SNAP bans on soda, candy and other foods take effect in five states Jan. 1

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Starting Thursday, Americans in five states who get government help paying for groceries will see new restrictions on soda, candy and other foods they can buy with those benefits.

Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah and West Virginia are the first of at least 18 states to enact waivers prohibiting the purchase of certain foods through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

It’s part of a push by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to urge states to strip foods regarded as unhealthy from the $100 billion federal program — long known as food stamps — that serves 42 million Americans.

“We cannot continue a system that forces taxpayers to fund programs that make people sick and then pay a second time to treat the illnesses those very programs help create,” Kennedy said in a statement in December.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/snap-bans-soda-candy-other-170914936.html

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. ugh, such a shitty move. These kinds of restrictions are meant to shame and punish and have nothing to do with health.

But there are folks on the right AND left who LOVE to be moral scolds about what people eat, and believe it's their business to police others.

[GoCubsGo]

6. Shitty people make shitty moves.

Yup. They have been trying this shit for decades. I remember seeing the putrid waste of oxygen who started the "Tea Party" pontificating on CNBC about how those who receive nutrition benefits "should just be given bags of beans and rice." No fruits and vegetables for you, let alone any sort of meat or the occasional dessert. Just beans and rice. day in and day out. That tells you all you need to know about these assholes.

[dem4decades]

2. I wonder if Mountain Dew will survive?

[underpants]

3. I'd always thought they were.

I’d bet the sofa and candy industries got that changed.

[GoCubsGo]

4. You can't use WIC benefits for those items.

But, those are different from SNAP, which had few, if any, restrictions before now, if I'm not mistaken. I do recall various asshole Republicans trying to ban shrimp/seafood, steak, and other items they deemed as "luxuries." But, I don't recall if those ever went into effect.

[underpants]

5. Okay. My brother had SNAP but he said he could buy anything but smokes and booze.

He’d quit drinking 20 years ago though.
I referred to it as WIC but that doesn't make sense because (thankfully) there was no kid involved.

[Xolodno]

7. Some of the "healthy" options....

...are often loaded up with more sugar. Makes no sense to do this.

And all you need is flour, sugar, etc. and you can still make many desserts. Obviously they did not think this through.