HER OPINION
Some decades ago I was a food stamp mommy. I went to nursing school full time. That translates to Monday-Friday, 8:00am to 5:00pm, as it was a vocational school.
I worked FULL time. I went to work every Friday night and worked from Friday at 6 pm to Sunday at 6:00pm, straight through. That is 48 hours with no sleep. I made minimum wage. From that money I paid rent and utilities. I had a small two-bedroom home for myself and the kids. There were four of them living with me at the time. I also paid for child care on the weekends.
I was in that position because I had left an abusive relationship and could no longer work my previous job that required travel 4 of every 5 days.
I bought junk food with my food stamps.
I also bought the healthiest food I could possibly afford.
Frankly the junk food was cheaper.
Looking at today's average cost:
One apple is 25-cents.
One Little Debbies is 15-cents.
Considering the MAX benefit in Texas is $6.40 a day and the day old bread store has snack cakes for 5-cents each. Apples and other fresh fruit is tossed out, not sent to the old fruit store.
My kids ate corn mush and peanut butter toast for breakfast, peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, and some heavy carb meal with canned veggies (something along the line of boxed mac and cheese with a can of tuna stirred in) for supper. They damn well had earned a day old snack cake, and I had earned the soda I got each evening (off-brand from the dollar store) that kept me awake while I studied into the wee hours.
So, why didn't I spend more time cooking "healthy" meals? Good question. I made it home with my kids about 6:30pm, Monday-Friday. They had baths and homework to get done. I also had 2-3 hours of homework each night. Plus, clean the house, do the laundry (often by hand), and somewhere in there sleep so I could be up by 6:00am to start the next day.
Where, pray tell, was all this food prep time supposed to fit?
Not one of you is qualified to judge me for how my kids were fed or how I spent the monthly benefit I received. I was working harder than I ever worked in my life or since. I was exhausted, literally sick with exhaustion, trying to go to school and keep a roof over my kid's heads. I kept my kids bellies full to the best of my ability.
People on food stamps work. They are known as the "working poor." They include a large number of military families, single parents, and older disabled folks. They are not lazy, sucking on the public tit, bums. There is a REQUIREMENT to work. Yes, there are some exemptions but they are few.
Before you go off telling folks they need to use those benefits to buy only "healthy" stuff, you better also decide which nights they put the kids to bed hungry and which nights the kids eat. Decide which activity the parent needs to give up to have the time to cook all that healthy stuff. Should it be laundry or the bed-time story?
Be aware that most people are only on food stamps for a short period of time. 56% of folks getting food stamps will be off of them in 36 months. The benefit is not a freebie. It costs the average taxpayer 55-cents a day, and for every $1.00 spent in SNAP benefits the return is $1.70 to the economy.
Here is the offer. I will pick up your 55-cents a day in cost IF you will do the laundry and read the bedtime story for the single parent struggling, working, and doing his or her best. That will give the exhausted parent the additional time to bake cookies from scratch so the child has the PRIVILEGE of having a cookie for finishing the boxed mac, cheese, and tuna dinner that they have eaten the third night that week. This will give the poor parent the extra hour to make cookies and spend around an extra $1.00 (comparison was dollar store off brand vs. from scratch) to meet your lofty standard of only buying healthy stuff.
Maybe some of you need to check your privilege.
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