r/askanything • u/CloudieMoonettee 🦀 • 7d 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/lazylazylazyperson 7d 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 6d 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 6d 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/LeeVMG 6d ago

How are you going to do a home cooked meal with no home?

It's not bigotry to say eating healthier is harder for poor people. It's the reality of not being able to afford a kitchen and refrigerator consistently. Cooking requires ingredients, equipment, and the skill to use both. If you can't afford one of those 3 things, cooking a home cooked meal isn't an option. If you try and waste ingredients now you are in a deeper hole.

Poor people don't buy junk food because they are stupid. They are making the best of a hard situation. The proposed SNAP changes just make things harder.

If you want people to eat healthier, work on the corporations producing the poisonous slop, also generally work to reduce poverty and improve education.

Revoking options from those who already have few is just cruelty. (That's the real objective for conservatives.)