It fucking should. The chicken is good, can be used in many dishes, and is cheaper than raw!
Go for it!
Walmart already uses a loophole for their rotisserie chickens: Just sell some of them cold out of the fridge section. Can use snap for those just fine; but not for the same exact chickens kept in those heat lamp things.
Winco does the same for their pizzas. You buy an uncooked pie with SNAP; they then offer to cook it for you gratis.
Honestly, just let poor people get prepared food, too. A ton of people on foodstamps are homeless and don’t even have a way to fucking cook. At least California (and another state I can’t remember) have allowed snap to be used at restaurants like McDonalds if you are homeless and/or over a certain age.
So that’s why take n bake pizza places are so popular in southern red states? I didn’t know there was a regulatory reason!
Honestly, just let poor people get prepared food, too.
I think the problem is that poor people are able to use government programs to get food at all. So much of these legislative maneuvers are intended to selectively punish or disenfranchise portions of the population that the state government hates and scare them out of these programs entirely.
The Walmart / Winco end runs are fine enough, until you start asking where these places are located (predominantly white neighborhoods with a surplus of upper income residents) and where they aren’t (minority-majority food deserts).
We’ve got a public-private partnership intended to squeeze out certain segments of the population from having access to any kind of food at all.
We could also stop moralizing poverty and just allow people to buy whatever food they want. But this would be a good step forward.
A balanced diet should be a human right.
This is more efficient and cost effective anyway. It’s bonkers we don’t let people select their own food.
It’s not about efficiency. It’s about power. It’s about making you feel like a piece of shit for having to rely on the government.
You know, the government that’s supposed to take care of you.
The government is supposed to be by us, for us. Technically, we get to define what the government’s scope is. But we make that decision as a group.
You know, the government that’s supposed to take care of you.
I think that’s where the disagreement begins: they believe the government is a tool to exercise power, a weapon to wrestle away from their enemies, not an entity that’s supposed to take care of you.
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Why not just give them money they can use for drugs instead?
This, but unironically
Because just giving them money, no strings attached, is proven to be more effective AND more efficient in both money and manpower. Every single time it’s studied.
The argument ‘But what if someone abuses it?’ always falls flat when countered by ‘What if people are unjustly denied support they need because of the restrictions?’ Because the first will always happen, no matter what, and the second only happens if you deny support. One person ‘unfairly’ wasting money on meth would be a more than fair price to pay for one more person getting what they need to survive, and if you believe otherwise… I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe go grow some human empathy.
Besides, tax money is wasted WAY more by the rich than by the poor.
Ooh, good idea! Then they could sell the drugs for rotisserie chickens
That’s some good rage baitin’ Mr. Cumfart!
That’s what Medicaid is for.
This is literally what every prosperous society already does.
but that’s SoCiAlIsM and we can’t have that here!
I know I didn’t realize so many people hated UBI here.
UBI doesn’t exist anywhere nationwide (except for the elderly), minimum income guarantees however have been implemented in many countries. For example, in my home country the minimum allowed income for a legal resident in a single-person household is just over 1900 USD per month. Meaning: if your income is below this, you have a right to supplemental income from the government.
no, wait, you’re onto something
we could do that, and call it a first world level of healthcare or something, and ensure that everybody has access to the care that they need to live a good life
Bit of a leap there lol
The SNAP program provides a monthly stipend for low-income families to buy groceries, but it doesn’t pay for hot prepared foods. The exclusion, which dates back decades, was meant to promote home cooking. But critics say it’s outdated and penalizes families that are already struggling to make ends meet, excluding convenient and nutritious options.
SNAP is a major piece of the U.S. social safety net used by nearly 42 million, or about 1 in 8, Americans to help buy groceries. On average, the monthly benefit per household is about $350, and the average benefit per person is about $190.
It’s so short-sighted to exclude hot prepared foods from SNAP. So many people don’t have time and consistent access to kitchens where they can cook every meal. I hope this passes.
I buy a Costco chicken then make (healthy) soup with the bones.
The value for price on that thing is incredible.
Chicken, microwave steamable frozen mixed veggies and some starchy thing that can even be left over bread if you don’t mind
The mixed peas, carrots, green beans and lima bean one is not perfect but it’s cheap and effective
This is going to sound gross, but you can make a gravy out of the liquid at the bottom of the rotisserie chicken bag and a 1/4cuo of flour.
Not as good as the drippings from cooking a raw chicken, which is why I throw it in my soup pot, but still acceptable.
Also Costco sells frozen Demi-baguettes, you can heat them in 8 minutes plus oven preheat time. They taste great. I throw a ramekin with water in the oven with them so they slightly steam and get crunchy crusts.
No that stuff at the bottom is pretty good, normally after the breasts and limbs are gone I pull apart the whole thing and mix it with a bit of milk and cheese to make patties for sandwiches
I usually use most of these for sandwiches, so I’ll try your patty idea
I make a bone broth for my dogs to mix in their food. They love it.
I bet those benefit averages drop drastically, beginning with 2026. Gotta tax cut for billionaires so they can have more foie gras, coffee, and avocado toast on private jets and yachts.
ah, yes, the rule of “you can’t buy 2lb of tasty cooked protein for $7 but you can buy 2lb of uncooked tasteless meat for $7.99/lb”
Basically. We have a few grocery stores that have restaurants and put their left over food in a cooler to buy when they close (8pm). You can’t use snap until they relabel it and stick it in the cooler thing. Same food but because it isn’t handed to you it’s snap approved.
If you don’t have a fridge, or a stove, that “no prepared food” rule makes it very expensive and extremely wasteful to eat.
It also increases reliance on chips and soda, which a lot of places are trying to (or have) banned on SNAP without addressing the issue of “good” food being a hard to manage with countless restrictions on purchases.
Plus, with a slow cooker, instant pot, or just a stove, you can make delicious broth from the leftovers and upgrade your next couple meals.
When I roast my own chicken or turkey, I’ve already invested so much time into cooking and cleaning up that often I can’t give it more time to turn it into stock (id throw it in the freezer for another time if I had the freezer space.) If I buy rotisserie, I almost feel guilty if I don’t make more use lol. Plus my grocery store has an “almost free because it’s starting to rot” produce shelf. Pennies will get you all the veg for soup.
Yeah, doing the stock is an extra step for sure. I use so much stock in cooking for normal meals that it saves me a ton of money to carve out the freezer space (especially because all the almost rotted and throwaway veggie bits can find a home in the pressure cooker).
Our grocery stores don’t have the last chance shelf, unfortunately. In school, we’d raid the produce dumpster and have smoothie nights.
It’s not just hot/ prepared foods. Had a relative who worked in a grocery store and there is like a whole list of what you’re allowed and not allowed to buy. Maybe people who know more can fill in the details, all I remember is that you had to buy 2% milk or skim; no whole milk for poor kids. ridiculous.
You’re thinking of WIC, not SNAP. It’s only for pregnant women and kids under a certain age to make sure they have the bare minimum of nutritional needs met. And yeah, it comes with a ton of rules and limits. They’ve slightly modernized it, but you used to have to use checks that had the items listed and you had to buy it all at once or miss out for the month. There’s a booklet that lists the item, with brands and sizes, that can be used. No substitutions or exceptions. And if something is miscoded, oh well. The items are 2% milk or soy milk, peanut butter, whole wheat bread/tortillas, canned fish, low sugar cereal, fruit juice and like $10 worth of fresh fruits and veggies. It can be life saving, but I remember the entire program being really demeaning and too difficult to utilize.
It kinda sounds like someone took the old food stamps system and just combined the entire fucken booklet into one cheque. Why?
It varies state by state.
Here in CA the only restrictions are hot food and alcohol (and hot food is restricted only if you aren’t homeless), but in my birth state my sister had to only buy specific brands of certain allowed foods. It’s nuts.
And it should be noted that even that hot food rule isn’t even followed outside of grocers. The reason you can used food stamps at fast food and restaurants is because they technically sell the food to you uncooked then cook it for you for free. It’s a stupid restriction everyone knows it is but we still do the whole dance and pony show.
I see the “EBT accepted” signs/flags at a lot of fast food places here but I had assumed it was the same as the hot food rule for grocery stores! ie, homeless only. So dumb, but I’ve had people here on the fediverse insist to me that the poors should get the bare minimum subsistence through food stamps and nothing else.
Honestly the whole no hot food thing just comes across as Reaganite drivel to me. Historically most food charity things only gave out hot or cooked food since it was easier and cheaper to just do a bulk of pasta, donuts, or bread since then you could make it with demand and not have to break it up according to how many people may or may not come in. Sure there’s some worry about cost but just give the businesses a tax incentive or something to have lower EBT prices.
IDK this whole thing about hot vs cold food just comes across as arbitrary and stupid. I get alcohol and maybe food over a certain price depending on different factors but as a whole the restrictions seem stupid.
It really sounds like WIC?
WIC is specifically for women and children. It is federally funded, but it is administered by the states.
I realize that. An ex neighbor had 6 kids and no ride to the grocer, so I obviously helped when I could. Peanut butter, 2% milk, eggs, other stuff I forget by now.
Car Centric urban planning is bad because poor people simply do not have a transportation options. The system literally does not work correctly
Community is so important, thank you for being a good neighbor :)
Aw, that’s sweet. I can assure you when I had no ride, if a neighbor hadn’t helped me, I would have been in dire straights, for sure!
Also causes a lot of confusion for more niche products. For example, my local store has glass bottles of milk where you can return the bottles to get some money back, but EBT doesn’t cover the cost of the bottle, even though the milk itself is cheaper than the other milk options when you factor in the value from returning the bottle.
Everyone on EBT either needs extra cash to pay the bottle deposit, or they spend more money on milk.
I’ve been on SNAP and have never had to pay for the bottles.
For returnable ones?
Legally speaking, that store could get in big trouble. That’s why my local store doesn’t do it. That’d be equivalent to them letting you exchange your SNAP benefits for cash, since the bottle could be redeemed for money/credit.
Idk if it may be different in other states, but in California all taxes, including recycling CRV, are waived when using SNAP. It wouldn’t make sense for food money paid by taxes to just go back into the pool of taxes. The only returnable bottles I have seen are over at the grocery store across the street from me, and they require coming back to that same store with a receipt, so I don’t think I could redeem them for free cash.
Yes, for returnable ones. And no, it wouldn’t. Do you know how much those bottles are worth? Almost nothing.
It doesn’t really matter how much they’re worth, it’s considered an exchange of SNAP benefits for goods or cash not covered by the program. In my area they’re a few bucks, which isn’t nothing, but even if they were worth less, the store could permanently lose its ability to take SNAP payments if they were found selling the returnable bottles for SNAP credit.
That’s not SNAP–SNAP let’s you buy whatever food you want, as long as it’s not hot/prepared.
You’re thinking of of WIC (Women, Infant, Children), which provides food for mothers with young children. These are restricted for a couple of reasons, such as the foods being aimed at infant and child health and, iirc, the approved foods being less expensive and thus having the program’s funds go further.
“No loss-leader Costco chicken for you! Full-priced laborious goods only!”
So fucking stupid our laws
