Why SNAP allows soft drinks.

[Seymour Flops]

If taxpayers are financing people's grocery bills on the theory that they and their children will be unhealthy and malnourished if we do not, then of course we have a right - and a duty - to make sure that our money is not spent on unhealthy junk.

If I could only ban one thing, it would be sugar-free soft drinks. It would be far more healthy for welfare kids to drink tap water, flouridated or not, than to be given "free" Diet Coke and the like.

Spend SNAP money on juice, if anything. It's almost as high in sugar as cola, but at least there are some vitamins, and it is not addictive as are the sugar substitutes, and caffeine in diet soft drinks.

 

[toobfreak]

DOn't ask me to pay for your food then.

I'm not asking you to pay for anything. As per post #39:

• You fulfill your tax obligation to the government.
• The government decrees a portion goes to help the needy with food needs.
• People qualifying spend the benefit as they best see fit according to their needs in a free society. They've done nothing wrong.

Interesting how quickly you are eager to take freedom away from others, and over totally arbitrary reasons. Are you aware that makes you a fascist?

 

[Woodznutz]

SNAP allows soft drinks because people need fluids to live, and don't you dare tell me all SNAP recipients should be on bread and water alone. Whatever your feelings are for SNAP benefits or many of the people on them, but soft drinks are tasty, popular, and mostly water with a little flavor and carbonation added, dirt cheap compared to coffee and real fruit juice or other things, and if you want, many do not even have any sugar in them.

If you don't want your kid getting fat, likely the best thing is to just get his fat ass off the sofa playing with his cellphone out playing with the other kids.

Long before video games and smartphones television pretty much ended outdoor play for many kids.

 

[Woodznutz]

I'm not asking you to pay for anything. As per post #39:

• You fulfill your tax obligation to the government.
• The government decrees a portion goes to help the needy with food needs.
• People qualifying spend the benefit as they best see fit according to their needs in a free society. They've done nothing wrong.

Interesting how quickly you are eager to take freedom away from others, and over totally arbitrary reasons. Are you aware that makes you a fascist?

We're not concerned about the food per se but the medical bills that follow.

 

[Woodznutz]

Only if you choose to buy them that way. So are you banning poor people from eating all sweetened food? No pop, no cake, no pie, no ice cream, no pastries, no deserts, no cookies, no nothing that might have sugar in it? How will you justify banning sugar-free cola? Maybe you just want a ******* swastikas on your sleeve?

They are free to eat all that stuff, on their own dime.

Sure, if you have the $1500 coffee machine to properly make it with. So no Starbucks neither?

I have a cheap Black and Decker coffer maker. Makes great coffee. Starbucks has great hot chocolate, coffee not so much.

Maybe because Americans are already famously unhealthy in general. And maybe because SNAP recipients are on government healthcare.

Rich or poor most Americans have pretty much the same diet. But the 'rich' pay for their own food and healthcare.

Must be why so many health nuts drop dead of heart attacks on their way to the health food store.

Not true. Health nuts not only live longer but better.

 

[toobfreak]

Long before video games and smartphones television pretty much ended outdoor play for many kids.

Look, maybe you're just not understanding me.

• Do I think drinking a ton of cola is good for you? Probably not.
• Do I think people generally need to eat and live better? Absolutely yes.
• But do I think targeting a small group of people and forcing it upon them just because they are most vulnerable to said force is the way to get it done? Absolutely not. Once you OK it for one group, you've opened the door to do it to others.

It will take a gradual effort of improving our foods and encouraging better lifestyles for everyone to lick the problem. I really don't need the federal government policing how I eat, do you? Some people through ill health or disability cannot cook and are lucky to manage to eat at all living off of pre-packaged, ready-made food and stuff and don't need me looking over their shoulder.

Maybe, perhaps, if SNAP sees one person spending an undue boatload on crap food, they might do the humane thing and merely inquire, asking why (looking for a justifiable reason), and perhaps pointing out or offering help with eating better or a better lifestyle. This might actually start with your family doctor.

I'd be OK with that.

 

[Eman623]

Soft drinks contain calories, which USDA considers food. Also those who run the program likely recall quenching thirst with soda after exercise. I remember once downing three bottles of soda after a tennis match on a hot day. The problem is that today's youth sit on a couch in an air-conditioned house playing video games or surfing their smartphone and getting fatter by the minute.

how much sugar in a soft drink - Bing

Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.

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If SNAP allows soda as food because it contains calories, then why does it allow diet soda?

 

[OhPleaseJustQuit]

Cut SNAP completely.

.

Just give them healthy food -- fish, poultry, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes, in abundance, some dairy and then red meat in intelligent amounts


.

 

[Woodznutz]

Look, maybe you're just not understanding me.

• Do I think drinking a ton of cola is good for you? Probably not.
• Do I think people generally need to eat and live better? Absolutely yes.
• But do I think targeting a small group of people and forcing it upon them just because they are most vulnerable to said force is the way to get it done? Absolutely not. Once you OK it for one group, you've opened the door to do it to others.

It will take a gradual effort of improving our foods and encouraging better lifestyles for everyone to lick the problem. I really don't need the federal government policing how I eat, do you? Some people through ill health or disability cannot cook and are lucky to manage to eat at all living off of pre-packaged, ready-made food and stuff and don't need me looking over their shoulder.

Maybe, perhaps, if SNAP sees one person spending an undue boatload on crap food, they might do the humane thing and merely inquire, asking why (looking for a justifiable reason), and perhaps pointing out or offering help with eating better or a better lifestyle. This might actually start with your family doctor.

I'd be OK with that.

Don't misunderstand me. The "small group" of 42 million SNAP recipients can eat whatever they want, just don't ask others to pay for their junk food. If they were healthy, no problem, but as a group they are notably unhealthy.

 

[Woodznutz]

If SNAP allows soda as food because it contains calories, then why does it allow diet soda?

Good question.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Soft drinks contain calories, which USDA considers food. Also those who run the program likely recall quenching thirst with soda after exercise. I remember once downing three bottles of soda after a tennis match on a hot day. The problem is that today's youth sit on a couch in an air-conditioned house playing video games or surfing their smartphone and getting fatter by the minute.

how much sugar in a soft drink - Bing

Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.

www.bing.com

Sadly, I think you are right.

The government has a created multi-generational welfare dependency class whose first and foremost function is to vote to keep the government on which they depend in place.

That class of humans in America has become so convinced that nothing is to be gained from individual effort that they will make the absolute minimum of effort in their family lives. They have the kids in order to increase their benefits. But like owners of private prisons, they prefer to spend as little money and effort as possible on those the government pays them to take care of.

Telling their kid to get a coke and a lunchable out of the fridge is much easier than cooking them biscuits and gravy, even if the flour, sausage, and canned biscuits are provided by SNAP benefits.

These parents only have to even tell them that for the evening meal on weekdays. Breakfast and lunch are provided at at school at no charge to anyone who gets SNAP benefits. Give them the lunchable and soda in the evening and let them play on their Obama phones. If the soda and the video games keeps them awake until three AM so they are unable to function at school the next day, well that what teachers are for, to overcome challenges like that.

Saturday and Sunday, they can have junk all day, with no particular mealtimes, and catch up on sleep. They spend no time outside since criminals are let go rather than incarcerated in welfare state America.

If SNAP had rules like WIC, only certain items allowed, these kids might lose weight at an alarming rate, which the welfare staters would then have to explain.

 

[toobfreak]

Don't misunderstand me. The "small group" of 42 million SNAP recipients can eat whatever they want, just don't ask others to pay for their junk food.

But helping pay for their food is the PURPOSE of the SNAP program. "Junk food" is an arbitrary class of undefined food that includes 75% of everything out there in the supermarket.

If they were healthy, no problem, but as a group they are notably unhealthy.

As a group, Americans are unhealthy. Quit projecting your frustrations over taxes or government programs onto the heads of undefined innocent strangers just because they make an easy target for your fascism.

Or better yet, just don't complain that after doing that to SNAP people the government doesn't decide to start limiting what you can buy and eat too seeing how well it worked on others.

Ask for fascism, expect to find fascism.

 

[Woodznutz]

Sadly, I think you are right.

The government has a created multi-generational welfare dependency class whose first and foremost function is to vote to keep the government on which they depend in place.

That class of humans in America has become so convinced that nothing is to be gained from individual effort that they will make the absolute minimum of effort in their family lives. They have the kids in order to increase their benefits. But like owners of private prisons, they prefer to spend as little money and effort as possible on those the government pays them to take care of.

Telling their kid to get a coke and a lunchable out of the fridge is much easier than cooking them biscuits and gravy, even if the flour, sausage, and canned biscuits are provided by SNAP benefits.

These parents only have to even tell them that for the evening meal on weekdays. Breakfast and lunch are provided at at school at no charge to anyone who gets SNAP benefits. Give them the lunchable and soda in the evening and let them play on their Obama phones. If the soda and the video games keeps them awake until three AM so they are unable to function at school the next day, well that what teachers are for, to overcome challenges like that.

Saturday and Sunday, they can have junk all day, with no particular mealtimes, and catch up on sleep. They spend no time outside since criminals are let go rather than incarcerated in welfare state America.

If SNAP had rules like WIC, only certain items allowed, these kids might lose weight at an alarming rate, which the welfare staters would then have to explain.

The schools could help by having the buses and parents park about 10 blocks from the school. The walk to and from school would do worlds of good for the kids.

 

[Woodznutz]

But helping pay for their food is the PURPOSE of the SNAP program. "Junk food" is an arbitrary class of undefined food that includes 75% of everything out there in the supermarket.


As a group, Americans are unhealthy. Quit projecting your frustrations over taxes or government programs onto the heads of undefined innocent strangers just because they make an easy target for your fascism.

Or better yet, just don't complain that after doing that to SNAP people the government doesn't decide to start limiting what you can buy and eat too seeing how well it worked on others.

Ask for fascism, expect to find fascism.

We live under thousands of regulations. One more won't make us fascist. You're making the poor a protected class.

 

[toobfreak]

The schools could help by having the buses and parents park about 10 blocks from the school. The walk to and from school would do worlds of good for the kids.

What if the weather is terrible and the school is on a hill and some of the kids are unhealthy and have walking problems?

Why not simply improve the gymnastic program at the school and make it more responsive to individual's needs?

 

[toobfreak]

We live under thousands of regulations. One more won't make us fascist. You're making the poor a protected class.

The words of a fascist. We already run your life so you won't mind if we run it even more?

I cannot wait until I see you complain some bureaucrat is overstepping their bounds making decisions impacting your life in some un-american way which you do not agree.

 

[OhPleaseJustQuit]

What if the weather is terrible and the school is on a hill and some of the kids are unhealthy and have walking problems?

Why not simply improve the gymnastic program at the school and make it more responsive to individual's needs?

.

They don't do PE in schools anymore. Too busy reading dirty "literature" and indoctrinating a new crop of mentally ill revenue streams for the pHARMaceutical industry.

.

 

[Woodznutz]

What if the weather is terrible and the school is on a hill and some of the kids are unhealthy and have walking problems?

Why not simply improve the gymnastic program at the school and make it more responsive to individual's needs?

Those able to walk, walk. There's a lot of standing around in gym classes.

 

[airplanemechanic]

Bullshit. I drink colas all the time that are sugar free. Most everything out there has a regular and sugar-free version.

Sugar is really just a simple carbohydrate, so are you trying to ban all simple carbohydrates? Are you banning SNAP recipients from drinking sugar free cola? What about artificial flavor? Sport drinks? Energy drinks? Sweeten teas? Fruit punch? Lemonade? Sweetened coffee?

And why stop at sugar? What about banning them from consuming brown sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, lactose, malt syrup, maltose, molasses, raw sugar, and sucrose? Go for it, man! How can you justify banning pop without banning the entire gamut of sweetened foodstuffs! Nothing but kale and spinach for the poor.

Now you have banned them from a large segment of the products out there, ready made stuff that poor and sick people depend on. Never mind what economic impact this would have on thousands of companies out there to lose all that business.

So lets limit SNAP people to only drinking plain tap water (there's a healthy item for you!), lemon water, lime water, and sparkling water--- never mind that citrus are expensive and come at a cost 10X what artificial cola-based products generally cost.

If they don't have sugar, they have aspartame. That stuff is worse than sugar. You're literally drinking a chemical to artificially make a drink taste sweet.

 

[toobfreak]

They don't do PE in schools anymore.

THERE'S your problem! Not drinking cola.

I think we need to ban all smartphones. Basic cellphones or nothing. Woodznutz will be the first to give his up.