N.Y. to Ban Food Stamps Used on Sugary Drinks

[PingSpike]

This brings up the topic of how powerful shame is. They moved to the debt cards for food stamps because people were embarrassed to use food stamps.

Well guess what! You should feel embarrassed, you should feel shame, you should feel bad, you should be shunned. You are using other people's money to feed yourself, it's effectively stealing somebody's food which is the lowest of lows. That's the problem with all these entitlement programs. Society used to view these as something to be avoided because it meant you were a failure at life and would be viewed as such. Now it's "I deserve ma food stamps, I deserve ma money, you owe me!"

Let's get back to the time when using such services were shamed, publicly humiliated and viewed as failure. That would go along way along with time limits. Hunger is a hell of a motivator to get to work, take away the hunger, need for shelter, etc and the motivation to go to work is gone.

While I agree with your point, I think people have evolved beyond shame so your measures would have no effect.

 

[ericlp]

Any food that doesn't provide necessary nutrition should be banned from food stamps. Zero junk food like chips, ice cream. You should see the crap people put in their carts with food stamps, nothing but expensive name brand junk food.

Also, if a generic brand is available over a more expensive name brand then the more expensive one is banned.

Woolfe - food stamps can easily more than cover food for the entire month no matter how many people are in the family.

Yup! Cookies, Candybars well, all candy and cakes etc... Should be banned ...

Along with T-bone Steaks and Lobster tails. I'm almost thinking really expensive fruit should also be banned you know...

Like pine apples @ 5 bucks a lbs for example. They should just be able to buy the cheap ass day old bread, milk and bananas and super cheap 1.50 box's of cereal non of that expensive stuff or the kind like fruit loops or captain crunch ... There should be the cheap stuff like brands club foods, or value time brands only.

 

[piasabird]

I could argue that sugar has nutritional value. It would sound stupid, but the point is that once you go down this road where does it stop?

Keep in mind that this is a federal program, and feds have the say on things like this.

 

[zsdersw]

I could argue that sugar has nutritional value. It would sound stupid, but the point is that once you go down this road where does it stop?

Certain kinds of sugar have nutritional value (raw cane sugar, for example, has trace amounts of iron and a few other minerals), whereas soda has none.

 

[Deeko]

I typically disagree with New York's attempts at diet control, but this one I am ok with. There is no need to subsidize their obesity, only to then subsidize the health care costs associated with it.

If they want to buy a soda, more power to 'em, but I don't want to pay for it.

 

[BeauJangles]

I typically disagree with New York's attempts at diet control, but this one I am ok with. There is no need to subsidize their obesity, only to then subsidize the health care costs associated with it.

If they want to buy a soda, more power to 'em, but I don't want to pay for it.

Agreed.

Soda is not a source of nutrition, it doesn't fall under the USDA's definition of food. There is no reason taxpayers should be paying for people to drink this crap.