Why SNAP allows soft drinks.

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Natural sugar is better for you than drinking artificial sweeteners, yes. Soda is not good for anyone. But contrary to your belief and the beliefs of many others, diet sodas are no better. They're just bad for different reasons. Gatorade/powerade are good for rehydration if you're working out or playing sports. Plain jane water is best if you're just thirsty.

It kills diabetics.

 

[Seymour Flops]

No, he passed away in 2010.


No, he was actually a trained gourmet chef in his younger days.

I imagine him horrified at SNAP recipients giving their kids Ho-Ho's to avoid preparing them oatmeal, or bacon and eggs. Was he a compasionate person who would want children - even poor children - to have healthy breakfasts?

He could not work. I never said he couldn't take care of himself.

To take care of oneself requires earning a living. If he could not, I'm glad he had a friend like you to provide for him. Unless you chose not to, and then I suppose we all did.

But so very true of government programs.

Really?

When did that actually happen? When they banned sports gambling, did they go on to ban sports? When they banned DDT, did they ban all pesticides? When they banned cousins from marrying, did they go on to ban marrying anyone from the same town, of of the same race?

When did any ban automatically lead to more odious bans? In particular when did banning spending government charity on unhealthy junk food lead to banning junk food bought with earned money? It has not in Texas, but admittedly the government of Texas understands the difference between earning a living and living on the labor of others.

California is often out front in banning certain foods or food ingredients. But they don't ban them from SNAP recipents first, they just banned them for everyone all at once. Is California fascist?

Your slippery slope theory is just that, unless you have some concrete examples.

Perhaps, but they are not food, though I suppose there are some people who have tried to live on beer.

Yes, and would you forbid them from doing it? Are you a fascist?

I suppose it could be. I think the case could be made that it is discrimination, because banning such stuff accomplishes nothing:

1. It won't save the state any money. Might actually cost it more.
2. It won't make anyone healthier. Maybe less so.

Maybe, but what is your evidence for 1. and 2.?

Most things the government does with good intentions usually ends up having the opposite to the stated intent.

Including SNAP, whose second letter stands for nutrition.

Why not call it SCAP, if the goal is calories and not nutrition?

 

[Seymour Flops]

You also didn't have child molesters in windowless vans snatching kids off the street.

Not so sure about that, but getting off topic. I'll start a thread about it.

 

[citygator]

Uh, because we have since the roll out of SNAP

Not following.

 

[Rawley]

Not following.

The government has always dictated (micromanaged) what can and can't be bought on Food stamps/SNAP/WIC. Since the day they were introduced.

 

[Seymour Flops]

None, but I once knew a guy who had an aortic defect that forced him onto public assistance, and all he did with his time was to constantly jump through hurdles trying to stay on the program despite the fact that he was disabled and would die with the condition (and he did).

Instead, try getting your head out of your ass and realize that it isn't that I'm against people eating and living well, I'm just against the government opening the door on starting to discriminate against a class of people due to their ease of accessibility when I know it can only spread out to more areas of society and people once that door is open as time goes on, like everything else the government does.

If you want people to eat and live better, there are more effective ways of approaching it without resorting to fascism and discrimination.

Pardon me for returning to the topic.

Did you ever consider helping your friend with his plight, so that he would not have had to live out his life as a government dependent?

I'm sure it never occured to you. That is how the welfare state teaches us to think. That it is better to take involuntary charity managed by the government, but paid for by the workers, than to accept help from friends and family.

Those kind of relationships - friends, family, marriages - are an anathema to totalitarians, which is why crypto-totalitatirians like welfare staters want to weaken them as much as possible.

 

[toobfreak]

Did you ever consider helping your friend with his plight, so that he would not have had to live out his life as a government dependent?

He died in 2010. Suddenly. And he lived about 60 miles from me one way. But I helped him with stuff all the time. I used to work about halfway towards his house, every three weeks after working 6 days a week I got one long weekend, about 2.5 days off and I often spent it out at his place. I'd leave work at 7AM and get there around 8AM and stay till sometime Sunday before coming home again to take care of things here.

I'm sure it never occured to you.

I'm sure you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[citygator]

The government has always dictated (micromanaged) what can and can't be bought on Food stamps/SNAP/WIC. Since the day they were introduced.

Not really micromanaged. Macro managed. Some broad rules but you can eat like a normal human. Some days grilled chicken and broccoli and other days captain crunch cereal.

 

[Seymour Flops]

He died in 2010. Suddenly. And he lived about 60 miles from me one way. But I helped him with stuff all the time. I used to work about halfway towards his house, every three weeks after working 6 days a week I got one long weekend, about 2.5 days off and I often spent it out at his place. I'd leave work at 7AM and get there around 8AM and stay till sometime Sunday before coming home again to take care of things here.


I'm sure you have no idea what you're talking about.

So you visited, ate some of his SNAP food, and went home. Far from helping him avoid dependency, you became co-dependent.

Just like they want.

 

[Rawley]

Not really micromanaged. Macro managed. Some broad rules but you can eat like a normal human. Some days grilled chicken and broccoli and other days captain crunch cereal.

Yes micromanaged. Hard to believe you tools are pushing these products, I won't even call them food, that are literally killing people.

 

[citygator]

Yes micromanaged. Hard to believe you tools are pushing these products, I won't even call them food, that are literally killing people.

Who is pushing anything? Eat healthy is a good idea. You guys won’t even approve Michele Obama’s eat healthy school initiative so why you forcing the poor to comply if you can’t even support healthy kids? Your poverty level shouldn’t be the difference.

 

[Rawley]

Who is pushing anything? Eat healthy is a good idea. You guys won’t even approve Michele Obama’s eat healthy school initiative

It was approved. And kids wouldn't eat it

so why you forcing the poor to comply if you can’t even support healthy kids? Your poverty level shouldn’t be the difference.

You're having shit fits because they are proposing taking soda off the list of things that can't be bought with food stamps.

 

[citygator]

Natural sugar is better for you than drinking artificial sweeteners, yes. Soda is not good for anyone. But contrary to your belief and the beliefs of many others, diet sodas are no better. They're just bad for different reasons. Gatorade/powerade are good for rehydration if you're working out or playing sports. Plain jane water is best if you're just thirsty.

Link? Dumping sugar in your body is not a good idea in liquid form. No health issues have been linked to the currently approved artificial sweeteners.

 

[toobfreak]

You're having shit fits because they are proposing taking soda off the list of things that can't be bought with food stamps.

I can't speak for others, I mean, I cannot believe that cola is that big a part of anyone's diet (you can get a 2-liter bottle for $1.70, maybe less), but the point here AFAIC, is this opening the door for the state to now say what people can eat.

• First it was the auto industry
• Then it was banking
• Finally it was our doctors.

One by one, the Fed has taken over ever facet of our lives. History teaches us that once they ban all products with sugar in them from SNAP recipients (and many products which don't have sugar but simply get lumped in with them), no doubt the next move will be to cut more products trying to force that segment of society into eating a certain way.

Inevitably, some fascist in California will declare it a success, then want to start taxing "unhealthy" food on everyone else, eventually, fining you, restricting you, even reporting you to a medical board for your "unhealthy lifestyle" for causing inflated medical costs, and a whole lot more.

I really just want to keep the government out of my grocery bag too and preserve what little of our founding father's free society we still have left.

 

[fncceo]

Rat poison in water is less toxic.

But significantly less tasty.

 

[braalian]

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

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Boy, you really have a bee in your bonnet about this. How many variations on the topic have you started threads about it now?

Anyway, the problem with your position is how would the government even implement and enforce such a strict “no junk food for food stamp recipients” policy?

Who gets to define what’s junk food and what’s not? RFK jr? Like someone said up-thread, do recipients only get to buy bread and water?

Are we really going to spend resources policing this?

 

[initforme]

Id hate to be living in a situation where i need snap benefits. Thats a really tough life. And some are upset about people getting those benefits. In a nation awash in wealth its but nothing money wise.

 

[Woodznutz]

Boy, you really have a bee in your bonnet about this. How many variations on the topic have you started threads about it now?

Anyway, the problem with your position is how would the government even implement and enforce such a strict “no junk food for food stamp recipients” policy?

Who gets to define what’s junk food and what’s not? RFK jr? Like someone said up-thread, do recipients only get to buy bread and water?

Are we really going to spend resources policing this?

SNAP is intended for "nutritional" foods (the "N" in snap). There is nothing nutritional in soft drinks. Also, SNAP is a "supplemental" program (the "S" in SNAP) and isn't intended to provide 100 percent of food needs. Soft drinks can be purchased with the recipients' own money.

Health is one of my favorite topics thus the many postings.

 

[toobfreak]

Boy, you really have a bee in your bonnet about this. How many variations on the topic have you started threads about it now?
Anyway, the problem with your position is how would the government even implement and enforce such a strict “no junk food for food stamp recipients” policy?
Who gets to define what’s junk food and what’s not? RFK jr? Like someone said up-thread, do recipients only get to buy bread and water?
Are we really going to spend resources policing this?

Sugar is in everything. If there is a problem, that is it. Tell the FDA to get much of the sugar out of the food. Soft drinks are food. People need liquids more than they do hard food itself. It is utterly pointless to tell people they are banned from soft drinks (many of which are sugar free) so they can spend the same amount of money on some other drink!

What is the point? So a few people pissed off that so many need food stamps can feel better about nothing? This won't even save money as people STILL NEED FLUIDS TO LIVE. And sugar is in everything, even fruit juices, cakes, deserts, ice cream, and even many dishes.

If people are pissed at anything, they should be pissed that this country doesn't have more economic opportunity for so many people to support themselves, instead giving about literally trillions of dollars to other countries for the most idiotic reasons.

 

[Woodznutz]

Sugar is in everything. If there is a problem, that is it. Tell the FDA to get much of the sugar out of the food. Soft drinks are food. People need liquids more than they do hard food itself. It is utterly pointless to tell people they are banned from soft drinks (many of which are sugar free) so they can spend the same amount of money on some other drink!

What is the point? So a few people pissed off that so many need food stamps can feel better about nothing? This won't even save money as people STILL NEED FLUIDS TO LIVE. And sugar is in everything, even fruit juices, cakes, deserts, ice cream, and even many dishes.

If people are pissed at anything, they should be pissed that this country doesn't have more economic opportunity for so many people to support themselves, instead giving about literally trillions of dollars to other countries for the most idiotic reasons.

Lots of jobs unfilled here, good paying jobs at that. What we need is to spread the Protestant work ethic around more. Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll isn't a good plan for success.