Food Stamps For Fast Food??

Apparently it's legal in Michigan, Arizona & California. I'm against it.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/timigusta...by-for-the-use-of-food-stamps-in-restaurants/

 

Against what?

Food stamps are for food.

Fast food is food.

Unless you want to buy people stoves and ovens, and provide them free housing to cook in, a restaurant is the only place most food stamp users can get a warm meal.

Would you rather they eat at the Chart House or McDonalds?

 

Is that a rhetorical question, or you just being Maris61 again?

 

But here's a few serious answers from the comments section of where I found this article:

I would say it would depend on the nutritional value of the food being purchased. The food items should receive some sort of index score based on nutritional positives and negatives and if the food is below a certain index, then it is ineligible for Foodstamp use.

I don't think McNuggets or a Monster Burger should be purchasable with food stamps. Nor should a liter cola.




Does it mean that recipients will die faster, thus requiring the government to steal from me for a shorter period of time? I'm torn.




I think people on food stamps should only be able to spend them on crack, meth, and heroin. That'll fix our poverty problem pretty quickly.
Maris, did you make this one?




No, no. and NO. I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO GIVE YOU MUCH MORE THAN SUSTENANCE.

If you can't cook it at home, because you have no home, you can still buy ready to eat food at the grocery store. Fruit, veggies, peanut butter, bread. And most of it doesn't require a fridge, either. WIN!




Food stamps are not for prepared food. You don't get to eat out on my dime.




Hard to find, but here's a pro Maris booster: Ahh, I love the hypocrisy of people.

"How dare the goverment tell MY kids what they can't eat at school for lunch!"

"I think the government should only let people use food stamps on certain foods."

When people are poor, they aren't thinking about calorie counts or sodium content. They are thinking "How can I eat, and eat cheaply enough so that I can also eat tomorrow."

 

its not easy to make a burger for $1 at home, try it sometime

 

Mr. Prophet, where would butter,cream, cheese,oil, breakfast cereals, juice, peanut butter, jam, white bread, potatoes, rice, spices, flour or sugar fall on this nutritional index?

Unfortunately I think we'd find that almost the entire store is filled with stuff that wouldn't be eligible for food stamps.

 

Neither.

Your complaint seems to be the poor quality of fast food.

I assume this objection arises from your deep concern about the generally poor and disjointed diet that starving people face every day.

I commend you for the empathy you have for your fellow Americans, but surely you realize taxpayers cannot afford to supply really good food to so many millions of unfortunate victims of the Bush/Cheney economy, so cheap fast food has become the answer.

Unless maybe you think we should spend a lot more tax money feeding people?

 

FWIW, I collect free chalupa coupons (from those that will give them to me) following Blazer games...then periodically hand them out to the so-called hungry folks at stop lights.

 

Why? Because fast food is a rich-person luxury that food stamps shouldn't be funding? Fast food is often what these people would be buying anyway, because it's quick, easy and cheap. It's hardly like they're taking advantage of the system. They're using the food stamps to buy the food they'd be buying anyway on whatever meager money they have if there were no assistance. How is that opposed to the intent of the system?

 

Huh? I do it all the time. And they're tasty, too!

 

Your post doesn't make any sense.

Nowhere do I make the argument for what people should or should not buy with food stamps at a grocery store. I merely state I am opposed to people using food stamps to purchase food at a fast food restaurant. It seems to run contrary to what they were intended for.

 

And your point contains a lot of logic, I have to agree.

It just seems to me that the food stamp program was set up to provide people who were having temporary and unfortunate circumstances a way to purchase basic food items. Maybe it's just me (and barfo will tell you so!), but I fail to see how a trip to KFC of McDonalds fits into that category. It's like when I see people buying a cart load of crap at the store (cases of soda, Hostess snack food, candy...) with food stamps it seems contrary for their intended use.

 

You reposted a comment you considered to be a "serious answer" which involved creating a nutritional index & banning items that do not meet the requirements on that index. Many "staple" foods would be banned because they are pure fat, sugar or carbohydrates & many processed foods probably also wouldn't make the list.

If you don't agree with that & are fine with people using their food stamps at the grocery store to buy what they want, then I am not seeing the difference between buying a big bag of potato chips at the store vs going to get a burger at a fast food joint. At least the burger has protein & maybe some veggies.

I think this has more to do with your desire to see those "stealing" your money punished rather than a real concern about health. People can buy the stuff to make unhealthy food at the store & almost as easily as at a fast food joint. There are probably some people out there who would have a better diet if they were eating at a fast food joint due to lack of food skills.

 

OK, I see what you mean. That "comment" was not mine; it was posted at a website where I originally located the article. I neither agreed or disagreed with it- I simply pasted it into my post. I didn't think of running a disclaimer.

 

Do these people realize we scored 100 points for their free lunch?

 

So you go the store and buy 1/4 lb of beef, 2 slices of cheese, 1 roll, 2 slices of pickles, a scoop of minced onions, a packet of ketchup, and a packet of mustard for 1 dollar? No, no you don't.