Why can't you buy wine on food stamps?

[Liv]

You can buy boat loads of candy: Snickers, Kit-Kats, Milky Ways. You can buy Twinkies (or you could), you can buy Nachos, Doritos, and you can buy and feed your three year old Coca Cola till his eyes bleed, its stomach explodes, and you stuff the little tike with pre-processed, corn-syrup injected, artificially flavored pizza rolls till it dies of sudden death syndrome in your chubby little arms... but you can't buy wine.

Wine? Not liquor, beer, but wine. A core ingredient in thousands of French dishes and recipes.

The question is why do we villainize alcohol in this country so much?

Is it our protestant values? Surely if it's a concern for health, then we would be banning junk food.

In fact I'd argue to say a glass of wine could be, and likely is, healthier than a sugared soda. In most countries, wine is two to three times cheaper than soda. Most Europeans wouldn't think of a dinner without a glass of wine.

What's more is wine drinking is a social drink allowing food stamp individuals to network, and maintain a positive social support system that helps improve their lives.

It just seems like we have the whole concept of supporting people on welfare, to improve their lives, backwards.

In fact I can't think of any reason not to allow wine on food stamps.

Heart disease and obesity kill far more than wine ever has. So why can't you buy wine on food-stamps?

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

I agree that it would make sense to ban junk food from eligibility under the food stamp program. People should have the ability to get aid procuring basics, like meat, vegetables, breads, spices and so on.

But what if they buy sugar and use it to bake cookies, or make a pot of candy?

Unfortunately, wine may be a common cooking ingredient in European cooking, but it also happens to be a major problem for alcoholics to live with, and the state really should not be openly helping them fall off the bandwagon.

On the other hand... cheap wine can be obtained via a few hours of picking up aluminum cans by the side of the road (America being a land of some truly obscene pigs, you see), so it all works out in the end, I guess.

[Liv]

There are far more food addicts than wine addicts in my opinion.

[smiler125]

How about allowing guns to be bought with food stamps, so that you could shoot your own and it would be very fresh.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

There are far more food addicts than wine addicts in my opinion.

Indeed, and both cost the American public a LOT of money every year.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

How about allowing guns to be bought with food stamps, so that you could shoot your own and it would be very fresh.

Well, folks are already able (and often willing) to pick up and cook anything they kill with their cars. Deer season is in full swing now, and those buggers are dropping like flies!

[smiler125]

There was a guy in the U.K that only ate roadkill

[A Person]

I've eaten plenty of road kill, provided that it was me that killed it. Mostly rabbits but some pheasant and duck too. My only regret is that I wasn't able to eat the moose that killed my car.

[Liv]

So I'm always amazed how timely I am. Last night on the news they had a spot about SC trying to ban sugared soda on food-stamps.

http://www.thestate.com/2013/02/01/2613 ... s-eye.html

Apparently they've tried it in NY and it failed, though they didn't say, how it failed.

I'm all for it. Sugared soda is indeed quite evil, at least in the U.S. it is with our corn-syrup base.

However, I can't see this happening. How far can we control people's diets? Do we ban high-fat, high-carb?

Why not simply sell already prepared healthy meals? I like that idea.

The comments on this article, are, as always, priceless.