Junk food should be on a list. FS are for people who need the extra help in eating...not stuffing their face with soda pop, chips, ice cream, cookies, candy.
FS should be for chicken/poultry, ground beef or pork, certain types of red meat, vegetables, fruit, tortillas, bread, milk, cheese, rice, soup, crackers, etc.
No steak. No lobster. No shrimp. No scallops. No junk food.
A gallon of milk costs $3, a big bottle of soda $1.50....which do you think a welfare mother will buy? Vegetables are the most expensive item in most inner-city stores and you know how kids are about vegetables...hell, I only eat veggies a couple times a week and I'm a grown man. You can't get the Dept of Agriculture to ban certain foods in a free-enterprise economy. As long as it's not booze, cigs, or deli items, it's acceptable food.
That is not true!
This is a topic I know from both sides.
Yes milk costs $2.79 a gallon if you buy it in the right place BUT you use milk to cook and for breakfast....and if you buy DRIED milk at the beginning of the month you are set. It isn't yummy to drink, but you can make pudding and gravy and anything else that requires milk out of it (including breakfast drinks).
CARROTS and potatoes are almost free. I bought a 45 lb bag of carrots for my family about 9 months ago, I think they cost $8, and we still have carrots, and we eat them, too. No, most people are not crazy about eating the same thing every day, day in and day out...but that's what budgeting is about. Eat to live, don't live to eat. We eat the cheap stuff. That means we eat carrots (thankfully the kids like them) and we eat potatoes. We do not eat arugula and asparagus or organic rutabagas. We don't eat a lot of mushrooms. We eat ICEBURG LETTUCE and CABBAGE. And if you maintain that potatoes, carrots, iceburg lettuce and cabbage for a family of four for a month is more expensive than soda pop and frozen pizza, you're delusional. I know, I deal with this every single month.
We don't eat meat every day. We don't eat meat every other day. We fix one meal with meat maybe 1-2 x a week, and we use the leftovers for lunches and the carcasses and bones for soup and beans.
We NEVER buy steak, unless I find some really super cheap sirloin that's past it's date (I happen to like it better then, it's more tender. I've cured my own meat, the longer it sits the better). When I am concerned the kids aren't getting enough protein (and I'm concerned about it often) then I make them eat legumes and a grain (beans and cornbread, for example..beans and rice...beans bean beans) and hope that it will suffice as a complete protein.
THAT'S how you feed a family on a limited income. There is NO WAY that people on welfare should be eating better than people who bust their asses to put food on the table. There is no way that people like me should be forced to starve their children so that our government can keep our unworking class fat and complacent.
The last two weeks of last month, I fed my kids beans and one chicken, potatoes and eggs. And carrots. That's what we lived on for TWO WEEKS. And I'm not *eligible* for foodstamps. But assholes who have never lifted a finger in their lives, who say things like "I'm a stay-at-home mom, my kids are that important" call their workers up screeching "HOW CAN I FEED MY FAMILY ON $200 A MONTH??? There are 2 of us! That's not enough!!". I feed my family of 3 on $150 on a pretty regular basis. We eat about like you'd expect us to eat...monotonous boring food, day in and day out. No steaks. No sheet cakes from the bakery for birthdays (hell no). No lobster, ever. My kids have never tasted lobster. Some months, no beef to speak of. Yes, you can feed your children a healthy diet on a really slim welfare budget. I could feed 3 families for a month on the full 3-person foodstamp allotment.
And we can sure as shit tell the dept of Ag that we don't want to fund pizza pockets for the poor. Farmers will find a way to survive. BTW..yes, you can get deli items on ebt. You just can't get HOT deli items. You can also get Subway and Papa Murphy's.
