> as long as it is food and stuff available at a normal grocery store (so not including alcohol).
Not to dive too far down the “is a burrito a sandwich” rabbit hole, but it is interesting to think about this—a bottle of soda and a bottle of wine really aren’t that far apart: caloric, low-nutrient beverages whose primary purpose is pleasure and that cause some subset of the population to be unable to moderate their intake. Not advocating for government sponsored wine so much as exploring the idea of “what is food?” Soda barely qualifies, in my view. Really beer or wine may actually be a bit more food-like.
That said I agree that strict lifestyle prescriptions for people getting assistance are more often a kind of moral high horse than a useful policy.
You have to pare away a lot of context and experience for these to look similar. Like if you were explaining human food to an alien the alien might make this mistake. But if you've ever lived in a human society you couldn't.
Because hardcore alcoholics exist who will start to die if they go cold turkey on alcohol, I think allowing alcohol arguably makes more sense than soda.
Of course even better would be public funding to medically supervise those alcoholics, but maybe that won't work for the ones that aren't ready to quit, so some form of basic public assistance to afford alcohol might still make sense. I'm not sure. But I am sure that nobody dies from abruptly quitting soda.
I honestly didnt really expect that people would latch onto the alcohol part of this so much.
> That said I agree that strict lifestyle prescriptions for people getting assistance are more often a kind of moral high horse than a useful policy.
Honestly, yeah. Just look at the comments.
So many of us take it for granted that if we want to "waste" money on a candy bar, or some other stupid little thing that gives us a few minutes of joy... we just can and barely give it a second thought.
You actually got me thinking looking at some of the nutrition labels on some of the alcohol I have in my fridge and honestly, I could see the argument. At the end of the day it should the their decision and trying to draw arbitrary lines due to health or whatever just isn't helping anyone, likely just leading to embarrassment or anger when they accidently add something to their cart that isnt covered.
Guilty. I don't feel strongly enough about this to really give anybody a hard time that uses their food stamps for it.. it's their choice, I'll roll my eyes and move on. It's just an opinion I have on the matter. I don't think what people buy with their food stamps is anywhere near a big enough problem to prioritize over most other things.
Not to dive too far down the “is a burrito a sandwich” rabbit hole, but it is interesting to think about this—a bottle of soda and a bottle of wine really aren’t that far apart: caloric, low-nutrient beverages whose primary purpose is pleasure and that cause some subset of the population to be unable to moderate their intake. Not advocating for government sponsored wine so much as exploring the idea of “what is food?” Soda barely qualifies, in my view. Really beer or wine may actually be a bit more food-like.
That said I agree that strict lifestyle prescriptions for people getting assistance are more often a kind of moral high horse than a useful policy.