If you want to control what is purchased with food stamps....

What is your criteria? Healthy? Price? (those two will conflict a lot, btw).

Please list what is acceptable to you for recipients to eat. I am curious to see if people can come to a consensus.

 

Myself, I like to buy lean beef. That is not cheap. I like bacon. That is $4-$6/pound. I like organic milk. ouch! $3.55 per half gallon. Chicken is the cheapest meat I buy - it's almost $3/pound for boneless flash-frozen breast meat. I could get whole chickens, but once you take out the bone, what is the real price per pound? Also, breast meat is healthier. Less fat.

flour.

cooking oil - can they get olive for health, or is that too pricey?

butter

bread

lunchmeat? awfully convenient - but that is processed and not very healthy.

eggs.

veggies and fruits.

cereal? pretty common for breakfast but ouchie on the price per pound. should that be eliminated? also, it's processed........

 

Food stamps should only be for staples - rice flour sugar and rolled oats.

Next question.

 

no protein?

and you want them to get scurvy from lack of vit. c?

Remember, the main recipients are children, disabled, and elderly.

 

sugar is a major luxury. It was used to lure people to vote in Egypt!

 

Here is what I suggest:
If you are a family on food stamps with 2 kids and get pregnant again, your previous kids get reposessed by the state and you are put on mandatory birth control

2. To get food stamps you work such as cleaning the streets (most welfare recipients live in thrash infested ghettoes, I lived in North Philadelphia for 13 years so I know) and if everything is already sparkling then you still need to go jogging certain amount of lapse around the field to get food stamps

3. for food stamps you can not buy sodas, ice cream, meat, poultry, only vegetables, juiice, fruit, cereal... you can not own television in your home if you get food stamps pvis.net is the only way to achieve this justice

 

In america sugar is cheap, like 50 cents a pound. And it makes cheap food like flour and rice taste ok.

 

A balanced diet requires more than those four items, and a realistic plan for feeding the poor over the long term requires far more than that. Not to mention requiring options to account for dietary restrictions, like diabetes or food allergies.

There are very few "simple" diets that provide all the nutrients a human being needs. Under such a restricted proposal, you are essentially planning a person's diet.

Corn, beans, squash, and milk could theoretically work, but in practice more options than that are required to meet various dietary restrictions.

 

Generally they can buy anything but cigarettes, wine, beer..

 

cereal is processed junk. juice is not good for you - regular fruits are. where is the protein?

why can't you have a tv? Let's say I got mine before I got into a bad situation and need food stamps. It's ten years old and would fetch about $10 from a pawn shop, which will feed me for a day.

Is the point that I am to suffer for taking the food stamps?

sheesh!

I'm 85 years old and I want to watch my Hannity show while I eat this wonderful food you let me have.

 

Unconstitutional to an extreme degree. Not to mention a recipe for a social disaster.

Most people on food stamps get no other sort of welfare. Moreover, just because North Philadelphia is bad doesn't mean everywhere is equally bad. How would you propose actually making that work? Administering such a program would cost more than the SNAP benefits. Most people on food benefits are the working poor. Why would you make their situation even worse? It wouldn't save you a penny.

So you propose mandatory malnutrition? Does your cruelty know no limits? No meat? That's not even a complete diet.

That's insane, and serves no purpose other than petty cruelty.

 

I know. there are all these thread with outrage over certain things being purchased.

I want to know what these objectors think they should eat.

Keeping in mind their grandma or someone else they care about might be on them one day..............

anyone here through the right set of circumstances could end up needing them

 

I think the categorical imperative is important to remember in this situation.

 

Well you do have these nitwits that would let them buy apples but not strawberries.. or blueberries..

The mentality is that poor people should only be allowed to eat macaroni and cheese or Tuna Casserole.. as long as it wasn't white Albacore Tuna.

 

To reduce the fraud, I'd like to go to food deliveries of staples. But, there is the homeless to consider - they can't get the delivery or store or cook the food. You could give cards only to the homeless, disabled, and elderly, but the homeless are probably the biggest offenders of fraud, so IDK.

Basic meats, eggs, milk, bread, lunchmeat, fruits, veggies,,,,,,,for what it is supposed to be for, temporary aid, it should be sufficient. Poor people w/o aid shop this way all the time. Lots of potatoes and other filling foods that are low on cost. Rice, etc.

Incentive to get off food stamps, if you can't buy anything you want.

I just hate it for long-term users who through no fault of their own rely on them and should be able to have more choice.

I don't think there are any great solutions. Nothing is fraud proof. I don't think people should starve because of the (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s.

 

It's just another case of our govt 'improving' ourselves into a financial hole.

Years ago, the govt provided commodities to poor folks. Powdered milk, blocks of cheese, flour, rice, beans... not sure what else. They were handed out by the same people who controlled their welfare checks, meaning face-to-face contact was necessary so there was little fraud or waste.

At some point, left-leaning politicians decided giving people money instead of food was a better idea. Easier on the govt to administer... even if it did mean loss of that face-to-face audit that happened everytime goods were exchanged.

Now the govt is providing people they never see with Jumbo Crab Legs and Starbucks Coffee.

See how far we've come in the name of progress???

 

Its not really a matter of trying to control people. Its a matter of how much you give them.

I learned to budget.....when I wasn't on food stamps. The olive oil, steaks was free and easy to buy when you don't have to budget.

Let people buy what kinds of food they want---but make it $30 a week instead of $100. Make it like it really is. Plenty of people have to forego the olive oil. Don't make people on food stamps some sort of "special" people that must have crab legs.

This type of help is meant to be temporary---so treat it that way and don't make it a life.

 

Force the poor to eat vegetables.

That way they will outlive the rich.

Small victory, I know, but a victory nonetheless.

 

They do have to budget. I use the same amount of money for groceries as a single person on foodstamps ($200.00). I shop carefully so I can afford olive oil, organic milk, things like that that are worth the cost for health. I do not deep-fry anything, so olive oil goes a long way.

If the system is to continue as-is, there is nothing to be gained from micro-managing what is purchased.

If I was on food stamps, and fit organic milk and olive oil into my budget, why does that matter to you?

You sleep better at night if I drink yucky milk and use vegetable oil????????

I buy store-brand of almost everything - under the way many people talk here, name-brand foods are fine as long as it's not something like crab.

Makes no sense. If I want to buy generic of some things to splurge a *bit* on others, it makes no difference to taxpayers.

 

I'm pretty sure there are items we can all agree are acceptable - rice, potatoes, flour, milk, etc.

There are items we probably all find unacceptable - Starbucks, filet mignon, lobster, etc.

Where is the cutoff point? Frozen pizza? Cube steak?

Fresh fruit is expensive, but healthy. Processed foods can be fairly cheap, but unhealthy.

I like the standard - no prepared foods cutoff, but there should be excluded unprepared foods. Steaks, shellfish, exotic fruits, etc. should be excluded from possible food stamp purchases. Unfortunately no one has devised a good system of determining the nutrient value and cost of food that will also keep a person healthy, so a true standard will be difficult to determine.

I do think that any food stamp recipient caught selling their stamps or selling anything purchased with food stamps should be permanently banned from food stamps and any other financial government benefits.

 

I would use price. If we limit food stamps to $5 per week, I don't think there would be any issues. You can live off $5 in food a week. Rice and eggs, and you better get off food stamps quick or malnutrition will get you.

 

Broccoli, whole chickens, ground beef, and potatoes. That is all.

 

If I remember from college correctly, eggs are the cheapest source of protien. I remember living off of $7 in food a week for a bit (I think at the time that afforded me an 18 pack of eggs, ramen, milk, oarnge juice concentrate, and rice). Ground beef is pretty expensive. If it were up to me, ground beef would be a luxury beyond the means of anyone on foodstamps. Ground beef is about 4x as expensive as whole chicken.

Now kids just get food stamps while in college.

 

I knew there would be no consensus. How do you expect a panel of politicians to accomplish one?

 

Ok, I'm fine with replacing ground beef with eggs.