Sean Howard: Why will food stamps buy food without any nutritional value?

After reading today’s story on Save Mart’s dropping of the 51Fifty product line due to the negative connotation toward those with mental instabilities, I made an even more appalling discovery. While grocery shopping for the holiday weekend, I got to the register to pay and noticed a feature on the checkout screen where it informs the checker as to how much of the final total can be paid with government assistance (food stamps, EBT, SNAP ... whatever).

I rarely purchase soda pop, but had bought a 12-pack for guests. Lo and behold, it was, indeed, eligible to be paid with EBT (if I had such eligibility), including the CRV!

I asked the checker if this was correct and was informed that not only soda pop but “energy drinks,” with Z-E-R-O nutritional value also qualify. In fact, I was told that quite often – due to the popularity of these addictive products – EBT recipients buy cases of the products and resell them for cash, ostensibly to be used for alcohol, tobacco and drugs.

It’s bad enough that our tax dollars are used to buy processed junk food, now this?

This story was originally published March 28, 2016 at 6:28 PM with the headline "Sean Howard: Why will food stamps buy food without any nutritional value?."