-nutritious would be administratively costly and burdensome.
That last sentence is just dumb in the first place. Really? It is too costly to say sodas can't be bought with SNAP, so it costs less to pay for them?
Then, within the document, there are the most idiotic comparisons. An example:
"Some candy bars have a lower percentage of calories from fat and less saturated fat than a
serving of cheddar cheese."
Yeah, no ****. Except the cheese also has nutrients, and most candy bars are just sugar and fat. Bud don't look at that part, it is too administratively burdensome to think about that.
Ug, I had a feeling that program was a waste. Now I'm sure.
****STAFF NOTE: Post has been locked*****
I wanted to offer a brief explanation for the locking of this thread.
The forum guidelines include this item:
16. No Political Topics in the Main Forums
Political content is not allowed on the Main Forums. This includes images. Please form or join a Group if you would like to engage in political debate on MyFitnessPal. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups
If you would like to review the forum guidelines, please visit the following link:
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At our discretion, this locked thread may be deleted entirely in the near future.
With respect,
Scott
MyFitnessPal Staff
0
Replies
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The costly part obviously isn't saying that something is bad and should not be purchased with SNAP benefits. The costly part is the huge government bureaucracy that would be required to enforce the changes once they were enacted.
That is not to say it can't be done. The WIC program is a great example of providing families with nutritious food.0 -
I agree with what you're saying, but then if the mechanisms were put into place to regulate the nutritional quality of the food that is purchased, people would complain about the cost of that, too. Of course, the only real solution would be for people to make quality food choices, but we all know that's not going to happen.0
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God forbid low-income families occasionally treat themselves to a candy bar. The program is not a waste. Let people make their own decisions.0
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God forbid low-income families occasionally treat themselves to a candy bar.
This!0 -
Have you ever had to use the program? Your attitude is just gross.0
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Well I feed my kids foo from the garden and I but mostly whole grain breads and lean meats. But on occasion I also need to buy them some sweats, or candy for easter, christmas etc, and do to my current finacial situation if I didnt have SNAP benefits I wouldnt eat. So I believe it is the one who is receiving the SNAP benefits to determine wheather they want to get clean and healthy, not for the goverment or you to regulate it!!! Thanks0
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Might not be related, but i'm a cashier and someone bought i tiny $50 jar of caviar with their access card today... My week's worth of groceries only cost $35 (and that's WITH vegan icecream and chocolate covered cherries)0
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Placing restrictions on what they can buy might be confusing. If they didn't have the right items, the cashier would have to tell them that they did not buy the eligible items for the SNAP program. That would be humiliating. Doesn't everyone deserve a treat once in a while anyway? I am glad that food stamps exist so people do not have to starve.0
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Right, but it's the taxpayers' money. Limiting their food choices to reasonable ones (like no candy, cookies, dessert, etc) seems perfectly reasonable. When you get a handout, how can you complain you can't waste it on non-nutritious items? That then adds to health care costs in the country, it just doesn't seem like something a rational society would allow when they're paying for it. Fwiw, you could treat yourself to a candy bar if you want, but it would be out of your own pocket. The point of a handout for people getting food is they eat food that will help them live, not kill them.0
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It is a waste when large numbers of people buy nothing BUT candy bars and soda and chips and corn dogs and frozen pizzas and they feed their children with this. Children already suffer severely from lack of rights in this country, it's even worse when they can't even be fed proper foods and are molded into people who make bad nutritional choices in adulthood and perpetuate that on their own children whether they get food stamps or not.God forbid low-income families occasionally treat themselves to a candy bar. The program is not a waste. Let people make their own decisions.
Although I hate not being able to chose where my tax money goes to in general.0 -
God forbid low-income families occasionally treat themselves to a candy bar. The program is not a waste. Let people make their own decisions.
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
-Benjamin Franklin0 -
a lil insulted by this crap. My family is on foodstamps. My bf is the only one working. I have been struggling to find a job for the last year or so. I buy low calorie snack crackers, and I dont eat them all the time. I eat them when I am really low on cals or wanting a change of pace from my normal snack. I do not purchase anything from bakery as it is expensive not very healthy. Once in a blue moon I get the kids junk food but not very often. It is more like a treat for good behavior or good grades. You are labeling people and that is not ok. Not everyone fits into one freaking stereotype.0
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The costly part obviously isn't saying that something is bad and should not be purchased with SNAP benefits. The costly part is the huge government bureaucracy that would be required to enforce the changes once they were enacted.
That is not to say it can't be done. The WIC program is a great example of providing families with nutritious food.
I've been on food stamps (Lonestar Card) before, and a good friend of mine was on WIC for a while. She hated WIC, because it was so limiting in terms of what food items you could and couldn't buy, but it was great because she could use it for diapers and formula for her daughter. Because it was just me and my son, who was 2 at the time, we usually had a couple hundred dollars extra on the Lonestar Card every month, so I often let her get groceries with it, just so she wouldn't be stuck with generic government cheese sandwiches every day. Yes- there needs to be some kind of reform on the program, because it would have been VERY easy for me to take advantage of it at the time, and I see it allll the time, but just because a family is lower-income or going through a tough time financially doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to indulge sometimes too.0 -
As a current recipient of SNAP benefits, I have similar concerns. Many items - cooked foods, all supplements including energy drinks and protein powders - are already restricted from purchase by SNAP. It seems incredibly wasteful to allow recipients to buy non-nutritious and convenience foods considering that stores already have a system in place to allow/disallow certain foods. Also, we never buy "luxury items" unless they're more economical, as doing so is a waste that we can't afford. As a side note, many types of seafood are a far cry from "luxury", and in some areas it's actually comparable to beef/chicken.
The amount I receive doesn't even come close to covering my food bill, for the record. Without food stamps, we (my husband and I, who both work AND go to school, and our two young children) would sometimes go hungry and always have poor nutrition. I'm thankful my children don't have to go hungry or be malnourished, as I want them to have the best chance possible of fulfilling their potential and growing up to be contributing members of society. My husband and I will graduate as engineers in about 18 months, and when we do we'll have a household income of at least 120K. SNAP benefits have made that possible for us, and we'll more than make it up over our lifetimes.0 -
BTW, I did not label anyone in the program, nor am I saying we should not help people in need. Help should be healthy. If you don't want someone else regulating your food choices, pay for them yourself. That's all. God knows I make some unhealthy choices, but I pay for them out of pocket.
My critique is that for some reason no one in the government has the guts to say soda is bad for humans, and there we will not pay for it. I get the point of the study, which is that it is hard to draw a line between healthy and not healthy for some things. Sure. But gee, are we really going to say that soda is healthy? Their own report suggests that some candy bars are healthier than cheese. That is just plain dumb. Anybody who took 8th grade health class knows better. These are educated people making the call. Yuck.0 -
God forbid low-income families occasionally treat themselves to a candy bar. The program is not a waste. Let people make their own decisions.
^^ This.0 -
I think you need to mind your own business. I had to be on snap when I was going to school because my useless husband wouldntbwork, we are divorced now. I didn't buy junk food for my family unless it was a special occasion, birthday, etc. Not Halloween, I sent them out and shut off my light. I bought meat from the reduced bins, bought only good food that was on sale, no pop, coffee, etc. I am now making enough money and paying back in taxes what I used plus some.
I think you should walk a couple of months in someone else's shoes before you pass judgement on the snap group.
Are there some who abuse it? Yep there, there are also companies hiring 970 lawyers and accountants so they don't have to pay taxes. And politicians who are cheating on their taxes. Much bigger things to worry about than poor people actually getting to choose what they want to buy with tax dollars.0 -
BTW, I did not label anyone in the program, nor am I saying we should not help people in need. Help should be healthy. If you don't want someone else regulating your food choices, pay for them yourself. That's all. God knows I make some unhealthy choices, but I pay for them out of pocket.
My critique is that for some reason no one in the government has the guts to say soda is bad for humans, and there we will not pay for it. I get the point of the study, which is that it is hard to draw a line between healthy and not healthy for some things. Sure. But gee, are we really going to say that soda is healthy? Their own report suggests that some candy bars are healthier than cheese. That is just plain dumb. Anybody who took 8th grade health class knows better. These are educated people making the call. Yuck.
It's a difficult issue. Frankly candy bars and cheddar cheese ARE both incredibly high calorie, low nutrient density foods. Who gets to make the call?0 -
Honestly, I don't think it's ok to control what other people buy to that extent. On the WIC you can't buy pet food for even toiletries. It's a slippery slope when you start controlling everything and everyone. I'd rather live in a country where I'm still free to make individual choices. It's all about personal responsibility. It's not my job or my government's job to poke a nose into someone else's shopping cart or yours.0
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You're welcome. Just responding to the "thank you for your paycheck" since it's my money that pays for "welfare checks.0
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My son had a massive stroke and is handicapped because of it. He gets food stamps. He can't cook for himself so he tried to buy ready made hot food from the grocery store. He couldn't pay for it with his access card. The cashier told him it wasn't covered. Here he tried to buy a ready made rotisserie chicken and food stamps wouldn't pay for it. It would pay for a raw chicken from the same store but not the already cooked hot one. I can understand not allowing you to buy cigarettes or alcohol but to say you can't have a hot meal that you bought in a grocery store? Its not like he was in a restaurant.Placing restrictions on what they can buy might be confusing. If they didn't have the right items, the cashier would have to tell them that they did not buy the eligible items for the SNAP program. That would be humiliating. Doesn't everyone deserve a treat once in a while anyway? I am glad that food stamps exist so people do not have to starve.0 -
In my area, there is a farm share/CSA where you can use your food stamps to get fresh produce every week. I spend fully half my food stamps/grocery budget on my farm share every month. Instead of trying to control what people spend at the grocery store, I would love to see more programs like this, and more advertisement to let people know that this exists. Free nutrition classes would also probably be a great use of "taxpayer" money. Subsidizing these types of programs too, this farm has a scholarship program to reduce the weekly cost.
I think the whining about your taxpayer money regarding food stamps is pretty stupid, compared to all the actual dumbass things the government spends money on. Just sayin'.0 -
I have spent my life as an advocate for people with disabilities, and have lots of knowledge in this area. For someone who is disabled, but never able to work, they get SSI. The HIGHEST monthly amount on SSI is $698. They are eligible for food stamps, obviously. Most states give at most $200/ month in food stamps for one person. You try to buy only healthy foods for a month on only $200 and see how far it gets you! Many are forced to buy filler foods, pasta, etc. just to make ends meet. These are not the people who are buying soda with their food stamps, but if you start dictating what they can and cannot buy, you are going to limit their ability to eat towards the end of the month. Oh, and try living on only $698 a month, for even one month! People really should walk in the shoes of other people before they criticize or judge them!0
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BTW, I did not label anyone in the program, nor am I saying we should not help people in need. Help should be healthy. If you don't want someone else regulating your food choices, pay for them yourself. That's all. God knows I make some unhealthy choices, but I pay for them out of pocket.
My critique is that for some reason no one in the government has the guts to say soda is bad for humans, and there we will not pay for it. I get the point of the study, which is that it is hard to draw a line between healthy and not healthy for some things. Sure. But gee, are we really going to say that soda is healthy? Their own report suggests that some candy bars are healthier than cheese. That is just plain dumb. Anybody who took 8th grade health class knows better. These are educated people making the call. Yuck.
Whats dumb is that you think its your business what others buy even if it is with food stamps. Don't like it don't look in everyone elses shopping cart or how they're paying for it. I"m sure they feel humiliated to begin with without a big nose like yours butting in their business. Just wait till you fall on hard times and you need help. I hope no one ever comes up to you and says what are you doing using my tax dollars to pay for that!0 -
God forbid low-income families occasionally treat themselves to a candy bar. The program is not a waste. Let people make their own decisions.
While I don't disagree with you (at least for the most part).... it isn't just the "occasional" candy bar.... I have seen people buying more expensive things (like high end cheese and steaks) with it... it is a waste of money and resources that is meant to help people buy food, not fake food... I don't think people would have a problem with the occasional candy bar... but when people are continually buying what is considered luxury food items, it does the family absolutely no good to burn through that money only to be hungry a couple of days later.0 -
I have spent my life as an advocate for people with disabilities, and have lots of knowledge in this area. For someone who is disabled, but never able to work, they get SSI. The HIGHEST monthly amount on SSI is $698. They are eligible for food stamps, obviously. Most states give at most $200/ month in food stamps for one person. You try to buy only healthy foods for a month on only $200 and see how far it gets you! Many are forced to buy filler foods, pasta, etc. just to make ends meet. These are not the people who are buying soda with their food stamps, but if you start dictating what they can and cannot buy, you are going to limit their ability to eat towards the end of the month. Oh, and try living on only $698 a month, for even one month! People really should walk in the shoes of other people before they criticize or judge them!
Exactly what my son gets. He only gets 120 in food stamps. He lives on his own renting a room from someone. He has to eat at our house most of the time because 120 in food stamps doesn't go far at all. He usually buys small cheap frozen dinners when they are on sale 10 for $10. I buy all of his other needs like toothpaste, toilet paper, laundry detergent, clothes and any other non food items. He would starve if we didn't help him out.0 -
Exactly. Hard workers usually treat ourselves, so once in a while it is ok for SNAP recipients to want a candy bar and such. But with the hand out being so generous, when other people struggle to get higher costing healthy food onto their table, that is a waste. Take the recreational money that one does have and use THAT for a treat, ice cream, etc. for children instead. At least WIC makes sure you have to get the basic staples which provide an outline for a healthy meal.
It is a waste when large numbers of people buy nothing BUT candy bars and soda and chips and corn dogs and frozen pizzas and they feed their children with this. Children already suffer severely from lack of rights in this country, it's even worse when they can't even be fed proper foods and are molded into people who make bad nutritional choices in adulthood and perpetuate that on their own children whether they get food stamps or not.God forbid low-income families occasionally treat themselves to a candy bar. The program is not a waste. Let people make their own decisions.
Although I hate not being able to chose where my tax money goes to in general.0 -
1 oz of cheddar cheese and 1 oz of a Snickers bar are roughly the same, nutritionally. Same amount of calories, cheese has more fat, double the saturated fat, and more calcium. A Snickers bar has more fiber than the cheese, plus healthier fats due to the peanuts. So the only thing you really get from cheddar cheese is calcium, and there are far better sources than cheese for calcium. Maybe you should actually do the research before you criticize it. Plus the candy bar has antioxidant properties from the chocolate.BTW, I did not label anyone in the program, nor am I saying we should not help people in need. Help should be healthy. If you don't want someone else regulating your food choices, pay for them yourself. That's all. God knows I make some unhealthy choices, but I pay for them out of pocket.
My critique is that for some reason no one in the government has the guts to say soda is bad for humans, and there we will not pay for it. I get the point of the study, which is that it is hard to draw a line between healthy and not healthy for some things. Sure. But gee, are we really going to say that soda is healthy? Their own report suggests that some candy bars are healthier than cheese. That is just plain dumb. Anybody who took 8th grade health class knows better. These are educated people making the call. Yuck.
Nothing is black and white. Besides, if soda is bad and ineligible, then everything that isn't water would have to be disqualified as well, after all, all juices have as much, and in most cases, even more sugar than soda does. Factor in the expenses of having to completely rewrite the entire program (everything is computerized, they would have to completely reprogram millions of separate information systems for millions of separate businesses around the country,) and yes, it is prohibitively expensive, for no real gain. All it would do is waste taxpayer money.0 -
Teach a man to fish...
EDIT (for clarification reason): I don't think anyone begrudges those who actually need assistance (disabled, single mothers in school, et al.). It's those who abuse the system that are causing others to question its efficacy.0 -
The government is making efforts to educate recipients about using their benefits wisely. I few years ago I worked as a nutrition educator for a program to provide nutrition education and smart shopping classes to food stamp recipients (it was funded as a grant through the extension service). The problem was....recipients could not be REQUIRED to take the classes and we had a very hard time getting them to attend classes - although other community members flocked there.0
This discussion has been closed.
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