Why is it in our interest to pay for food that causes obesity and health issues?
No food individually “causes” obesity and health issues. Overuse of some foods can. If we want people to be healthier, maybe we should offer free accessible cooking classes, or (gasp) not put people in the position where they have to work so much to pay the bills they don’t have time to prepare healthy food.
All this does is punish people who are already in shit circumstances. Maybe they want a treat for their kid, maybe they want to have a fun movie night, maybe it’s none of your business?
If the concern was really about health, they’d be regulating maximum sugar % in all sodas and candies, not banning them to the poor.
If you want to buy sugar on your own dime, you can hurt your own health. But why should the government pay for it?
You do realize that banning candy and soda is not going to ban sugar. Sugar is a staple product and will always be available on food stamps. Soda is just a processed item, same as candy. In exactly the same way as Dinty Moore canned stew and Campbell’s soups. Should those be banned too? How about bread? It’s a carb and it’s processed. Let’s make the poor people make their own bread cause fuck them for being poor.
Where should the line be drawn?
It is their own dime. The government is everybody, and it’s here to serve. Somehow they got in your head that they aren’t entitled to that, but they are.
Edit: had/head
I want you to consider what you would do if you had $300 per month to buy food. How often would you use any of that money to buy soda and candy? Would you do it on a regular? Or would you do it just for special occasions to lift your spirits when things were bad?
This isn’t about health this is about punishing the poor for being poor.
I would spend very little of it on candy and soda, but not every person makes the same choices
I was very poor for two or three years in my early 20s. I was maniacally disciplined in only buying healthy, affordable food, no alcohol, no junk food, no sweets. Brown rice, beans, fish off the boat (a fishing fleet operated from our city’s harbor), tofu, miso, green veg. So I stayed healthy. If I had received any assistance, interference in my choices wouldn’t have helped. But the purpose of the interference isn’t to help, it’s to disempower, infantilize and humiliate.
What if it’s not happening that much and this is just a shoe horn to get legislation to destroy benefits? What if most states already remove some purchases from the EBT/food stamp total?
It’s like drug testing for welfare. It’s sounds like a good idea until you realize it costs millions, produces almost no results and the government performing said drug tests can’t be bothered to not do it in s corrupt way?
Unlike means testing, it will cost nothing. You just update the list of what is covered. Then it’s forever banned from food stamps
as someone else pointed out a specific example that comes up regularly (this is apparently already how it works): 1 particular brand of peanut butter was available, but their lite version wasn’t… with a cart full of groceries, figuring out exactly what gets paid for with what or what needs to be put back isn’t a fast process… this takes not only the persons time, but the cashiers time and everyone behind them in the queue
these are things we call negative externalities: costs forced to other places in the system without being accounted for in price
there are many, many, MANY more costs associated with any government program and intervention but this specific example would cost the country as a whole far more than the occasional unhealthy snack
Because giving more people reasons to enjoy life benefits us all. Also, fuck rich people. We should all be clamoring to take as much from them as possible to improve the lives of those who have less.
You can drink soda and eat candy without becoming obese or having health issues as a result.
Then start with ag subsidies. But that’s if you’re serious about fixing the problem and don’t just want to punish poor people for being poor.
Why do you consider what someone else eats to be a matter of “your interest”, at all?
Do you think your boss…who pays your salary…should be allowed to dictate what you spend it on? Is it in “their interest” to make sure you’re spending their money on “the right things”?
Do you think your boss…who pays your salary…should be allowed to dictate what you spend it on?
Historically, that was a thing until very recently. Henry Ford used to send inspectors into people’s homes to snoop on them, not only food and alcohol, but what language they spoke in the home. Thank the unions for that bullshit having been stopped.
If I’m paying for it, it’s my interest. If it’s your personal decision, then do what you want
If that’s your stance you might wanna leave the low hanging fruit where it is and pick something that actually matters. Just my two cents. Like defense spending.
