Should SNAP benefits be restricted to healthy, unprocessed food?

Surprise, Surprise.

It is possible to have a sensible, informative comment thread in a political blog.

The issue: Should SNAP pay for junk food?

Jane Collins is a college classmate. She did not pursue a career that generated big money. She has first-personexperience with some of the nutrition programs in today's news. She shares her thoughts on a blog headlined "Calm down. Connect online. Rethink everything": https://alicet4.com/

Joe Yetter is a retired army physician. Like Jane, he reads this blog. He was a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in my rural, bright red district.

Comment by Jane Collins: 

Let people make their own decisions.

One food program threatened by the shutdown was WIC, for Women, Infants, and Children. I received those benefits for a while when our kids were small. The program covers healthy options like fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, and cereal. It also provides nutrition information to young mothers, including guidance about learning to cook. It's an excellent program. 

But the problem with limiting the main food program, SNAP, to nutritious food is that poor people would not be allowed to eat like the rest of America. When your kids have to wear second-hand clothes and never get new toys, at least you should be able to treat them to something sweet once in a while. 

Most poor parents work. Many have long commutes. They depend on processed food to save time. Canned and boxed foods are also usually cheaper than fresh, and don't go bad so quickly.

In America, families are ashamed when they can't provide their kids with the things they want. SNAP benefits are not generous. Sometimes the only meat you can afford is hotdogs. Are hotdogs junk food? Who gets to decide? Poverty limits choices in housing, education, and so much else. At least let poor people make their own decisions about feeding their families.  

Response, by Joe Yetter, M.D.

Jane, you've made the same argument to me that lots of other folk I admire and respect have made: that by limiting SNAP to nutritious food, we'd be saying (in your words),"they are not allowed to eat like the rest of America."

I disagree. I think we'd be saying: "We will pay for food that is good for you and your children. We are not going to use taxpayer money to purchase dental cavities and cardiovascular disease. You remain free to buy unhealthful food, but we will not pay for it." I'd like also for both of us to acknowledge that funds are fungible, and if we buy a buck's worth of healthful food for somebody, we may also free up a buck that can buy soda pop and potato chips for them. For me, that's a negative outcome; for those on the other side, it may be a positive. In any event, it does promote their freedom to choose.

Jane Collins' response to Joe:

Don't shame people for being poor.

I didn't buy sugary snacks or soda for my kids when we got food stamps. I also cooked from scratch, since I was a stay-at-home mother at the time, 20 miles from the nearest grocery store. Our meals were boring (turns out my husband is a much better cook) but healthy. We had a big garden for fresh vegetables and herbs, not something available to urban poor people. I canned, dried, and pickled, skills I learned from my husband's grandmother. But we were living in rural Kentucky. I saw what other people bought. My kids didn't miss what they had never had, what other kids would have, I think. 

Thank goodness (and Democrats) there are debit cards instead of stamps now. People would often be poor-shamed at checkout for whatever other people judged they should not buy with "our money" (though poor people do pay state and local taxes), including fresh fruit. Note that rich people also feed their kids crap and nobody seems to be shaming them. Americans are sold terrible foods from birth, on every medium. It isn't only poor people who have bought into this corporate propaganda, or who have never learned to cook. 

I should also note that despite working full-time for most of our adult lives, my husband and I now live on Social Security. We qualify for only $20 a month in food stamps, but we appreciate what we get. Every little bit helps. 

 

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