Quote:
Originally Posted by Scanner
If a person is on Food Stamps, as a taxpayor, I expect that to go towards healthy food for the recipient and their dependents.
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Oh Scanner, you are going to get me ranting. Where I am, there are fairly tight restrictions on what food stamps can be used for, BUT the folks on food stamps get name brand items, and a lot of them! There I am, hard working, hard budgeting, buying store brand veggies, cheese, lesser cuts of meat, etc. While I see folks on food stamps getting pretty decent cuts of meat and otherwise all name brands. It's a rare day when I actually see someone with food stamps buying produce, rice, dried beans, etc. Of course those on food stamps have a much higher grocery budget than I do, so there's not much motivation for them to tighten the belt- maybe the state is making poor people fat by giving them too much money in food stamps? Here, a family of 3 in receives just over $450 per month in food stamps; I need to pull off about $250 for a family of 3 (it may be $300 or more soon with higher grocery prices). Wow what I could do with an extra 200/month in grocery money! - I could get fat or throw a really great party every month.
There is a thread of truth to the statement about obesity and being poor. Most of it is a lack of education about nutrition. (Heck, I've been dirt poor and eaten a very healthy veggie and grain heavy diet for only about $15/ week- but that was a few years ago). However, there's another social aspect in here that someone already pointed out- poor people feel undeserving and things like fast food, or name brand snack foods make them feel a little more connected to what they perceive as the upper crust. My husband was taught this in a sociology class- they can't have the Rolex, but they can have logos that cost $5 like Doritos for example. Problem is that they are nickle and diming themselves and will never get ahead with that mentality. I remember living in a very poor neighborhood where the laundry facilities were in the garages; everyone had a box of Tide sitting next to the washer (except us). It's a tiny little status symbol. Unfortunately food is an affordable status symbol, and it's also addictive and fattening. Have I gotten off topic yet?