this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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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.

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[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

What you're describing is an effect of the exact corporate lobbying I said we need to get rid of. Set up a clear set of standards across a few types of food defined by near-universally agreed upon science, stop carving out exemptions for big corporate donors and punishing small brands that can't pay off Congress. If you can't meet certain standards of nutrition, you're out. Sorry Little Debbie, but you've got to play in the free market now. Good luck! :-)

There's no reason to bring morality into this when it's just pure logic that almost every other Western country has come to.

It's a net negative for everyone the more of this junk we eat.

We shouldn't encourage it's consumption (we are here).

We should tax unhealthy items that put a strain on our social systems.

Unhealthy items should be heavily regulated and come with a warning to the public of their health risks. (See: Mexico)

Very unhealthy items allowed today should be banned. (See: The EU's food regulation)

Do you agree with this? Which part of a junk "food" ban upsets you? Would you support stronger national regulation, maybe a ban? Should SNAP cover raw milk? Should ObamaCare pay for ivermectin treatments? Would you cry if Mountain Dew Red Dye 40 got legislated out of grocery stores? I'm genuinely curious.Is it the fact that it just disqualifies them from SNAP eligibility? People are still more then welcome to buy them privately with their own money, but SNAP is a social support system, a very strained and underfunded one at that. There is zero support to be gained from a Twinkie.

[–] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Is that a ‘no, I’ve never used SNAP or WIC in a red state’? The part that upsets me is you’re exclusively targeting poor people by trying to control what they can spend their food stamps on. Deciding that certain foods are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ regardless of context is moralizing, even if you don’t call it that. There isn’t any single food that is fine to eat exclusively, and there isn’t any single grocery store food that will kill you if you eat it once. It is fine to eat birthday cake at a birthday party, and anyone that doesn’t want poor people to be able to use food stamps on that is, frankly, a grinch. Food isn’t solely about nutrition, it’s also a part of community and a sense of belonging.

Nutrition is complicated, and anyone acting like there are one size fits all solutions is a scam artist. If you want people to spend their food stamp money on more fruit, veg, and whole grains, then the pressure needs to be on the companies making these foods, not the poor people buying them.

but SNAP is a social support system, a very strained and underfunded one at that.

So tax the fucking rich. This is the fakest “leftist” shit I’ve read in my life. You don’t fix a food funding problem by micromanaging the poor.

[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Food stamps have been regulated since day fucking uno dude. Where were you a year ago? Demanding Congress let you use WIC to buy a Big Mac? Or SNAP for a bottle of Cognac? This is a hill to die on several miles away from the battlefield if you're this worked up over plastic-wrapped Fudge Rounds being excluded.

Food isn’t solely about nutrition, it’s also a part of community and a sense of belonging.

Good thing it isn't SFAP or that would be a convincing argument :-)

Nutrition is complicated, and anyone acting like there are one size fits all solutions is a scam artist.

Sure it is, but at no point on that chart is "Twinkie" plotted. Some people need more iron in their diet, eat spinach, others need vitamin C, have an orange. But no one needs a 2 liter of Dr. Pepper. We're talking about excluding nutritionally-insignificant trash from a nutrition assistance program. I like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but I'm not including clips of it in my video lecture on depictions of Lustmord in Weimar art.

the pressure needs to be on the companies making these foods, not the poor people buying them.

I agree. So stop subsidizing them through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Do you think exempting Swiss Rolls will have a net-negative impact on Hostess revenue? I do.

So tax the fucking rich. This is the fakest “leftist” shit I’ve read in my life. You don’t fix a food funding problem by micromanaging the poor.

Tax the rich, totally, and maybe in 2028 we can start that. But I don't want to wait to fix SNAP and you play with the hand you're dealt. In a world where Trump is president and we can have A) Rampant wealth inequality, the guttingn of social safety systems, and Little Debbie gets unlimited free money from the government, or B) rampant wealth inequality, the gutting of social safety systems, but corporations have less opportunity to feed disadvantaged people poison, folk feel some pressure to make healthier purchases at the grocery store, and the SNAP budget can be put towards even healthier options instead of medically-condemned, politically-advantageous hyperprocessed snacks, I'm going with the latter.

[–] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Food stamps have been regulated since day fucking uno dude

Where I live you can spend them on any food that isn’t hot. Sorry about your shithole state.

Demanding Congress let you use WIC to buy a Big Mac?

You actually can use SNAP to buy a Big Mac if you meet certain conditions, which makes sense if you spend five fucking seconds to think about how food stamps are also issued to people without kitchens or even homes. For some people the options really are Big Mac or nothing.

Tax the rich, totally, and maybe in 2028 we can start that. But I don’t want to wait to fix SNAP and you play with the hand you’re dealt

So you want to cooperate with Republicans to restrict what poor people can use food stamps on, and somehow have deluded yourself into believing this is leftist? lmao

Everything you talk about wanting to implement costs money. Who’s analyzing every single food item that comes out on the market and certifying it? Who’s paying for that? How are small businesses going to afford it for every food item they produce? Because that’s a great way to ensure only huge corporations get any money from WIC and food stamps.

The disgust you have for the poor is dripping off every word you type, and it’s gross. If you can’t deal with poor people feeding themselves the ‘wrong’ foods with their food stamps, that’s a personal issue you need to cope with. Especially considering you’ve never even used food stamps in a red state (silence is admission). Try listening to people on food stamps who have dealt with this instead of barging in and declaring you know how to fix their lives better than they do.

[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

literally cites a regulation in counterpoint about how food stamps aren't regulated.

You've went off the plot here. I'll bring us back to base: What's the "N" in SNAP stand for? One word answers only.

Give me your proposal for taxpayer-funded Whoppers. But don't shit up my nutrition (oops, I gave away the answer) program to pay for it. It really is that simple.

ad hominem and le cope

L.

MAO, even