When I was a teenager I worked for Victory Supermarket for a short time, and I remember thinking it was really wise that since we had moved to a computerized checkout it was really clever that the EBT system would only pay for life sustaining/ healthy food. No soda, no cookies, no cakes. a decade down the line and I'm serving as a disabled friend's rep payee for their social security benefits when I find out to my horror that their EBT (which is under their full control) now can pay for any foodstuffs anywhere and that I'll have to try and convince this person to stop spending their entire months food budget on junk food. I wonder when the major food corporations got that through, most likely on the name of freedom of choice?

Yeah, poor kids totally don't deserve cookies.

With a food budget of 0 a month, yeah, maybe cookies shouldn't be a priority. We're already telling them that the money has to be spent on food rather than just handing them a check, so there's no hypocrisy in then telling them that the money can't be wasted on non-sustaining food. You want cookies? Have them. Just learn to bake.

Also, stars for the topic.

I wonder when the major food corporations got that through, most likely on the name of freedom of choice?

As far as I know, it's been that way for decades. Maybe it's a state thing. Do they still have Victory Markets where you are?

Food stamps are why i can afford vegetables.

>>With a food budget of 0 a month, yeah, maybe cookies shouldn't be a priority.

Have you priced produce lately?

"TeenerTot
Yeah, poor kids totally don't deserve cookies."


If they deserved things they wouldn't be poor, it's just science.

"Protoseth
You want cookies? Have them. Just learn to bake."

You know who has a lot of time to bake? Working parents.

i can only imagine the shrieking and foot stomping if a universal income is implemented and someone buys a video game with it

deep down we all know there are people who would only feel comfortable with a universal income if it meant they could walk into a house marked as a recipient and harass them by pulling the router out of the wall whenever felt like it

then they would call themselves a good christian

i'm all warm inside thinking about evil news fan fiction

i enjoy fantasizing about a class-based Kristallnacht during our trump presidency

ps when did you guys get your govt cheese? our family got ours in the mid 80s in idaho and it was terrible stuff, tasted like oil and yellow, shit so bad you opened a kraft single after payday and your pinky shoots up as you peel the wrapper off due to the comparative quality and luxury of it all

So then how do you stop people from buying 0 worth of cookie mix? Can't buy cookie mix? How do you stop them from buying 0 worth of cookie ingredients and baking it all into cookies? Baking the cookies yourself doesn't make them healthier.

So now, you've implemented some system that prevents people from buying cookies to satisfy your misguided sense of fairness or health or whatever, AT AN INCREASED COST TO THE TAXPAYER, and people are still able to blow their entire stipend on cookies. Ad to that you've made it that much more difficult for retailers to comply with regulation, which is going to cost you more taxpayer money btw.

Congratulations, now you've figured out why the government stopped trying to regulate what they can buy with their food stamps.

I need to put my paw down here. It is _way_ healthier to make your own cookies. Also, it's trivially easy, and far cheaper than the store bought kind. Try this tonight.

Wildcat's Peanut Butter cookies:

1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
--
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup olive oil
1 egg
2 tblsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

1)combine all dry ingredients, whisk well.
2)Add all liquid ingredients, blend with spatula until smooth
3)Add nuts or choco chips for more fun if desired
4)form dough into small balls, space widely on a pan
5)bake 375F 10-12 minutes

The only thing unhealthy in there is the sugar, and you can find substitutes for that if you are picky. These are cheap cookies, and they will knock your socks off.

Protoseth makes a simple comment about bad eating habits, and you all throw an extended temper tantrum over cookies.

I spent most of my childhood thinking hot dog buttons were a legit pizza topping. I still occasionally crave hot dog pizza. My mom stretched EVERY penny. Some people just like kicking poor people because it makes them feel better about their own shitty lives. Fuck them.

I keep careful track of our food receipts, and we rarely spend more than 350USD per month to feed two people here. We eat like kings on that money, largely because I bake and cook all of our food. There are tricks to making this work, and if you are poor and living in a food desert you'll have problems, but it is definitely possible because we live it. I am sorely tempted to do some kind of cooking series or books about how to do this. Young people today seem completely at sea when it comes to this essential skill.

But basically, if you are buying premade food, you are spending a huge amount of money to poison yourself.

Poor tip: Add cooking oil to your government peanut butter to make it eatable.

I've had gubment peanut butter. Because I love oilless peanut butter, I thought it was da bomb. Peanut butter cookies are my favorite!

Food guilt is already rampant in America, this just deepens it. Fast food oligarchs tried to push to make EBT cards usable in drive thrus. Whatever perpetuates the poor on poor class warfare is good for capitalism, regardless of whether or not the government invests the initial hate cash.

Nobody is disputing that it's generally healthier and cheaper to prepare your own food, but you're just wrong if you think a package of Oreo's is making or breaking any person's health. All food is poison, whether it's full of commercial additives or not.

People are fat and unhealthy because they exercise no moderation or portion control, full stop. Making it arbitrarily more difficult to sate their impulses accomplishes nothing except inflating the cost of the services you provide them.

My children are still going to be fat pigs if I feed them nothing but Wildcat's cookies and sugary drinks I made myself like sweet tea or lemonade.

Are you suggesting that in the 70's and 80's, my generation had superior self control than today's youth? Seriously? Back then, the obesity rate was about one in twelve. Today, it is one in three. Something's changed, and we weren't living like monks back then, trust me.

It's combination of things, including the prevalence of junk food. I grew up in the 80's. I know how kids played before, tablets, computers, video games, 24 hour fear-monger news that convinces their parents it's not ok to let them go outside and explore. Before some people had to work 14 hours a day to make a living. Before it was socially acceptable to try and raise a kid on your own. Back when social mores forced people who hated each other to stay together and pass practical knowledge about how to live down to their children.

HFCS isn't the best way to sweeten your food, but it's not the devil sauce you think it is. Like everything in the history of forever, forcing people to arbitrary (and they are absolutely arbitrary) standards isn't worth anything if you can't teach them why and then work to engender a society that makes it the most practical choice.

It was pushed through as a sideways give to the corn agricultural industry. Frito-Lay/Pepsi is a huge buyer of corn, banning snack foods cuts out the profits from a major industry player. This results in jobs for the Midwest and continued illusion of Middle Class self-sufficiency, resulting in more votes for Republicans, resulting in more demonization of the poor, a cycle that self-sustains. Blame Nixon's strategic corn reserve, if there's a nuclear war we'll at least have Cheetos.

All excellent points, I grant you that. But we're in farm country here, and it's a truism that when you take your pigs/cattle to market, you fatten them up by feeding them corn. There's corn sugar in just about everything these days, and I can't help but think that may play a role. But as you say, despite sitting in front of a computer for a good deal of my young life, I did ride my bike everywhere and spent a lot of time outdoors. Today on our rural road, the parents will drive their SUV's down to the intersection to drop off and pick up their children from the bus. Apparently, the 1/4 mile or so to their houses is just too big a trek to make on foot? This even in the spring and summer, when blue skies and 75F is the norm. Incredible.

To be honest, I've generally found the price of buying all the ingredients to bake things like cookies tends to be a lot more expensive than just buying a box of cookies.

EBT would be fine, except the criteria for application is absurdly cumbersome, the offices in charge of EBT eligibility are critically understaffed, and half the people on EBT want to spend their benefits on cigarettes instead of food - which leads to all kinds of legal problems, for them and for vendors.

People should just get money with no strings attached, spending it on whatever they wish to buy. Lettuce? Cigs? Lobster? Cookies? Let consumers and the market decide.

lady got a bumper sticker that say "E. L. Fudge Yourself" with ernie keebler pissing on a chevy logo

Why get upset over them buying cookies, a bag of oreos or el fudges are like 3 bucks.

The Egyptians paid workers in beer.

Could you imagine the shitstorm that would cause if it happened today?

That's pretty progressive.

don't a lot of biker security outfits still accept beer as payment

Take that attitude over to Target where it belongs.

It's not really snobbery. It's more of the anti-welfare state, hating handouts mentality. There are probably tons of right wing radio listeners who qualify for foodstamps who refuse it out of principal.

They won't take that attitude to Target, they're likely boycotting the store over it's pro-transgender policies.

People in that situation don't refuse, they just convince themselves that their own situation is an exception. I've met several staunch republicans who live entirely on food stamps.

Incidentally, food stamp programs effectively subsidize Walmart's ability to pay their employees so little. They could easily afford to pay their workers living wages, but since food stamps makes up the difference, Walmart prefers to pocket the money.

That same mindset is also common among abortion opponents, hence the phrase "the only moral abortion is my own abortion."

:)