RFK is from the Govt and he's here to help (AKA Poor People! He's coming for your Mountain Dew)

[Elixir]

I love ginger ale, especially Canada Dry.

I used to drink Vernors - a can a day on average. But it is no longer available here, and my G.A. consumption has dropped to near zero.
I miss it, and will miss it more when the weather gets hot.

 

[laughing dog]

I love ginger ale, especially Canada Dry.

I used to drink Vernors - a can a day on average. But it is no longer available here, and my G.A. consumption has dropped to near zero.
I miss it, and will miss it more when the weather gets hot.

Vernors tastes much different than Canada Dry. - at least to these taste buds. I recall a long time ago, ordering a ginger ale, and getting a Vernors which I did not think was ginger ale from its taste.

 

[blastula]

Fuck food nazi hall monitors.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

A year ago I would've said I don't know how this would be enforceable due to its indisputable discrimination of lower classes, but now I wouldn't be surprised to see it implemented.

It's nice to think that organization like the ACLU will get involved, but I think this would be a low priority for them; and if they don't get involved, then the poors are screwed unless a private law firm determines the case is worth taking on via class action. Even then, with SCOTUS having its mouth placed firmly on Trump's ass, it would appear, at least on the surface, that the suit would be a loser.

So now certain consumables aren't available to all? Fuck. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid because I'm currently rewatching season 1 of Handmaid's Tale.

 

[KCFlyer]

WIC is a program that provides food help to poor pregnant women and children,

I used to work in public health, who managed the WIC program here. I was talking with a friend of mine who heads the WIC department to ask her if Leon's chainsaw has impacted them. This was in early March. She said that they were on a continuing resolution thru March. I'll need to chat with her to see if they are being cut.

WIC is one program that people are only on for a relatively short time. Our county started a community garden for WIC - and a surprising number of WIC clients volunteered to work the garden. The garden was started in 2013 and is still in operation today, although the county extension service now manages it and most volunteers are not WIC recipients - after all, it's hard to work a garden with an infant in tow.

 

[robnisch]

I worked at a convenience store for many years. SNAP was a big part of sales for the first two weeks in the month, not so much after that.
Being a small store, we did not program the POS to separate the SNAP items like the big box stores do. Technically a violation of the rules, but the odds of an audit was so low that the owner did not care. I wonder if this happens in cities that have food desserts?

 

[thebeave]

I worked at a convenience store for many years. SNAP was a big part of sales for the first two weeks in the month, not so much after that.
Being a small store, we did not program the POS to separate the SNAP items like the big box stores do. Technically a violation of the rules, but the odds of an audit was so low that the owner did not care. I wonder if this happens in cities that have food desserts?

Food desserts? Sounds yummy...I'll take some of that.

 

[bilby]

If someone is receiving a money as a gift to help improve their lives, whether from the government or a friend/relative/charity, etc there is often a stipulation that the money be spent sensibly and for a specific purpose.

Then it's NOT a gift.

A gift doesn't come with strings attatched.

And assistance to poor people shouldn't come with strings attached. If a person wants to skip a meal in order to buy clothes, or to pay for a bus ticket to a nearby town for a job interview, or to pay to have their clothes cleaned for that job interview, then why on Earth would you not allow that freedom?

Indeed, if they want to waste that money, and go hungry, why should anyone say "no"?

 

[bilby]

If you gift your kid a big chunk of cash to use for college, is it OK by you if he spends it on partying in Europe, or lottery tickets?

If it isn't, then it wasn't a gift of cash at all.

Do you not see any condecension in analogising poor people as "your kid"?

Poor adults are just people like anyone else. They aren't wayward children who need teaching from their betters.

 

[southernhybrid]

I love ginger ale, especially Canada Dry.

I used to drink Vernors - a can a day on average. But it is no longer available here, and my G.A. consumption has dropped to near zero.
I miss it, and will miss it more when the weather gets hot.

Vernors tastes much different than Canada Dry. - at least to these taste buds. I recall a long time ago, ordering a ginger ale, and getting a Vernors which I did not think was ginger ale from its taste.

To each their own. I've tried many brands of ginger ale but Canada Dry is my favorite.

But, I also drink about 2 liters of cold water with a little lemon in it every day. I need to get a water filter when we move so we can stop using the damn plastic bottles. I sure miss the glass bottles of my youth.

 

[southernhybrid]

WIC is a program that provides food help to poor pregnant women and children,

I used to work in public health, who managed the WIC program here. I was talking with a friend of mine who heads the WIC department to ask her if Leon's chainsaw has impacted them. This was in early March. She said that they were on a continuing resolution thru March. I'll need to chat with her to see if they are being cut.

WIC is one program that people are only on for a relatively short time. Our county started a community garden for WIC - and a surprising number of WIC clients volunteered to work the garden. The garden was started in 2013 and is still in operation today, although the county extension service now manages it and most volunteers are not WIC recipients - after all, it's hard to work a garden with an infant in tow.

I did a little WIC work too when I worked as a public health nurse. My ex has a MS in nutrition and he was over the WIC program in Greenville, SC for a few years. But, his nutrition was never great although he never allowed our son to get a soda when we ate out. He referred to it as stained water. I think that had more to do with his cheap ass personality than nutrition. There are lots of reasons why he's been my ex for over 45 years.

 

[Derec]

People get mad at poor people on food stamps for buying junk food, but no one else. Middle class people make poor food choices all the time but no one complains about them in the check out line.

It's different if someone pays for junk food with their money, vs. with basically a government grant.
I do not see it as outlandish to place restrictions on food assistance payments.

Aren't their children also going to be malnourished?
Or does money buy you freedom?

If these hypothetical middle class children are malnourished, then DFACS (or whatever it's called in your state) should get involved.
However, even when middle class families buy soda and oreos, they usually also buy more nutritious food. When money is scarce, it is more likely that it is one or the other.

Poor people have little money and live on public assistance so they can't buy their way out of our righteous indignation.

As you say, "[they] have little money". Every SNAP or other dollar spent on junk food is not going to buying broccoli, or onions, or tomatoes, or chicken. That is not really a concern with middle class families. They can buy sweets as a treat without it cutting into the "perimeter of the store" budget.

It's "our tax money" (It really isn't, but that another topic)

It is not? Explain.

so we get to sit in judgment and demand limitations on their behaviors.

If somebody is given funds for a specific purpose, say "nutrition", then why it is wrong to place rules on how those funds are spent?

Only it isn't "our money" and we really should have no more control over how a person in the grocery store spends his or her money than we have the right to tell a fireman how to fight a fire or a VA nurse how to take blood or a soldier how to fire a weapon.

Huh? Public employees are subject to all sorts of rules. A phlebotomist working for VA cannot take blood any which way she wants. A firefighter is likewise subject to myriad rules and regulations, and may lose their job if they fail to follow them. And of course they do - people may die if they don't.

Public money isn't just "our" (as opposed to "their") money and how the end user of public funds uses that money isn't "our" business unless that use is illegal.

It is not illegal to buy beer. You can't buy beer with SNAP. So there already are restrictions.

Think of it this way, if you can tell a welfare recipient he can't use public money to buy Doritos, what's to stop you from telling him he can't check out Lady Chatterly's Lover from the public library or use the emergency room at a public hospital, or push his kids on a swing in a public park?

None of these things are analogous. A better analogy is that SNAP is already a restricted program. You can't put everything in a grocery store on your SNAP card.

And what does our bullying and berating the poor for legal behavior we all have engaged or do engage in (the buying of junk food is legal) say about us and what we think freedom of choice really is?

Freedom of choice is rarely unlimited. If you save money with 529, receive Pell Grants or take out student loans, you have to use it for educational expenses. Even if a weekend in Vegas, or a night at the Chicken Ranch in Pahrump, is perfectly legal behavior.

 

[Derec]

I worked with a lot of poor women, some who received SNAP. Some of them drank enormous amounts of sodas. Should we really be subsiding sodas? I'm sure Coke and Pepsi love getting government help for their products. The women I worked with were mostly obese and they would ask me how to lose weight. The first question I asked them were how much soda did they drink each day. Some admitted to drinking 2 liters of soda per day. Most drank at least 3 or 4 cans each day.

That is a crazy amount of soda.

Some acted as if I was crazy when I suggested they cut back on their soft drinks, I don't consider soda to be food. They are nothing more than flavored sugar water and they are addictive.

They are full of calories in the form of sugar (i.e. quickly metabolizable) and free from all other nutrition.
Athena mentioned Doritos, but compared to soda, Doritos are health food.

Some fiber and protein, mostly more complex carbs, fat is mostly unsaturated.
Of course, Doritios are still not healthy if you make them a major part of your daily food intake, but much better than 260 calories worth of soda (about one 20 oz bottle).

If SNAP can be used for soda, why not let it be used for wine or beer. I put soda in the same class as that. They may be enjoyable but they aren't food, imo.

Beer and wine are hella more nutritious than soda. Not for nothing do Bavarians call beer "unser flüssiges Brot" ("our liquid bread").

 

[scombrid]

From the first line of the SNAP website home page:

Putting Healthy Food within Reach for Those in Need

SNAP provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget so they can afford the nutritious food essential to health and well-being.

Does not seem like soda falls under the current criteria for healthy or nutritious. That said, a zero tolerance approach for all soda might be going a little far, so maybe a monthly limit on soda purchases (if there's not one already in place) would make sense for special occassions, like birthday parties, etc. People do need to have a few guilty pleasures in life.

I also don't really get why this is really an issue. I despise RFK as much as the next guy, but this is actually one of the more sensible (if not the only sensible) things he's proposed. And wasn't it Michelle Obama who proposed and implemented a healthy menu for free school lunches?

Then why not limit soda purchases for ALL people if it’s such a sensible idea?

People who earn their own money can spend it how they please, however reckless and harmful it may be.

That is simply not true. People who earn their own money are not legally allowed to by cocaine or hit men.

If someone is receiving a money as a gift to help improve their lives, whether from the government or a friend/relative/charity, etc there is often a stipulation that the money be spent sensibly and for a specific purpose. You're not allowed to use your Pell grant money on hookers and cocaine, you have to use it for college expenses. This is nothing new.

If there is a stipulation, it is not a gift.

But if RFK really wants to promote healthy eating, why stop at banning soda. How about banning processed meat or potato chips, or salt, or sugar, or the myriad of other items that are just as unhealthy for people.

Or go after the supplement industry with all its myriad scams and poisons. Or go after mass produced pork and the pollution it inflicts on the neighbors and downstream of the hog factories.

 

[Shadowy Man]

People get mad at poor people on food stamps for buying junk food, but no one else. Middle class people make poor food choices all the time but no one complains about them in the check out line.

It's different if someone pays for junk food with their money, vs. with basically a government grant.

I have done a lot of travel on government grants. I was given a per diem to pay for food but if I recall correctly the only restriction was on alcohol. I could buy junk food if I wanted.

 

[Shadowy Man]

From the first line of the SNAP website home page:

Putting Healthy Food within Reach for Those in Need

SNAP provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget so they can afford the nutritious food essential to health and well-being.

Does not seem like soda falls under the current criteria for healthy or nutritious. That said, a zero tolerance approach for all soda might be going a little far, so maybe a monthly limit on soda purchases (if there's not one already in place) would make sense for special occassions, like birthday parties, etc. People do need to have a few guilty pleasures in life.

I also don't really get why this is really an issue. I despise RFK as much as the next guy, but this is actually one of the more sensible (if not the only sensible) things he's proposed. And wasn't it Michelle Obama who proposed and implemented a healthy menu for free school lunches?

Then why not limit soda purchases for ALL people if it’s such a sensible idea?

People who earn their own money can spend it how they please, however reckless and harmful it may be.

so it’s not really about health then, now is it?