Food Stamps for fast food ? Agree or disagree?

I know one of the proposed ideas was to double the value of dollars if spent on vegetables and fruit. Which is good, even though those things are very low calorie. I think it'd be better if they expanded it to include whole foods like rice, beans, and meat.

I also think receiving SNAP should require a mandatory class on grocery shopping and food preparation. And recipients should be given or allowed to buy helpful cooking tools like crockpots, rice cookers, and good knives.

petiteone29 wrote: I think that idea would be almost impossible to work maysay. People have so many different types of diets. Its easier to let people go to the grocery store and buy their own food that they prefer to eat. Who wants to be forced to stand in a food line everyday?

i agree. plus the issue of access. it is a reality that a person with physical and or mental handicaps that are eligible for ssi disability income as their sole income may not have a car and may not have the capacity to carry groceries and get bags of food back home and cook so it is a matter of survival for some people to have access to pre-prepared food.

I personally know a few transient people (homeless due to mental illness and drift from friend's couch to homeless shelters to living on the street).  I was talking to one of them on Friday and it is a reality that you can not just buy a big ole bag of groceries with ebt to make a meal when you are living on the streets 90% of the time. A soup kitchen is the 1st option for a relatively decent meal for the people that I know, but they can not always fill their belly off a cup of oatmeal and the 1 link of italian sausage at the soup kitchen. Food pantries are everywhere here but a bag of raw chicken isnt going to help a homeless person. The fast food EBT access will save lives, especially for homeless people with children.


Edited by NJHairLuv - Jun 16 2014 at 1:13pm

petiteone29 wrote: I get your point maysay.  But from what I most families receiving fs are working poor. They have jobs. They just need some help. So standing in a line every single day just doesn't seem reasonable. And having the government dictate what they have to eat instead of giving them the option of purchasing their own food just seems kind of degrading to me.

Well, they wouldn't be standing in line every day. They'd be going to pick up a to go box of food, breakfast and lunch. Though ideally it would be box of real whole foods, not prepared meals.

The summer lunch programs here already provide food in a to-go manner. It's easy and fast so I know it can be done.

Being hungry is degrading. Eating food from the trash is degrading. Begging people for food is degrading. All of which I've done. Standing in a line and being given some food other people chose, not degrading at all. Not my favorite option, but not degrading.

I think this gives SNAP recipients some flexibity .

SamoneLenior wrote: okay so we asked about fast food in the study (he even mentioned cali) but he didn't remember the results....I'll keep digging .........we asked how often and how much did they spend on fast food only found information for the control group, less than 10% reported eating one of their daily meals away from home at a fast food restaurant

Thank you for checking. I love to know data on this.