Shock study shows how 42M recipients spend their food stamps - and they're not buying broccoli

Daily Mail ^ | May 20, 2024 | James Reinl

[chickenlips]

An alarming study has spotlighted how 42 million food stamp recipients spend their welfare handouts on ultra-processed junk food.

Coca-Cola, Sprite and other soft drinks are the most commonly-bought items via the $135 billion-a-year Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a new study says.

Candy, potato chips, frozen pizza, ice cream, cookies, and other ultra-processed food dominates the top 20 items, says a report from the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC).

Report author Matthew Dickerson says recipients spend 'spend significant portions of their allotments on junk food.'

These 'non-nutritious foods' include 'sugary beverages and ultra-processed foods, which can lead to poor health,' says the 35-page study.

The prevalence of junk food is another reason to trim SNAP, which has ballooned this century and gets recipients hooked on handouts, says Dickerson.

The research comes as Washington lawmakers debate the text of an updated farm bill, with Republicans gunning to cut some $27 billion worth of nutrition program funding over 10 years

[Signalman]

“You May Never Eat Processed Foods Again After Watching This” Dr. Mark Hyman

This is a long (43minute) but really good video on why you should not consume “ultra-processed food”, and why it’s so prevalent in modern America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjFkVovvLdg

[ansel12]

When you think of LBJ always think of JFK first.

"SNAP was preceded by the original Food Stamp Program of 1939 and the pilot programs of the early 1960s."

"By 1943, however, the program was terminated because of reduced availability of surpluses due to the war effort and a decline in unemployment levels"

"During his presidential campaign in West Virginia, Senator John F. Kennedy promised to start a food stamp program if elected. His first executive order on January 21, 1961 (White House, 1961), expanded food distribution programs and was followed by a February announcement that USDA would initiate a series of food stamp pilot programs. Starting with eight sites, the initiative eventually expanded to 43. The success of these pilot programs led President Lyndon Johnson to request in 1964 that a permanent Food Stamp Program be enacted.4 He signed such a program into law later that year under the auspices of his “War on Poverty” (FNS, 2012d)."

The first Food Stamp issued in 1939.

[Singermom]

Of course they are not buying broccoli. THEY HAVE MONEY. They just want YOUR money too.

[IYAS9YAS]

Welfare was sold to us as a temporary safety net. It has devolved into a multi-generational hammock.

[desertsolitaire]

And buy a half pint of the cheapest vodka with the deposit refund. They dump the bottles in the store parking lot.

[Soul of the South]

Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives is responsible for originative all appropriations bills. No money can be spent by the federal government without the House authorizing it.

The Republican Party is currently the majority party in Congress. It has the ability to control federal spending by simply not appropriating money for a program or activity.

I have noticed for decades, it matters not if the Republicans control the House or the Democrats. The wasteful spending will continue. Since 95% of incumbent Congresscritters are reelected every two year cycle, the American people are as complicit with the wasteful as both political parties.

Look in the mirror. If you voted for a Republican or a Democrat to represent you in Congress you voted for the waste.

[Jamestown1630]

Who do you suggest we vote for, then? If we don’t vote for a Republican or Democrat, one of them will win anyway.

[A Navy Vet]

Right. I'm shocked, surprised, astounded, stupefied, amazed that these "gimmed dats" spend my tax dollars on junk food and other crap. As if we haven't known all along. I am so sick of these bums and the so-called "homeless".

I do have some compassion for the mentally ill who can't function, but so many are just lazy, anti-everything, addicts, and prefer not to be part of our society so they can live supposedly "free". We used to call them bums, hoboes, tramps, and thieves. Now they demand certain kinds of foods while they piss and shit on our sidewalks, and make life miserable for those who play by the rules.

[Tired of Taxes]

"The owner rings up the sale as groceries with a markup for himself. No goods change hands."

Oh... so, that explains why those products never seemed to move off the shelves. I just thought those places were used as a front.

[Texan5]

That is still not healthy food-dried beans are good protein but you need other foods for more protein and other nutrients. “boxed cheese” is crap-like Velveeta-not real cheese, made from mostly heat-processed vegetable oil-very little real nutrition. Any milk is fine for babies-but not adequate calcium, etc for older kids, adults. You have to have real veggies, fruit, meat and fish-and real dairy products to be healthy.

Personally, I don’t care if people feed their kids unhealthy food or eat it themselves and the whole family are like hogs waddling around-but don’t do it on the taxpayer’s dime-we pay for that medicaid that the welfare recipients use, too. Why not food stamps for fresh veggies, fruit, meat, real diary only-and include a simple cookbook and easy-to-read nutritional info with each EBT card-eat healthy food or starve, as long as you are on public assistance...

[tiki]

They not only spend it on soda and junk food they buy it at gas stations where it’s three times in the price of a grocery store

[Reynoldo]

Cut $27 billion over ten years. That’s 2.7 billion per year. Annual budget is 135 billion. That’s a 2% cut. Cry me a river.

Ya gotta start somewhere.
Foot in the door…..

[yldstrk]

You forgot the rice.

[Codeflier]

That really would be dumb! At least dump the water into empty gallon jugs, so that you can have some water.

[yldstrk]

I don’t know of anyone buying the bottles, so this ain’t true.

[devere]

SNAP is peanuts compared to Section 8 housing. Some people do work hard all their lives, still wind up poor, and need the help. I have a relative just like that, and instead of me helping him the government does, and I pay income tax instead.

[bitt]

p

[mewzilla]

Note the change to how Deep State identifies what it used to call hunger.

Fedzilla used to define hunger as missing one or more meals a month.

Then taxpayers caught on to what a crock that was, so Deep State has changed hunger to food insecurity.

Check out how the government defines what it now calls food insecurity.

But you’d better have your blood pressure meds handy.

[SteelPSUGOP]

White bread?

Racist🤣

[Wayne07]

The worst thing on there is water. We are getting taxed, sending money to DC, running through a 50 state bureaucracy, and distributing it to poor people so they can buy bottled water.