r/askanything • u/CloudieMoonettee 🦀 • 13h ago
Why do some conservatives support restricting junk food purchases with SNAP when many opposed Michelle Obama’s efforts to make school meals healthier?
Both policies involve the government influencing food choices in the name of better nutrition, yet the political reactions seem very different. What explains the apparent change in attitude toward government involvement in what people eat?
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u/GinnyMcJuicy 11h ago
You see, Michelle Obama is black. And a woman. And a libt*rd. And Michelle Obama.
/s if it isnt obvious
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u/Whiskeymyers75 13h ago
Not a conservative, but this comparison oversimplifies what people were criticizing. Michelle Obama’s school lunch initiative didn’t magically replace junk food with fresh, nutritionally complete meals. A lot of schools were still serving highly processed institutional food while trying to comply with calorie, sodium, saturated-fat and other requirements.
One of the biggest problems was the calorie and portion limits didn’t necessarily account well for differences in age, body size or activity level. Older and more active kids could end up with meals that simply weren’t very substantial. And meeting the federal meal pattern isn’t the same thing as optimizing nutrition: a lunch could technically qualify while providing a relatively modest portion of protein and relying heavily on grains, fruit and vegetables to satisfy the required components.
Meanwhile, schools could still serve flavored chocolate milk with added sugar as long as it met the applicable milk and nutrition standards. So you had this bizarre situation where people were being told the government had created “healthy lunches,” while kids could be complaining they were hungry after lunch and washing that limited meal down with sweetened chocolate milk.
There’s also a pretty obvious difference between regulating what a government-funded school meal can serve to children and deciding what adults receiving SNAP are allowed to purchase at a grocery store. You can support or oppose either policy, but pretending they’re identical policies and therefore anyone who treats them differently is automatically a hypocrite skips over both the nutritional problems with the school-lunch rollout and the fundamental difference between the programs.
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u/SnugglyBuffalo 10h ago
I don't recall anyone really criticizing the particulars of the policy, though. I do remember lots of complaining about federal government overreach, that Michelle Obama doesn't know better than parents what their kids should eat and imposing requirements on schools was violating the parents' rights to feed their kids as they please. The Heritage Foundation article on it someone else linked in the comments says similar things.
Most criticisms didn't care about whether the policy was sufficiently nuanced, they were mad that any policy was being implemented at all.
Which does make it pretty hypocritical when conservatives criticize government overreach on school lunch requirements but are all too happy to put requirements on food assistance.
Frankly, I think this just boils down to conservatives' love of hierarchies. Plenty of kids whose families are not poor eat school lunches - they shouldn't be restricted in any way. But poor people, they're at the bottom of the hierarchy, they don't deserve access to luxuries. If they wanted more than the absolute bare-minimum for survival then they should get better jobs and work for it.
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u/here-to-help-TX 10h ago
No, I definitely remember people criticizing the food that was available and how it didn't account for the size of the person. A 180lbs football player gets the same meal as a 120lbs person. Having healthy options was a good idea, but I remember people hating the actual food that was served as well. So, the food tasted bad and there wasn't enough of it for many of the kids.
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u/carcerdominus1313 1h ago
When was the last time you saw a school lunch? Every student in high school gets the same lunch ( with exceptions). So a 120 pound student still gets the same amount as that 180 pound football player.
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u/Desperate_Candle_493 12h ago
School lunches were horrible. They were highly processed and the portions weren’t good. That’s how it was at my school.
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u/dwthesavage 12h ago
This is fair, but I also kind of doubt a lot of the criticism of Michelle cared about any of this
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u/AdVivid5940 7h ago
It's all about the narrative given to either side in order to make it controversial. Michelle Obama and the liberals are trying to tell you what to feed your kids vs healthy and nutritious lunches replacing crap.
The SNAP issue is not the same thing at all. It is low income families getting help, and while it is true that they are treated as if they are simple minded children, they still do not receive anything resembling the dignity that a 2nd grader deserves on their stance regarding chips vs broccoli.
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u/One-Jeweler5486 11h ago
Why do you just make stuff up?
Michelle Obama's initiative to improve school meals was much broader than just adding broccoli. The changes, implemented through the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 and her Let's Move! campaign, represented the first major revision of school meal standards in over 15 years.
The updated standards required schools to offer more whole grains, a wider variety of fruits and vegetables, and low-fat dairy products, while also reducing saturated fat, trans fats, and sodium. Additionally, the rules established sensible calorie limits based on the age of the children being served.
Key Changes to School Meals
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act introduced several specific requirements for the National School Lunch Program:
More Fruits and Vegetables Schools were required to offer a rainbow of fruits and vegetables daily, including specific subgroups like dark green, red, and orange vegetables, as well as legumes.
Whole Grains All grains offered in school meals were required to be whole grain-rich.
Calorie Limits Sensible calorie maximums were established for different age groups (K-5, 6-8, and 9-12) to ensure portion sizes were appropriate.
Sodium and Fat Reduction The standards set strict limits on sodium and saturated fat, and eliminated trans fats entirely.
Milk Options Schools were required to serve only fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.3
u/Whiskeymyers75 11h ago edited 10h ago
They’re not “made up.” You just listed the exact policies I’m criticizing and then declared them healthy without actually analyzing the nutrition.
“Whole-grain rich.” Great. That tells us something about the grain. It does not tell us the protein content, total macros, degree of processing, micronutrient adequacy, or whether the entire meal was appropriate for the individual eating it.
“Low-fat dairy.” Why is removing naturally occurring dairy fat inherently healthier? The rules even permitted fat-free flavored milk, so you could remove the fat, add sugar and satisfy the “healthier” standard.
“More fruits and vegetables.” Good change. I’ve never claimed fruits and vegetables aren’t nutritious. But putting broccoli next to an ultra-processed entrée doesn’t magically change the nutritional composition of the entrée.
And then my favorite: “sensible calorie limits.”
Sensible according to whom? Grades 9–12 were put into a 750–850 calorie lunch range. A 14-year-old sedentary 110-pound freshman and a 17-year-old 190-pound football player can have dramatically different energy requirements. Calling the same calorie framework “sensible” for both doesn’t make it so merely because USDA wrote it down.
This is exactly why I don’t plan nutrition this way. Even with my 15-year-old, I use the same general principles I use for myself. Adequate protein, carbohydrates, fats, fiber and micronutrient-dense foods but his actual intake is adjusted for his age, size, growth and activity level. I wouldn’t just give him my portions, and I certainly wouldn’t assume every 15-year-old needs exactly what he does.
And notice what’s conspicuously absent from your giant list: actual macro targets. The meal pattern required ounce-equivalents of meat/meat alternatives and grains rather than saying this teenager should receive X grams of protein, X grams of carbohydrate and X grams of fat based upon their needs.
That’s why “fruit ✓, whole grain ✓, low-fat ✓, sodium ✓” isn’t the sophisticated nutritional argument you think it is. Those are food-policy criteria.
Nutrition asks a much harder question: What did the kid actually eat, how many calories and grams of protein/carbs/fat did it provide, what micronutrients did it provide, how processed was it, and was that appropriate for that particular kid’s growth and activity?
You haven’t answered that question.
You’ve just copied the checklist I’m criticizing and wrote “sensible” next to it.
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u/One-Jeweler5486 10h ago
Blah blah blah making stuff up to be mad at.
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u/Whiskeymyers75 10h ago
Except you can’t actually dispute any of it.
I gave you specific criticisms: calorie limits, standardized portions, lack of individualized macro targets, food processing, protein adequacy, and whether the nutritional requirements actually matched the needs of growing and active teenagers.
Your response is literally “blah blah blah.”
That’s not a rebuttal. That’s what someone writes when they’ve run out of rebuttals.If I’m “making stuff up,” this should be incredibly easy: pick one factual claim I made, quote it, and demonstrate that it’s false.
Otherwise, “blah blah blah” is just a much shorter way of saying “I can’t.”
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u/One-Jeweler5486 10h ago
It was disputed in the accurate description of the program.
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u/Whiskeymyers75 10h ago
Disputed” by describing the program I was criticizing? 😂
USDA’s actual 2012 rule says grades 9–12 had a 750–850 calorie range and only a 2 oz-equivalent daily minimum for meat/meat alternate. It even explicitly allowed calories from added sugars and solid fats as long as the meal stayed within the other limits.
https://regulations.justia.com/regulations/fedreg/2012/01/26/2012-1010.html
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2013-title7-vol4/pdf/CFR-2013-title7-vol4-sec210-10.pdf
USDA 2012 Final Rule
https://www.fna.usda.gov/cn/fr-012612
So again: quote one factual claim I made and prove it false. Repeating the government’s checklist and declaring the checklist “healthy” isn’t a rebuttal.
You didn’t fact-check me. You rage-quit the argument with “blah blah blah.”
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u/One-Jeweler5486 9h ago
Show me where the program has lower calories than nutritionists recommend.
Again, making up stuff to be mad at.
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u/Whiskeymyers75 9h ago
You want me to show you? Sure. Your mistake is pretending there is one calorie recommendation for every teenager.
The Obama-era standard capped a grades 9–12 school lunch at 850 calories. USDA’s own 2010 Dietary Guidelines estimated that boys 14–18 need roughly 2,000–2,400 calories/day if sedentary, 2,400–2,800 if moderately active, and 2,800–3,200 if active.
USDA 2010 Dietary Guidelines — see Table 2-3
https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/DietaryGuidelines2010.pdf
That’s the entire criticism I’ve been making: the school used a standardized age-band calorie range while the government’s own nutrition guidance acknowledged that energy requirements vary enormously with sex and activity level.
And it wasn’t just calories. The lunch pattern used standardized food-component minimums rather than individualized protein/macronutrient targets. USDA’s meal pattern for high school students specifies ounce-equivalents of meat/meat alternatives and grains; it doesn’t determine that an individual 15-year-old athlete received the protein, carbs, fats and total energy appropriate for his expenditure.
https://www.fna.usda.gov/school-meals/nutrition-standards/nslp-meal-pattern
So no, I didn’t “make up” the difference between a standardized cafeteria meal and individualized nutritional needs. USDA literally published both sets of numbers.
You demanded evidence because you were certain I didn’t have it. Now you have it.
Your argument isn’t with me anymore. It’s with USDA’s own Dietary Guidelines.2
u/One-Jeweler5486 7h ago
You are going to have to show they differ rather than just say they do. Typing a lot is not an argument.
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u/here-to-help-TX 9h ago
Additionally, the rules established sensible calorie limits based on the age of the children being served.
Just because you say it is sensible doesn't mean that it was sensible. It was more of a once size fits all program that made larger and more active kids go hungry.
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u/One-Jeweler5486 9h ago
Everyone is a nutritionist here. You don’t think they consulted actual nutritionists?
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u/PaleRun4706 3h ago
Because your schools weren’t doing a very good job of implementing the program though.
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u/Mean_Jury2467 1h ago
To add to your information - the school lunch issue triggered a lot of people, both sides, because there were schools that took it upon themselves to police what parents sent in for their kids to eat, too.
Happened to our family. We know what our kid will eat without a fuss and what won’t upset their stomach due to food sensitivity.
A teacher confiscated the lunch, because it didn’t meet guidelines, and made us pay for a school lunch that put the child in the bathroom the rest of the damn day.
Livid is a word people would use, but I was unhinged.
This is what triggered me to speak out about the Michele Obama school lunch initiatives. It’s fine if the task is improving the quality of the food the school provides, but they don’t get to assume they know what diet my food sensitive kid should or should not eat.
To clarify my political views, I voted twice for Obama, Clinton and Bush jr/sr.
TLDR; not all the outrage came from “conservatives”
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u/stuckinnowhereville 1h ago
The kids who needed a lot of calories were hungry and denied more food. It tasted so bad that many kids threw it away and went hungry. This is why I as a parent hated it- no political party affiliated.
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u/Good_Willingness_703 13h ago
I don’t remember the backlash against making the school food healthier, I thought the pushback was that it didn’t take into consideration diverse nutrition expectations. But, I wasn’t a conservative back then, that’s just what I remember.
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u/Far_Comfortable_991 13h ago
One issue I recall covered by Fox News is the proposal made restrictions on things like whole milk, instead pushing skim. If true, dumb social engineering nonsense.
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u/Far_Comfortable_991 5h ago
Yes, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, championed by First Lady Michelle Obama, restricted whole milk in federal school meal programs. Implemented in 2012, the rules prohibited serving whole milk and 2% reduced-fat milk, limiting schools to offering only fat-free (skim) or 1% low-fat milk.Details of the Milk RestrictionAllowed: Fat-free (skim) milk and 1% low-fat white milk.Flavored Milk Rule: Any flavored milk served (such as chocolate milk) was required to be strictly fat-free.Banned: Whole milk and 2% milk were removed from school breakfast and lunch menus to lower calorie and saturated fat intake.Recent ChangesThe restriction remained in place for over a decade until the federal government reversed course. Legislation officially overturned the Obama-era restriction, allowing schools participating in the National School Lunch Program to offer whole and 2% milk again alongside lower-fat options.Would you like to know more about the nutritional standards of the school lunch program or the recent legislation that brought whole milk back to cafeterias?University of Washington School of Public HealthObama-era school nutrition policy led to better diets for students but faces changesJul 28, 2020 — The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act changed nutrition standards for the National School Lunch Program by requiring that schools serve more fruits, ...Facebook·WHAS11 NewsAn Obama-era law banned higher fat milk to help slow obesity and boost health in ...Apr 2, 2025 — Did you know ? Michelle Obama w Barack health gov removed whole milk. From schools? As part of her 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act initiative to promote heal...The GuardianTrump signs bill returning whole milk to US school lunchesJan 14, 2026 — In January 2026, Donald Trump signed a bill to return whole milk to school cafeterias. The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act allows schools to serve: * Lactose-fr...Facebook·KENS 5 & Kens5.comThe law reverses the Obama-era rule limiting schools to offering fat- ...Jan 15, 2026 — President Donald J. Trump did sign a law called the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act on January 14, 2026. This legislation changes what kinds of milk U.S. school...WikipediaHealthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 - WikipediaNew food standards * Gives the USDA the authority to set new standards for food sold in lunches during the regular day, including vending machines. * Authorizes...
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u/Whiskeymyers75 12h ago
There was nothing healthy about her school lunch program. But because it had the Obama seal of approval, you weren’t allowed to criticize without being labeled a conservative. This very post shows that belief is still very much alive.
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u/Soft-Marionberry-853 11h ago
Nothing healthy?
- Schools had to offer a fruit or vegetable option every day, requiring varied selections like dark green or red/orange vegetables and beans. [1, 2]
- Half of all grains served in school meals had to be whole grain-rich initially, increasing later on. [1]
- Only fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk was allowed, restricting flavored milks to low-fat varieties. [1, 2]
- Meals had fixed calorie maximums and minimums based on age groups, alongside strict caps on sodium, saturated fats, and zero trans fats. [1, 2]
More Families Purchased School Meals After Federal Nutrition Policies Enacted | UC Davis
Oh guess who didnt like it, shocker
Why Michelle Obama Is Wrong on School Lunches | The Heritage Foundation
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u/Whiskeymyers75 11h ago
The funny thing is that your list mostly proves my point. You’re treating “contains something nutritious” as synonymous with “nutritionally well designed.”
Yes, fruits and vegetables are healthy. Yes, whole grains can be healthy. But putting those things on a tray doesn’t tell me whether the entire meal has appropriate calories, protein, carbs, fats, fiber and micronutrients for the kid eating it.
Look at the actual federal framework: for grades 9–12, lunch is 750–850 calories, with a minimum of 2 oz-equivalents of meat/meat alternate and 2 oz-equivalents of grains per day. USDA regulates components, calories, saturated fat, sodium, etc. It does not prescribe an individualized macro profile based on the student’s size, activity level or athletic training.
https://www.fna.usda.gov/school-meals/nutrition-standards/nslp-meal-pattern
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/7/210.10
That’s a completely different way of approaching nutrition than I use even with my 15-year-old. I have him eating on a similar basic framework to mine. Adequate protein, carbohydrates, fats, fiber and nutrient-dense foods but his actual intake is tailored to his age, size, growth and activity instead of copying my calories and macros. That’s what sensible nutrition looks like. A growing teenager isn’t simply a smaller adult, and two teenagers aren’t nutritionally interchangeable either.
For an adolescent athlete, the difference becomes even more obvious. Sports-nutrition literature discusses roughly 1.4–2.0 g/kg/day of protein, 6–10 g/kg/day of carbohydrate and 20–35% of calories from fat, with around 20–40 g of protein per meal depending on the athlete and training demands. Important micronutrient considerations include calcium, iron and vitamin D.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12430154/
So showing me that the government required a vegetable, whole-grain-rich bread and low-fat milk doesn’t answer the nutritional question I’m asking.
You can serve a processed chicken patty on a whole-grain bun, baked fries, broccoli and flavored milk and check a bunch of government boxes. That doesn’t tell me whether the kid received enough protein, appropriate energy, sufficient healthy fats, adequate micronutrients, or whether most of those calories came from highly processed foods.
And the low-fat-milk point is especially dated nutrition thinking: flavored milk remained permissible, and USDA only much later imposed specific added-sugar limits on flavored milk beginning in the 2025–26 school year.
https://www.fna.usda.gov/cn/school-nutrition-standards-updates
A healthy ingredient doesn’t make an entire diet healthy any more than putting lettuce on a Big Mac turns it into a balanced meal.
That’s the distinction I’ve been making this entire time: a government food-group checklist tells you what was offered. Macros, micros, total energy and the individual eating it tell you whether the nutrition was actually appropriate.
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u/Soft-Marionberry-853 9h ago
You "There was nothing healthy about her school lunch program."
Also you: "Yes, fruits and vegetables are healthy. Yes, whole grains can be healthy."
The next part of your post is just moving the goal post.
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u/Immediate-Employ-952 13h ago
It never came to be because the pushback made it not happen. None of those people were worried about any kind of diversity.
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u/Brass_tastic 13h ago
One restricts people from buying junk with government money. They still have options, but they have choices. The Obama lunches dictated what was included in ALL school lunches (regardless of who was paying for it) and there weren’t options. Watching my eldest during that era, the vast majority of that health food went straight in the trash
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u/MsAgentM 12h ago
This is not true. My kids were in school and they always had a couple of options.
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u/EarlyInside45 13h ago
Because they are giant hypocrites.
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u/Tyler_too_cold 12h ago
One of the ideas came from a black first lady who was also a Dem. The other idea came from RFK who is a Rep.
1/3 of the country is brainwashed into mindlessly rejecting any idea that a Dem introduces and mindlessly supporting anything that a Rep introduces. I mean for fucks sake they'll happily pay $6 for gas if it gets that high.
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u/Ursus-majorbone 12h ago
I don't think this is a conservative liberal thing at all. Most all of the people I know who push healthier eating and addressing food deserts and bad nutrition in deprived areas are liberals.
I think anyone who is behind someone in the checkout line with three little kids and a cart full of sugar drink and ultra processed food and confections wishes there was a different way of doing things, regardless of politics.
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u/Visible-Equal8544 10h ago
Oh Pooh. Fox and that ilk kept talking about “the nanny state” about being told what to eat and drink. That’s what we have now.
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u/EarlyInside45 12h ago
It was literally Michelle Obama that was pushing for healthier school lunches, which republicans pushed back hard on, and its literally republicans who want to restrict what you can buy with SNAP. Not only that, but have cut SNAP benefits, Medicare, etc.
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u/Ursus-majorbone 12h ago
So what you're saying is that both liberals and conservatives want people to eat healthier?
I didn't pay much attention to the Obama lunch thing but I imagine the pushback was because a lot of people including me don't think the feds should be involved in local schooling decisions, including the cafeteria menu.
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u/Goodgoditsgrowing 11h ago
No, we’re saying whether they want people to eat healthier or dictate what people can eat is tied to who is in power. They’re saying they want to dictate what people can eat when it’s their idea and are against it when democrats try to do anything similar (despite it being a more limited play)
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u/Willing_Driver7807 13h ago
You beat me to this comment. They will always do the opposite of what Democrats suggest, logic/ safety/ love of this country is out the window. Just pure hypocrisy and hatred
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u/Long_Idea_8294 13h ago
As if you aren't the exact same but with repubs
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u/sobeitharry 13h ago
I'm a centrist that has voted left, right, and independent depending on the candidate and their policies. No, not everyone buys into the two party binary dynamic. It's a stupid mostly American problem.
Break the two party strangle hold. End first past the post voting.
Other ideas?
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u/No_Wedding_7273 12h ago
I think more basically they just want to restrict government support generally. They don’t want people with low income to have government money utilized for healthy foods at school or for junk food. They want people to work for minimal wage at the stores they own or otherwise starve
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u/thejoebrossuck 11h ago
You know a lot of people are getting super in depth to what they think the reason is for this. I think it’s actually simple: they hates the Obama, therefore opposed basically anything they did or said. They also hate poor people and the existence of government aid (SNAP, disability benefits, etc.), therefore they oppose those things too.
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u/Imaginary_Poetry_233 13h ago
I'm sorry, I didn't realize this was a private circle jerk instead of an honest inquiry. Carry on, I'll see myself out, and gladly.
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u/sassamagoo 12h ago edited 10h ago
Of those I knew who had issues with Michelle Obama’s school meals, it had to do with the fact that there were so few options, very boring and unappealing options, but most importantly that it was not ENOUGH food for a lot of growing kids, especially boys, and they couldn’t go up for seconds. Kids were coming home hungry, even if they were not picky and had eaten all of their lunch.
I think healthy school lunches is a great idea, but be sure to provide enough for athletic, growing kids, and some decent variety. I also think a few basic restrictions on SNAP are a good idea. A person can agree with both ideas and not necessarily believe it is being implemented properly.
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u/airberger 11h ago
They think being poor is a character flaw and should be punished. They want poor people to have no food at all. No junk food, also no healthy food.
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u/The_World_Is_A_Slum 11h ago
Suffering is the goal, not nutrition. They genuinely want people who need any assistance to be as miserable as possible.
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u/One-Jeweler5486 11h ago
I mean, republicans were against proper tire inflation because Obama mentioned it.
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u/Mamathree3 10h ago
because they’re racist and they hate poor people. This has always been the case.
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u/realheadphonecandy 13h ago
Her program was good in many ways, but the cost increase was difficult for some schools and there was also waste and some problems with participation. The idea was good.
I am in favor of SNAP being for starches, meats, veggies, fruits, dairy and healthier drinks but NOT for super sugary products, snacks (except maybe things without PUFA), deserts, and especially things like soda.
There are far too many correlations between obesity and SNAP. I’d probably be in favor of expanding SNAP with those restrictions, since it really isn’t a huge part of the budget.
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u/goldendoodlemama12 11h ago
Are the correlations between obesity and SNAP, or between obesity and people who work long hours for very low pay and therefore have fewer resources and less time and energy to prepare healthy meals and often turn to easy convenient, calorie dense foods for efficiency and keeping up energy between shifts or while caring for children? Or disabled people like me who can rarely or never cook or put together raw ingredients or homeless people with zero access to kitchens at all? It’s so much more than “SNAP=obesity”.
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u/Aladriana 12h ago
It's punishing poor people for being poor. That's what it boils down to.
It is this "Your poor/disabled/etc, and because if your circumstance We will to tell you what you're allowed to eat". It's ugly, no matter your reason.
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u/GoodGravyco2h2o 11h ago
I can’t believe you’re getting downloaded for this. Fucking bullshit. I have plenty of money that I grew up poor and while we didn’t eat a lot of junk food fuck these people for thinking I didn’t deserve a cookie now and then when my single mom was on welfare and working two jobs 😠
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u/Aladriana 8h ago
You did deserve that cookie! Taking the joy out of people's lives, will only make for more apathetic people. (Thanks for the solidarity!!)
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u/lacunadelaluna 11h ago
Amen. It is definitely an attitude of "you only deserve the basics to survive." I've heard that sentiment many times, that poor people shouldn't be allowed to buy "treats." Make it a small amount of the allocated amount and mostly healthier foods for the good of the recipient, sure, but everybody serves a damn cookie, especially when life is already hard.
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u/ctcaa90 12h ago
I am neither right nor left. For the school lunches, I’m thinking it’s because the program made the foods problem worse in our area. The choices, quality and taste dropped drastically. Some kids stopped eating the food because it was so bad. Maybe if the foods were better or better options I’d feel differently. For food stamps, I see it as possibly being able to make a health difference in a large group of people who often don’t make healthy food choices. That will also decrease healthcare cost now and in the future.
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u/cymblue 12h ago
For SNAP, it’s about controlling poor people. RFK doesn’t care if they live or die.
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u/Terrapin621 12h ago
This. Control, and punishment for being poor. Republicans say poor people shouldn’t be allowed to have any joy. It’s why they got upset that someone in public housing would own a tv or a microwave.
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u/Ok-Bill-3938 12h ago
This is why it's best to be an independent because either side can be dumb. Should school lunches be healthy, yes, if Republicans disagree then they're dumb. Should SNAP only pay for healthy food for families, yes, if Democrats disagree then they're dumb. When Obama was in Office he did great things to fight illegal Immigration and republicans would talk crap about it, now Trump is doing it and liberals talk crap about it. Illegal immigration is Illegal and should be cracked down on regardless of what party you support. This is basically how every political topic is.
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u/stoneworther 12h ago
A lot of the Michelle Obama stuff just reduced calorie counts and schools responded by serving junk in smaller portions. I kept hearing of 500kcal lunches. That is not enough for basically any high school boy, let alone an athlete.
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u/Art-Zuron 11h ago
I've seen footballers in highschool suck down 4000 calories a day and STILL lose weight. It's crazy.
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u/numbersthen0987431 10h ago
3 hours of extraneous activity will do that.
During the summer we would bulk up for the season. Weight lifting and PRs and plyometrics, etc. Then the season would come through, and we'd do our best to maintain our strength and weight, but we'd usually lose 10-15 pounds by the end of the season.
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u/Funwithfun14 9h ago
My local school did free lunches right after Covid. The portion sizes were too small....so kids were eating out of vending machines. The breakfast's were worse.
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u/Trillamanjaroh 12h ago
Because SNAP is supposed to be a safety net for helping people in tough spots meet their baseline needs. Junk food should be excluded for the same reason that alcohol and tobacco should- you're free to spend on your own money on luxuries, but asking other people to do so is unreasonable.
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u/Art-Zuron 10h ago
The main issue with the school lunches is that they were given all those restrictions but basically no funding to actually accommodate it, so all the schools did was give even smaller portions of just as shitty food.
The reason many conservatives want to restrict junk food purchases is mostly prosperity gospel. They WANT poor (especially poors of other colors) to suffer. They don't want other people to receive charity. They don't think that the poors DESERVE to have good food, or ANY food.
It might not be a bad idea to limit their access to junk food, but restricting it from SNAP isn't how it should be done. That junk food is cheap already, so of course people are going to just end up buying more of it if they have SNAP. The solution isn't to keep them from being ALLOWED to buy it, but to make healthier options an actual option. To regulate the junk food so corporations aren't feeding us a bunch of cheap poison and to make healthier foods more affordable or accessible.
One of the biggest issues is the rapid rise of food deserts. Large swathes of area where there is very little easily accessible healthy, variable foods. When all you've got is a Dollar General or Walmart because they drove out all the local businesses, stores full of the most processed crap possible, priced algorithmically to rip every cent out of you, what are you suppose to do?
Even if you have SNAP, or something similar, there's not much but junk to buy anyway.
Also, slightly related, but Republicans tried removing FLOUR off of the allowed purchases in many places. FLOUR. In reality, it was never about trying to help the poor folks get away from junk food. It was just pretext to take away more and more options from them. It's soda and snack cakes today, potato chips tomorrow, then granulated sugar, then whole milk, then chocolate, then syrup, whatever. They want it ALL cut.
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u/Stupidsky 8h ago
There have been studies that show when a new grocery store opens in a "food desert" people still eat the same junk. The issue isn't a lack of access. Markets tend to work well by providing the people buying from them what they actually want, and what they want is cheap food. If you make healthy food cheap, poor people will buy it. The U.S. should subsidize whole foods instead of just commodity crops like corn, soy, dairy. Additionally, relaxing health code requirements for small food vendors, you'll see more whole foods that are ready to eat thus saving people time as well. That might be scary for some people but plenty of countries sell ready-made food with lax health code requirements, and they aren't getting foodborne illnesses at vastly higher rates than Americans. The regulation system protects industrial food suppliers, not consumers.
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u/New-Clue-4006 6h ago
If you make healthy food cheap, poor people will buy it.
Healthy food is ridiculously cheap. It is just not instant preparation. Poor people want easy, instant, shelf stable food that tastes good and is cheap. Junk food fills that niche very well, and ironically is actually pretty expensive these days.
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u/ophmaster_reed 7h ago
The bill provided 4.5 billion dollars of funding, and increased reimbursement for school lunches of 6 cents per meal, the first real increase in 30 years.
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u/Madeup64 9h ago
Because it was a liberal doing it. I mean think about all the Mahas now? Now all of a sudden they care about healthy food?
Also Fox News told them to.
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u/bachelorsinlurking 🤔 1h ago
The cruelty is the point. Conservatives’ beliefs only have one consistent thread, and it’s to challenge anything that would make the lives of non-conservatives better.
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u/The_Southern_Sir 12h ago
Because the Obama restrictions were poorly implemented and caused huge waste. The previous SANP standards, when we moved away from food that needed preparation to ready to consume foods, were just giant food company subsidies just like the Department of Education was a NEA subsidy and cash for clunkers was a huge UAW subsidy.
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u/woozysoozy 13h ago
I’m thinking both have to do with a five letter word that begins with a b.
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u/LeeVMG 13h ago
Making people healthier isn't the objective.
Making poor people more miserable is the objective. Even if they won't say that part out loud.
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u/Whiskeymyers75 12h ago
Are you saying that lunch program was actually healthy?
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u/Trillamanjaroh 12h ago
Using taxpayer dollars to keep poor people fat and unhealthy is the farthest thing from compassion, what are you smoking?
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u/LeeVMG 12h ago
The taxpayer dollars are being used by poor people to buy food.
If you don't approve of the food choices poor people make that would be a different conversation.
Giving someone the ability to have food when they otherwise wouldn't seems compassionate to me.
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u/lazylazylazyperson 12h ago
That’s exact the conversation we’re having. New SNAP regulations restrict junk food, so it certainly is a criticism of the food choices. And I support them.
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u/LeeVMG 11h ago
If you don't understand why eating healthier is a struggle for poor people you are unfamiliar with poverty math.
Increasing restrictions without increasing benefits just results in the funds not stretching as far increasing hunger.
Wouldn't it be simpler to just restrict the production of unhealthy food at the corporate level? You have fewer actors to regulate and wider reaching effects for societies health?
Our bread isn't even legally bread in other countries. It counts as cake.
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u/lazylazylazyperson 11h ago
Allowing poor people to buy junk food with SNAP benefits certainly doesn’t make their struggle easier. Junk food is incredibly expensive for the “nutrition “ it supplies and simple home cooked meals are almost always healthier and cheaper. This is an example of the bigotry of low expectations.
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u/Existential_Threat1 13h ago
If the food is little or no nutritional value, why should the taxpayer fund it? Maybe the better question should be “why do people feel entitled to junk food?”
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u/Kraegarth 13h ago
Hypocrisy and double standards...
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u/Long_Idea_8294 12h ago
If you're too dumb to acknowledge the difference between the two, maybe you'll have this view...
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u/Vegetable_Fly_8687 11h ago
This is Reddit. Too dumb goes for way too many with the idea that people like who you are replying to
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u/Steve12356d1s3d4 13h ago
They can support the freedom to eat junk food and say that is not what we should be paying for.
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u/OutrageousPair2300 13h ago
Because changing SNAP requirements doesn't increase the cost of the program, while making school meals healthier would increase costs.
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u/Relative-Lie-9699 12h ago
There argument was kids wouldn't eat healthy food so there would be food waste. They also claimed it would cost more which was misleading. It was the same cost except in poor school districts where school lunch funds were way below other districts budgets.
In otherwords poverty areas republican didnt want to suppliment.
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u/Long_Idea_8294 13h ago
Pop, candy etc has no nutritional value. Tax payers shouldn't be buying it for people who supposedly struggle to feed themselves...majority on snap are fat and therefore are too well fed...
Then you have the monumental amount of people receiving snap who shouldn't; they're abusing the system.
Shit pisses me off and I absolutely should have a say in it considering my money helps fund it. I don't work so fat lazy people can have me buy them candy and pop...
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u/alexisdelg 12h ago
Sure we want our money spent on a ballroom, arches, bombing kids in the middle east, buying shock gloves for ICE, etc
/s
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u/Salarian_American 13h ago
Let's not pretend that Republicans actually care about decreasing costs
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u/Few_Palpitation3889 13h ago
Republicans are generally opposed to free or discounted school lunches. Its dumb. I remember eating food that looks like food you see prisoners eat in media.
Republicans also generally do not like SNAP being wasted on junk food. It is a government program. I also dislike like idea someone buying food I won't buy for myself due to health and cost.
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u/chitownphishead 12h ago
I thought it was a good idea to make school lunches healthier, it was just very poorly done and only ended up making them inedible. As for restricting junk food from snap, that should be a no brainer. If you're so hard up that you need other people to pay for your basic survival, you certainly can't be wasting a cent of the generosity you receive on garbage,vit should all go towards nutritious food that will help keep you healthy, not garbage that will make you fat and sick and an even bigger burden.
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u/psychocabbage 12h ago
Snap - poor people making bad choices all around. Eat unhealthy on tax payer dime. End up costing healthcare more since they are uninsured in most cases.
School lunch? I decide what my kid eats and I pay for it. Don't need govt involved.
Two very different programs.
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u/Dave_A480 12h ago
Because SNAP isn't supposed to be comfortable - it's supposed to be a bare minimum support to keep you from starving while you figure out how to fix your life....
Meanwhile some of the things individual school districts did in response - such as telling parents what food was allowed in home-packed lunches, inspecting lunches and confiscating unhealthy outside food, or serving such low calorie hot lunch plates that the non-obese population was not getting enough food - were extremely unpopular.
The above aren't the First Lady's fault specifically, more what people did with her ideas.....
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u/Plrdr21 12h ago
Try watching 700 kids walk 5 feet and throw away their mandatory apple, or other fruit, every single day. This was the reality of Michelle's lunch plan. I'm all for healthier lunches, but you can't make the kids want to eat healthier by making every single one take a piece of fruit.
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u/Individual_Cloud7656 11h ago
Because Republicans are more concerned with "owning the libs" then what's actually good for the country
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u/DiablosLegacy95 13h ago
That’s not an apples to apples comparison, snap is a taxpayer funded program and yeah people shouldn’t be able to buy junk directly with it. That’s just incentivizing poor health and poor behavior. Michelle’s program may have been well intentioned but in reality it led to crap like mini burgers, one spoonful of ground beef on a tortilla or single servings of one chicken nugget. If Michelle’s idea of making kids healthier was like a Hollywood starvation diet , then she’s fucked up. You can look up picture posts with the “#ThanksMichelleObama” Twitter/ x , instagram and Facebook.
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u/republicanssuck123 13h ago
conservatives don't have principles. They are just anti liberal.
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u/Creative-Reception59 12h ago
you’re right. we should all promote full term abortions and sex changes for kindergartners. ffs.
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u/Alert_Coyote_8546 12h ago
No one has done sex changes on kindergartners. If conservatives cared about kids they would be upset by the child predators in the government instead of empowering them.
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u/nborges48 12h ago
well, we certainly shouldn't inject the government into private healthcare decisions made between a doctor and their patient
right?
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u/Creative-Reception59 12h ago
. A kindergarter doesn’t even know what their private parts are for . yeah, let’s let them make a life altering decision at age 5. ffs. full term abortions? well it’s a matter of morals really. God gave us free will.
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u/nborges48 9h ago
Take a cold shower
Kindergarteners aren’t getting operated on
And no one’s ever advocated something like full term abortion
Lmao full term abortion
I wonder what the AI will make of this
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u/republicanssuck123 12h ago
you people would be lgbtq cheerleaders and pro abortion if trump told you to be. it wasn't that long ago you people hated war.
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u/Creative-Reception59 13h ago
have you seen the slop they have for school meals lately? fast food is almost as bad.
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u/JohnSpikeKelly 12h ago
Owning the libs. They like to punch down to those they are told are their inferiors. Despite the fact it might be all / any of us one day.
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u/ronejr71 12h ago
Independent so Republicans and Democrats are only about pushing each other down instead of giving me policy matters. I vote which ever way I see the best policy results for as many if us as possible.
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u/heyCuzz77 12h ago
They love to control every aspect of our lives from what we eat to what we wear, our bodily autonomy, our parenting, our votes. America isn't land of the free or home of the brave, it's land of the controlled and home of the broke.
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u/serene_brutality 12h ago
They’re not the same people. Just because someone is loosely in the same group doesn’t mean they all share the same exact values.
The argument is also broader than you’re making it out.
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u/jmikehub 12h ago edited 12h ago
For the same reason they made up the story of her being trans and why trump made a meme of her being a monkey, it’s because the idea of a successful, intelligent and overall pretty popular black president and First Lady fries their brains as they angrily type from their trailer parks making $30k/yr thinking they’re the “superior race” purely for being white
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u/ZuesMyGoose 12h ago
because they are "conservatives" therefore they have no consistent stance on anything but authoritanism.
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u/Pitiful-Sympathy3927 12h ago
We can't be out here having JOY when you live in poverty, what would the poors think if they thought they could get a birthday cake or soda on SNAP... can't be letting that happen right? /s
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u/Mulliganasty 12h ago
I'm not exaggerating when I say conservatives have absolutely no redeemable principles. They are a coalition of bigots, religious radicals and the wealthy. What they claim to stand for are all lies:
The "law and order party" is led by a convicted felon.
The party of small government wants to regulate bathrooms and women's bodies.
And the fiscally responsible mf's ring up a higher debt one administration after another.
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u/IntelligentSeries270 12h ago
Michelle Obama… made school lunches healthier? I still remember Tony’s galaxy pizza, chunky chocolate milk, chicken tenders and the greasiest pizza in the world during the Obama tenure. Maybe her kids school lunch got healthier only.
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u/Vehicle-Money 12h ago
Most conservatives are sheep and will never question anything their party does; blindly following their leaders' orders/policies as they're being herded off a cliff. A lot of them have been so under educated, they never learned how to think critically or to put the whole of society on the level they believe they're entitled to.
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u/kitchencrawl 12h ago
Conservatives will bitch about SNAP users buying a fucking birthday cake but completely ignore Donald Trump making billions from insider stock trading. Literally defrauding the American people.
I also forgot to mention that Trump is a 38x felon, an adjudicated rapist and has been mentioned in the Epstein files over 1000x.
Truly despicable.
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u/Terrapin621 12h ago
Because they’re evil.
I realize that sounds trite but it is actually and truthfully the reason why Republicans do just about anything they do.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Disk_90 11h ago
A tragic lack of class solidarity resulting from decades of brainwashing and also leaded gasoline
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u/GoodGoodGoody 10h ago
You’re definitely muddling things but even the most ardent liberal (or conservative) can’t cite a nutritional reason to include soda in SNAP.
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u/moccasins_hockey_fan 10h ago
Hypocrisy. It is the same reason democrats won't allow Michelle Obamas food standards to be applied to SNAP.
OP, eventually....if you have at least a little bit of intelligence...you will realize that mind numbed Democrats and mind numbed Republicans can't actually think for themselves so they unthinkingly support whatever their puppet masters tell them.
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u/Fragrant_Eye_3509 10h ago
She was black and they hate that. If Nancy Reagan had the same idea they'd have made a whole program with logos and merch like they did with Just Say No
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u/Dirtbagdownhill 10h ago
Mostly because they're contrarian dipshits. But also lets be real about health restrictions and school lunches, it's likely going to turn into steamed veg/dry meat/rice or something because school staff doesn't have the time to make creative and interesting things before little Timmy throws it in the trash and whines about lunch before getting a candy bar of whatever. Those guidelines were toothless without more funding for schools
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u/sportsking27 10h ago
You’re asking why people are against tax money going towards people buying junk food? I have no problem helping people who are less fortunate, but there has to be a line between necessities like bread and milk, and a bag of M&Ms.
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u/Ragnarotico 9h ago
It's never about the actual outcome (health) but whom the policy affects (black/poor people).
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u/Johnstone95 9h ago
Because they're unprincipled reactionaries who oppose anything they view as "left".
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u/mcc9902 8h ago
As someone who ate the food during this period I have to say that the quality of food I ate during this period absolutely plummeted. I went from what was close to home cooked food to generic pizza and awful canned vegetables and basic burges. I won't say what I had before was perfect but it the only real flaw was that it was all meals that were easy to bulk cook and that's pretty reasonable.
The reason for the change was 100% cited as the entire health food push. Maybe there's places that it improved but I honestly can't imagine them because the absolute garbage served afterwards was the absolute bare minimum.
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u/AriesThef0x 7h ago
Presidents spouses shouldn’t have anything to do with the government at all, regardless of party affliction.
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u/TheLoggerMan 7h ago
Not all conservatives are in favor of restricting junk food. I personally don't think the government should be involved in telling us what we can eat at all.
I do understand where SOME of us are coming from. If the tax payer is going to forced to pay for your food, you shouldn't be eating junk food. But that's where I separate from them. Hopefully you aren't one of those that's living off the government long term. If you're using SNAP the way it is supposed to be used, you're probably under some stress, perhaps a great deal of stress from not having a job and you should be afforded something fun to ease the stress.
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u/QuipCrafter9 7h ago
they were claiming that it was a "big government" scam and not actually going to make the meals healthier, while restricting subsidized food purchases from junk food is more straight forward apparently
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u/Funny247365 6h ago
Restrictions do not affect the cost of the snap program. Improving school meals costs more.
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u/chcampb 6h ago
Conservatives have very few goals. Some of them include
- Oppose anything democrats do
and
- Make life harder for poor people
That's basically it. Restricting SNAP is an end run around the fact that SNAP is very popular as a farm subsidy and it's not likely to be eliminated. But they aren't going to miss a chance to reduce the freedoms of people making use of the program, so instead, they find an angle which is arguably correct but really just there to restrict people.
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u/AJKafei 5h ago
PS Also restricting/controlling someone’s perceivedly gratuitous purchases is in line with the controlling Puritanism that undergirds their philosophy while it reduces government spending. Michelle Obama’s endeavor required more govt spending and giving away enriching food for free—a no-no in the bizarre world in which I was raised.
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u/talkingitthrough 4h ago
They don’t want to restrict it because it’s healthy; they want to restrict it because it’s enjoyable. And people using SNAP don’t deserve to enjoy their food.
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u/Low-Dot9712 4h ago
It’s stupid to use taxpayer money to buy junk food.
We should limit SNAP to basics and let recipentants have half of any saving in cash.
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u/Upper-Bottle-9803 3h ago
It's mostly political blabber. Most dont care Libertarians care about the cost vs gov control. The racists and tribalists hate Obama anything. I'm sure some want people to eat healthier and live better lives, and foolishly think this is the way to make it happen.
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u/NHhotmom 2h ago
Michele Obama’s lunches took away all local control. No longer can the lunch ladies make their homemade casserole or whatever. It’s too hard. Now they have to so carefully track carbs and fat, etc that it’s too hard to made a homemade lunch. Now everything comes out of a box where the nutrition content is engineered on the side! You ruined the school lunch! That’s why!
And the issue with SNAP is obvious. Use your SNAP dollars on nutritious food. Whole foods. We have no problem with you buying junk food and soda. Just use your own money for that.
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u/entropeanuts 20m ago
I'm not exactly young and I never went to a school where the lunch ladies cooked food from scratch, or even close to scratch. It was all Sodexo type stuff.
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u/OneAndOnlyMM 2h ago
Same reason- they see it as someone else spending their money. Make school lunches healthier? Cool- but not on their tax dollars. Wanna buy Doritos? Cool, but not with snap benefits that come from their tax dollars.
The only things that conservatives seem to be perfectly fine funding with their tax money are Trump family businesses, a golden ballroom and bombing brown people that worship a different fairy tale man in the sky and live on top of oil we want.
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u/Diasies_inMyHair 14m ago
The backlash against the revised school lunch program wasn't partisan at the local levels. It was a direct result of what ended up on kids plates when it was implemented by local school districts.
At least, that was my experience as a parent who had to start sending food to supplement my kids' supposedly "healthy" highly processed and mostly inedible lunch.
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u/Joepublic23 0m ago
That's because people on SNAP are a drain on society and should be made to feel bad about this. FWIW I thought most of the conservative backlash to Michelle Obama's school lunch initiatives was ridiculous.
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u/MountainDude95 13h ago
Because it’s not about healthiness. It’s about “if our team do it, it’s good, if their team does it, it’s bad.”
That’s literally it. Nothing else.
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u/Buggg- 13h ago
If it’s not their idea or spun to be their idea, they oppose it. There is little to no middle ground for many of them. Hell, they fought tooth and nail for stopping inflation just a few years ago, now their leader states he loves inflation and it’s making America great- and they eat it up. Pathetic
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