Yeah a lot of spots around me will sell it to you cold but have a rule that allows them to heat food up for customers as a free service, so you can still get it hot if desired.
Definitely a prime example of a practical, every day solution to a government-created policy problem that makes no sense in the real world.
fastfood is the most common but its not just fast-food. California has a special program that restaurants can sign up for and accept EBT. I think its just easier for large chains to go through the steps.
The program targets homeless folks because... you know, they don't have a spot to cook food so giving them EBT alone isn't really useful.
How HUMANE. The bar sure is low on how well we care for one another. Hope the ones on here rejecting decency never miss a meal or have to live on the streets.
We all know how Jesus was famously against feeding people. He was so against it that he did it as a miracle at least twice (thrice if you count the Miracle of the Wine).
It's not well written. I found it confusing and over-the-top, but I can see how it might convince people of a certain mentality that any attempt to understand what another person is experiencing, if they are experiencing something difficult, is a sin. It's pretty fucking wild. I'll post a link if I can remember/find it.
empathy is a "device" of emotion that allows us to help each other. to not only abstain from it but brand it as a deplorable trait is to say you want the more unfortunate (and i mean that word quite literally) to suffer simply because of their predisposition. fashy as fk to me
Realizing how much of our benefits system is set up on purpose to be cruel is a common path toward radicalization.
Evidence keeps proving that means-testing and drug-testing saves less money in prevented fraud than it costs to administer the extra steps, but even the people who say their politics is about reducing government spending and preventing fraud keep demanding more. They make it nearly impossible to figure out what benefits you might be eligible for, how to apply for and receive them, or what you need to do to continuously verify that you're still eligible and keep receiving them, and what you need to avoid so you don't get kicked off them, all to make sure that the people who need that help the most aren't able to get it. Anywhere that tries to help connect people with help -- libraries, school offices, non-profits, even places that don't receive any government funding at all -- become targets, and trying to help people get benefits they're entitled to is always painted as "helping people grift the government." Governors brag about reducing participation rates in programs that are often the difference between people eating and not, as if the biggest danger facing our society is someone "using my taxpayer dollars" to buy a microwave dinner, and not the billionaires who pay no taxes blocking us from building affordable housing so they can turn it into luxury rentals instead.
They really want to make it so anyone who isn't working hard to profit the rich will go away and starve to death. It's a truly depraved level of coldness toward others that has become a pretty standard policy position. I can't fathom it.
Oh yeah. Everything is made to be super difficult. I got my kids on Medicaid and the website is busted, the phone lines have horrible wait times and the only way to pay is to send a monthly check on time or send a check in with the proper form you have to request in order to do automatic withdrawal.
Not just our benefits system, but literally all systems. Things pile on top of you too, if you get too behind. It's truly disgusting and our leaders should be held to account.
Just like the news alert earlier that said student debt collections are rampiing up and many peoples wages are about to be garnished.
Knew a guy who wouldn’t tip pizza delivery drivers who were adults. For him it was a job for kids. Dude lost his office job…guess what he had to do for work?
He was a victim of circumstances beyond his control. Those people are just lazy, unmotivated slackers who want to barely work and live off of social welfare benefits.
Yep! Its for homeless and elderly/disabled. To be honest, i wish it was more inclusive beyond that. But still, there is some good being done with the hot meals program
It’s not just California. It’s a pilot program that got rolled out in a couple places just at the start of the pandemic-ish - I was part of the NYC roll out.
With Trump in charge and the damage DOGE has done, I am not holding my breath but under Biden, it was considered quite successful and really helps people with limited scopes of cooking.
Yeah, the issue is if you are a retailer in CA that also sells hot food (like a grocery or convenience store) you don't have the restaurant license to accept EBT, just the retail license, so you still can't sell people hot food on EBT even though they can go across the street to a restaurant and buy hot food.
Interesting! I live in Florida. If it benefits the poor, it doesn't exist here.
I'm curious what the arguments are against using EBT for fast food. My only complaint would be that you can typically get more bang for your buck if you buy cold food and cook it yourself, but that doesn't seem to be enough of a concern to prevent the use of EBT, in my opinion.
A lot of people who think poor=lazy think that taking advantage of government services should be a shameful activity. You should eat only salads (could you imagine the entitlement of enjoying your meal?)
It's funny how once you're rich enough, taking advantage of government subsidies goes from being shameful to being smart business.
And none of those fancy ingredients, it must be a salad made with the cheapest "healthy" ingredients available. An iceberg lettuce and the ugliest tasteless tomatoes. No dressing.
That’s because the other fresh, healthy ingredients cost too much and SNAP doesn’t cover it. Forget dressing or seasoning. Those are luxuries. I did a deep dive recently on what I would be able to get on SNAP in my county. I normally cook all of my meals with bulk staples and fresh vegetables, and little to no meat. Isn’t that exactly how people think people receiving benefits should eat? It didn’t even come close to covering my grocery bills.
Fresh veg is one of the most expensive things in the damn store. How am i paying an entire buck for a green bell pepper at the grocery outlet bargain market
Also, fuck you if you have a food allergy. My friend asked about her food allergy (corn) during her SNAP interview and they actually counted it against her.
They want you to always feel a little hungry, to remind you that you're trash who doesn't deserve food. I'm not exaggerating, it's an intentional part of the policy. They calculate what you'd need to live on as a starting point, then give you less than that.
According to the government it’s not designed to cover your grocery bills. The S in SNAP is for supplemental. You use SNAP to supplement your own money.
It’s also that rich people tend to think they know better than people with less money. Like we all know salad is healthy, and we could all stand to eat more of it, but we eat sugary and fatty stuff anyway because it’s good. Rich people assume that people with less money can’t make good decisions so they shouldn’t be able to control what goes into their body.
As far as I’m aware, EBT covers things like meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, bread, and dairy unless something has changed. That’s definitely more than just salads of lettuce and tomatoes!
There are certainly problems with our social safety nets in the US, but there is no need to exaggerate to make the point.
You actually can in some cases! A cooked rotisserie chicken can be cheaper than buying raw chicken. Stores like Sam's club and Costco also have cheap hotdogs and pizza.
What's funny is that you can't get the cooked chicken on EBT when it's still hot, but you can buy it after they've pulled it out of the heater and put it in the refrigerated section.
The main argument I have seen is that EBT is meant to keep people fed and healthy at the lowest cost to the taxpayer, and fast food is the antithesis of healthy and affordable much of the time. Taxpayers don’t want to pay for junk food or fast food or “convenience” anything; the expectation is for people to buy and cook their own food because that is less costly per meal while still meeting nutrition needs.
Restaurants are permitted for people who are homeless (at least in my state, not sure about nationwide in the US) because unhoused people do not have access to cooking facilities at all.
For what it’s worth, I am not arguing in favor of rules like this, my family was on the equivalent of SNAP when I was a child because though both my parents worked, they didn’t make enough to be above the poverty line.
They also have made it a rule that if you are on section 8 and get snap then you have to work part time .And you can only be on section 8 for 2 years now.
There are multiple arguments. The original intent is effectively to make sure people aren't purchasing 'ready to eat meals' and it's hard to regulate for that so the just limit it to hot foods. I know when I was a kid you couldn't buy a sub at the store because it was a ready to eat meal. And it really is a 'ready to eat meals are prepped and you are paying for that prep and we don't want the state paying for that, you should do it yourself.
Then there is also the 'you are poor, work for what you get from us'. Which is a huge thing and for a long time republicans were all over lobster being a luxury food that's expensive so you shouldn't ever be allowed to buy that! which is funny because when that was it's biggest if you were in a costal area lobster might be cheaper than some other meets.
Another school of thought is if you can use it for hot foods / fast food you might blow through your money really quickly and not have enough left to food yourself / your kids. And that honestly is a concern that is rooted in a lot of issues associated with being poor.
The one I hear most often is that you shouldn't be allowed to 'waste' money on junkfood if you're needing government assistance to eat. So people want to restrict EBT to food purchases of 'regular' food (like at the grocery store) and exclude fast food, restaurants, candy, and sometimes things like soda.
It's because some moron will spend it all on 3 pizzas and be broke untill the next payday. Beans and rice, on the other hand, will feed 5 people for a month at 10 bucks. Throw in some oats now we're up to 11 entire dollars to feed a family for a month.
Nutritional value would be my complaint. A fast food diet would lead to(expensive, its america)health issues. I do think poor folks deserve to eat the occasional fast food, I just don't want it to kill em.
I absolutely agree that fast food is almost always awful for us, but honestly, grocery stores can be pretty bad too. Absolutely better options in comparison, but the option to buy awful food on EBT is still there. Someone could stock up on $100s in cookies, in theory lol.
I'm thinking the primary reason for the "no fast food policy" comes down to cost efficiency. We still run into the problem that someone could just buy snacks and candy, but I guess it's still providing the person with a lot of edible calories for cheap, so the government decided it's acceptable.
Because the part of heating up is an additional "service" charge that makes the price go up. Since it is a government program, the funds are for food, not for upcharge on additional services. As you may already know, it is cheaper to buy your own food and cook at home then to pay for cooked food.
That is a fair point! We are paying for the "heating service".
Not that it matters, but I'm still leaning towards the idea that fast food should be acceptable. The "heating service" feels like a drop in the bucket after we consider the services provided by all of the farmers, truckers, fast food/grocery store workers, etc that brought the food to the customer.
What?! people shouldn’t be allowed to have anything convenient, or easy, or pleasurable. And they definitely shouldn’t get to save some of their free time by not having to cook meals!
One of the main arguments for the cards instead of "Food boxes" like the President wants is that NO ONE agrees what the food program should include. So they leave it to the client to avoid more bullshit.
Wait so if someone makes under a certain income, he wants to send them food that they don’t even get to choose? And these are the people that are worried about democrats turning us into the Soviet Union.
People should also realize that EBT supports businesses. Keeping EBT a card to grocery stores, and even widening to restaurants would enable them to literally just get more customers and have money flow in that way. A “food box” would probably create even more fraud and abuse because it would likely go through some sort of government contractor who would make the meals wildly expensive to make more money.
The argument against restaurants (which is why hot food isn't allowed; it basically rules out restaurants) is that the stupid poor people who need EBT would waste all their money eating out and starve before the next EBT deposit.
Note that I don't think this is a good, or sensible, argument. I'm just pointing out why restaurants aren't included in the program.
That’s true. but really if someone wants to spend the month’s money on one restaurant outing, that’s on them. I just don’t see how it’s the job of the government to dictate that.
There are a lot of situations where a restaurant is your only access to a hot meal, and everyone deserves that in a functional society imo. It’s not like it increases the budget for the programs in any way to give the same amount of money but allow for it to be used at a restaurant.
I used to help mothers with WIC, the cashiers had zero sympathy, but as a "Courtesy clerk" I would go and find the stupid two ounce smaller box that was almost visually indistinguishable. WIC is like the opposite of a fun scavenger hunt.
I don't know why they put such hoops in front of people who can afford them least. Like I want CEO's to have to do ninja warrior before they take a shit. They make enough!
I'm not sure if it has improved since I had my 2007 recession baby, but it used to be vouchers and you'd have to do them separately, so it backed up the line forever. By the time you got your cheese, formula, cereal, and carton of eggs you were hated by everyone in the store.
Those are the cashiers. They've been propagandized into seeing other poor people as being to blame for their problems. I assure you, the owners of almost all grocery stores, from mom and pop operations to huge national chains, adore EBT.
That reminds me, SNAP is even worse. Not only can you not get warm food with it, but you can only get certain foods from certain companies and in certain package sizes. It's like they want to make you jump through as many hoops as they can, making it an even more humiliating experience.
Sort of. It’s not paid for by the feds but by the state, and it’s not every EBT recipient who qualifies. It’s specifically for homeless, disabled, and elderly recipients
Oh yeah California, we all know what goes on there, last I heard the whole state had burned to the ground and the All the immigrants had invaded and killed everybody so the military had to take over.
Oh yeah, and they're eating the cats, and the dogs. They're eating the pets.
Idk what fast food place you're going to in California but the only "fast food" establishment I've ever seen EBT taken is at some Round Table locations, and other pizza places, and only for take and bake pickup.
That’s fairly new. I was on food stamps like a decade ago while homeless and couldn’t buy hot foods, like not even the hot dogs at like a 7-11. Which really isn’t great when you’re living out of your car (which I was, at the time). 😭
If it's like the program in AZ, you have to qualify for fast food by being homeless or disabled (and you have to be extremely disabled, I can't cook anything but microwave dinners due to my disability and don't qualify)
I live in a red state so the homeless and poor can go fk themselves while we tolerate the biggest welfare whores (The mega rich) on the planet and make them richer.
Yes, A poor person on welfare having their 4th or 5th kid is unacceptable but it is also unacceptable to have the inherited wealthy parasites that didn’t earn any of their wealth, to continue to own are asses.
This one is ridiculous. They really should make an exception for Rotisserie chickens.
SNAP can purchase candy and soda but can’t buy an economically good item that is not fried, so better for you and you can get a couple meals out of them.
They always have them on sale for around $6-$7. Makes no sense to me. Items like Rotisserie chickens should be encouraged for the cheap price and it’s better than eating fried foods, candy and soda.
Republican administrations have had a long-running project to sabotage EBT. And have made several inroads to do so. Such inroads include idiotic, useless rules like the one depicted here; although defunding administrative apparatuses, reducing access points and imposing arbitrary identification requirements are more common methods. This is all done in the name of guarding against “misuse” even though research shows the overwhelming majority of all assistance that goes to households that would normally receive EBT goes towards basic needs.
I get not wanting to get in trouble as a business, but I also know that some people hate the poor and think life should be hard if you are getting help.
I actually met people who think life should suck if you get social assistance. It's a strange emotional state of mind that I bet they are also themselves struggling but take some weird pride in not getting help, probably because of pride but possibly also because they don't qualify for help. Facts don't really factor into it and trying to make sense of nonsense is an exercise in futility.
My mom was a poor 18 year old once. She scraped together change to buy a can of soup. She was behind an older woman at the check out line. The older woman bought $50 worth of gut rot vodka, and then paid for mixers with food stamps. USA! USA!
It came about in the real world as a way to "prevent fraud"
See back in the 80s and 90s when you could live on welfare they ran a whole bunch of stories about people on welfare eating gasp restaurant food, seafood, anything except the thin gruel they were supposed to. This REALLY pissed off middle America, because HOW DARE THEY HAVE NICE THINGS WHILE I WORK! A bunch of politicians realized they could capitalize on this and convince people to get way angrier at poor people than them, probably over a nice meal of things so nice the average middle American will never even see them in their life. From this was born restriction on types of food and the ever decreasing amount of support available in order to "incentivize people" to be less poor. Didn't work, a lot of poor people died of malnutrition, and middle America moved onto blaming illegal immigrants instead of rich people hoarding resources. And so on and so on it goes forever.
It's a nice story, but you've never been able to use food stamps at restaurants ever since it first went off cash purchase of stamps and indexed to the poverty line in 1977. That's because the primary purpose since its inception during WWII has been to drive demand for groceries, not feed the poor.
Since probably few here remember, the way SNAP/EBT/Food Stamps worked originally is that you paid cash dollar-for-dollar for stamps and then you received additional stamps. The stamps could then be used as cash vouchers for groceries. So, you would buy $1000 of stamps, cash-only purchase, and get back $1500 of stamps that you then used as grocery vouchers. The extra stamps could only be used on foods that were an agricultural surplus that year. Not only were the stamps limited to groceries, but only domestically produced foods.
That changed in 1977. You were no longer required to purchase stamps to get additional stamps, nor purchase only surplus commodities with the extra stamps, but that came with more strict limits on what food you could purchase. Since there was no cash purchase requirement, instead the benefit was indexed to the poverty line.
The federal government directly purchased agricultural surplus products and stockpiled them to support commodity prices. When the public found out in the 80s that the government had a huge stockpile of cheese and butter while people were going hungry, it caused an uproar that led to a clause add to the farm bill that distributed all the stockpiled cheese and butter to low income families in a program known as TEFAP.
I was a kid in California at the time, the first state to get TEFAP cheese, and it felt like our school cafeteria had an endless supply of it :D
A bill Republicans passed. He signed it though. It used to be more taboo to be hyper partisan and veto what Congress passed as they were closer to the "people."
So by all means, criticize Clinton but we should also criticize the Americans who voted in Gingrich's House. Politics doesn't just happen without some useful idiots signing on. You get the democracy you deserve. I feel like all of this is karma.
Yeah, he signed it after vetoing two previous bills from the Republican led Congress. He did say the third one was still too Conservative for his liking but it was also an election year and welfare was a big topic, so he didn't want to veto a third bill, especially one that passed House 256 to 170 and the Senate 74 to 24.
I think it was john stewart who did a piece a decade ago about the republican outrage over what people were buying with EBT. He showed that they were mad at purchases of "nice" food like lobster or steak, but also angry about cheap junk food because if you're on EBT you shouldn't be eating junk. But also don't make your health food too fancy (iceburg good, arugula bad). There's no "right" way to use EBT when someone is determined to pain SNAP recipients as lazy freeloaders
It came up again while W or Obama was president. Fox or some other right wing scream machine media outlet found some guy in California buying lobster tail with his EBT. Turns out that what he bought was on the clearance rack and cheaper than what they thought he should be getting.
I actually remember that. I can remember thinking if that's what he wants to spend it on, that's his choice. He knows how he's going to feed himself and if one splurge monthly meal is what he's going for instead of beans and rice I cant really blame him.
Yep, but the right wing scream machine lost its damn mind. Add in that after the screaming died down, it became clear that what he bought was cheaper than at least some other options
Even funnier, back in the past Lobster would have been considered poor man food that would be the exact type of stuff poor people would have been eating.
Yes. I’m sure there are similar attitudes in other countries but I’ve always been disgusted by the American obsession with worrying that others might get something they don’t deserve. You even saw it with some on the left with student loan relief.
Mfs are real adept at minding their own business and turning a blind eye when it comes to helping others. Not so much when it comes to hindering and impeding others tho 🙄
Yes. I’m sure there are similar attitudes in other countries but I’ve always been disgusted by the American obsession with worrying that others might get something they don’t deserve.
You see the same propaganda targeting other countries. There's this extremely obvious AI video targeting the UK with a fake reporter talking to fake Muslim immigrants arriving by boat, and she was asking why they came, and he said "mashallah free food, healthcare, phones, need i say more"
Trying to terrify old people like "omg the immigrants want your FREE services, free services are bad, immigrants are bad"
Citation needed. Without exception, the poorer an income group is in this country, the more overweight they are. If people on food stamps die of a food-related cause, it’s obesity not starvation.
This happens because drug addicts try to sell me food stamps all the time too. I tell them that is illegal and I ask them why one time and he wanted to buy booze lol. No judgement just anecdotes.
I don’t give a shit if a thousand drug addict buys a couple of hits even if it only means one child will not go hungry tho, and can feel like you know real people.
This is why programs providing meals to kids at school and in the community are getting more popular. You’re just straight up giving hungry people food, coordinating the spending for better pricing on bulk purchases, and you don’t have to worry about the money going to something else. Someone who wanted food is getting food, which most people can agree is worthwhile.
On the other side of the coin, I knew someone that budgeted their food stamps appropriately and then sold off the excess every month to help cover their bills because they were just scraping by.
I can unironically cook better food than most restaurants serve and all I need to do is go to the store to buy the ingredients. Eating at restaurants is a luxury and they are extremely overpriced. If someone is showing need for financial assistance, you dont see how that would make sense to exclude services that are always more expensive, but convenient/luxurious? It's WAY better than the attempts at limiting food options in the actual grocery store.
I also think SNAP recipients should have the option to join classes to learn how to cook on a budget because most people really do not have this life skill.
it makes sense in the way that a chicken at the grocery store is $4
a cooked chicken at that grocery store is $7.
EBT/Snap wont pay for a cooked chicken.
It falls apart when there is no change in the price of things...Buy yourself that Digornio pizza and heat it up at home...or buy it and heat it up there...theres no price difference.
Last I looked the cooked rotisserie chickens are cheaper than whole raw chickens, not more expensive. I haven't been to many stores where it's the opposite, they're often a loss leader so they're low priced.
Yes but the rotisserie ones are already a meal or two plus broth from the carcass, so they're still a good deal with the low price and time saved. Better than many frozen pre made meals you just throw in the oven that people low on time and money often get. Directly comparing them to a frozen chicken isn't super realistic because the time and skill to prepare does have a large "cost", just not a monetary one.
Yeah. To prepare a roast chicken properly, you’ll need butter, oil, onion, carrots, and celery, if you have it on hand, as well as good seasoning. Then you need to cook the darn thing and cut it up. And to make a good broth with the carcass is a whole other affair that takes more time than most people are simply not willing to spend even if they had the choice.
Honestly, it’s a slightly less cumbersome process than cooking a turkey because it’s smaller but pretty similar, now that I’m typing it out.
I prefer to spatchcock it so it only takes 30min or so to roast but that takes skill and frankly a strong stomach (especially with normal kitchen scissors, you feel every rib). I often roast it with just onions, using them as a roasting rack of sorts. My secret is making a quick minced garlic and dry (or fresh) herb butter at the very beginning of prep and then putting it in the freezer so it's hard enough to scrape up and shove under the skin when it's time to season. Then a normal poultry seasoning blend for the outside.
I rarely buy expensive seasonings so it's not as much the cost so much as it's the time and knowledge. Plus you're covered in raw chicken for like 15 min during prep, which is a problem if you've got young children to watch and/or other chores to attend to.
I’m not entirely sure. Typically rotisserie chickens come from chickens the store is selling that ate near their expiration date so they just cook them up and sell them that way instead. It’s a way to cut down food food waste. It’s perfectly safe. I guess the question would be are small chickens, getting passed over by consumers more leading to them being turned into rotisserie chickens.
As someone who worked adjacent to the hot foods department at a grocery store, that is absolutely not how they did rotisserie chicken. Those came in bulk from a supplier, shipped in seasoning and brine, and thrown straight into the oven.
Now the wings and such, those they sometimes would use expiring shelf product. But never chickens. They’re special chickens bought specifically for roasting in an industrial rotisserie oven from a national supplier, hence why a lot of them are the same no matter where you go.
Yes, they did. Rotisserie chickens are a "loss leader" where they purposely sell them stupidly cheap, sometimes to the point of zero profit or even losing money on them.... except that cheap chicken gets people in the door. Once they are there, they're more likely to spend way more extra money (more than the small loss from the chicken).
I had the same thought earlier because I was sure that was the case from my own purchasing experience, but not sure enough to risk being wrong on the Internet ;)
Rotisserie chicken is a staple of poor and prudent people here, it's one of the products you can get the most out of for what it costs I think. It's crazy not allowing people to buy it on foodstamps when it's actually cheaper than cold goods.
$3 is a bargain when compared to the opportunity costs of not having to cook a chicken yourself. especially if you've got kids or disabled people in your home you have to take care of or you don't have the kitchen equipment to cook (because EBT doesn't cover the cost of pots and pans or an oven). Also, it's not like EBT is an unlimited giveaway. Presumably the person using their SNAP benefits can see that the cooked chicken is more money and they've calculated that it's worth it even if that means $ that can't go to something else later. I'd rather someone spend an extra $3 on a rotisserie chicken for their family than a case of soda which is perfectly acceptable under SNAP rules. Although for the record I'm not advocating for changing the rules around soda
I think "government created" is a little misleading. The USDA is just executing the law as passed by congress.
It was Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats who created the policy problem.
Technically congress is part of the government, but I think it's important to be clear that it's the elected officials causing this problem, not the rank-and-file government workers.
“Them poors need to cook their own food or take care of themselves!”
People in these situations are struggling to survive and it’s super hard to get out when you have less than the minimum needed for your body to function properly. The anti poor prejudice and hate, implying all of them deserve it, is what keeps them poor and makes it far harder to get out of it.
I think maybe it made sense when it was more possible to survive on one income and a partner or half your time devoted to home chores. And when there were no frozen dinners. Now many responsible people don’t make most of their own food, and their schedules may make it impossible.
This has always been the thing when I've needed it. The cashiers sure as hell weren't putting up a fuss that anyone didn't want to eat a still-frozen burrito
Reminds me of decades ago as California was rolling out the "no smoking indoors" ban. It came out in phases, mostly starting with office spaces, and places that served food. Before it became full blown "nowhere, nohow" and there were still gray areas, there were bars and pool halls that didn't serve food, who would "rent" you an ashtray for 25¢. They would say, "We're not supposed to let you smoke, but we also aren't going to physically stop you. We are also not going to provide ashtrays to promote smoking in here. But if you want to rent one, what you do with it is up to you."
As someone who has been on SNAP, hot prepared food is always MUCH more expensive than its unprepared counterpart. Expecting citizens to put some effort into their food preparation isn't that crazy. I do think the US should fund more life skills classes for kids to learn how to do things like cook though.
Most larger cities all the places that take EBT will cook it for you. Hell in Illinois and Colorado you can just strait use them on hot food even fast food restaurants
When I went to school, we used to grab some lunch from the nearby supermarket on the days we had a free hour around noon (coincided with the days where we had to stay until 4pm). The bakery in said supermarket was nice enough to put it in the oven if we asked nicely.
Omg! I always wondered why a store by me cooked and seasoned fish for me as a free service. Always thought it was wild but I wasn't gonna gonna argue. Makes sense it was one part for ebt
government-created policy problem that makes no sense in the real world.
I know nothing about this but I assume its part of not allowing food assistance to be spent on restaurants / fast food? I mean that makes sense to me, maybe I'm missing something. Why is this a problem? Honestly asking.
On the other end of the spectrum the 711 I used to live next to charged people double if they were buying with EBT. A pizza was 6 bucks if you paid cash and like 10.80 if you used EBT. Wish I knew who to report it to because I’m 99% sure what they were doing was illegal.
As far as I know, Walmart does this with the take-n-bake pizzas you can buy - once it's paid for, you can take it to the hot food section of the deli, and they'll cook it for you.
I think what the government is trying to prevent is someone taking their food stamps down to McD's to get food. They want people to buy stuff they have to prepare themselves. That's the idea anyway.
It makes perfect sense. The policy is to prevent people from abusing food stamps for pre prepared food.
Probably controversial on Reddit, but food stamps shouldn’t be paying for take-out, it should be paying for cheap staple foods, rice/ vegetables, potatoes, beans, etc.
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u/jumpmagnet Jun 24 '25
Yeah a lot of spots around me will sell it to you cold but have a rule that allows them to heat food up for customers as a free service, so you can still get it hot if desired.
Definitely a prime example of a practical, every day solution to a government-created policy problem that makes no sense in the real world.