2d ago

rule :(

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This is a great idea, it will make healthy food more abundant for everyone via economies of scale. Ban tartrazine and put a warning for high sugar content and trans fats.
- This would only make sense if food stamps were the main driving factor in junk food sales (they're not, everyone wants to eat garbage sometimes).
  
  I don't think he government needs to subsidize eating garbage, though.
  
  Neither do I, but beef subsidies aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
  
  so tax junk food higher and subsidize healthy food directly? or do we only want poor people to eat healthy food?
  
  Why not both?
  
  Gonna tax people to pay for the corn subsidies then tax people for eating the corn syrup
- Healthier foods tend to be more expensive, and I highly doubt food stamp restrictions will magically change that. Also, sometimes people just need the calories.
  
  Economies of scale are kinda like magic.
  
  I'd rather not wager millions of people's food security on that bet though. That magic must come FIRST, before we rely on it.
  
  You do realize 8 billion usd are spent on soda via snap every year right? We have a sick twisted corporate oligarchy with its fingers in the food supply pushing cheap junk food on everyone. Everyone knows Whole Foods cost more than processed food, but an astronomical amount of SNAP is spent on food that should simply not be funded. Beans and rice and bread are far cheaper than any junk food you can find, and when people are being brainwashed by big food corporations there needs to be an external incentive (no SNAP funding) that pushed people away from junk food.
  Honestly, I wish there’s was a 50% sin tax on all food above a certain calories/gram or processed or whatever criteria you want that would be reinvested into subsidies for healthy food on SNAP. But that would never happen because Wall Street makes too much money off of fat Americans.
  
  A good discussion is here on the “8 billion usd for soda” figure.
  TL;DR: it uses data from 2011 from one store, and the media got the number wrong after extrapolating it to all food stamps expenditure.
  
  Honestly, I wish there’s was a 50% sin tax on all food above a certain calories/gram or processed or whatever criteria you want that would be reinvested into subsidies for healthy food on SNAP. But that would never happen because Wall Street makes too much money off of fat Americans.
  Good intentions here, but the LAST thing we need is an increase on consumer basics like this. Cheap candy bars and sodas are one of the few pleasures that are still affordable for people, despite their unhealthy effects. I'd prefer subsidies to healthy food vs. yet another cost increase.
  
  If we could snap our fingers and make healthy food cheaper, this plan might be fine. But if you don't do that, this idea just ends up making calories more expensive for poor people. Perhaps it could work okay if people also got more money's-worth of food stamps, but even then there are food deserts where people just don't have groceries within a reasonable distance.
  I don't see a future where politicians are willing to spend more money helping people, so if that's the case then letting people continue to use SNAP on junk food is necessary.
- Food desserts in farm country are real. Wanna ride elsewhere? Can't pay Uber with food stamps.
- I can't tell if this is a serious comment or not; I'm going to just assume that it isn't, given where we're at.
  
  I'd say we will save money by forcing them to be healthy. The outrage is about this not being a social safety net but something closer to a minimum income.
  
  I for one fully support a minimum income. Maybe, rather than taking choices away from disadvantaged adults and treating them like children, we should be examining why they're disadvantaged in the first place, and fixing the systems that allow that to happen.
  Alternately, outlaw unhealthy food entirely, regardless of income. See how well that polls. If you're really concerned about public health, that's the logical step.
- Was this comment written by RFK? Also trans fats have already been banned in the US since 2021, and had mandatory labeling since 2006.
- warning for high sugar content and trans fats
  These are the same folks that think the "diet" in diet cola makes it healthy. They aren't going to read anything or change their habits. Junk food is tasty and that's as far as the thought goes.

92 comments