CMV: People receiving SNAP benefits (a.k.a., food stamps) in the United States, should not be able to buy soda pop with it.

You and I are operating under fundamentally different principles. In my experience, eating healthier is cheaper if you know what you're doing. You seem to think that people have to make the choice between eating healthy or eating every day.

Also, your assumption of going by the bottle is impractical. They will have to have some kind of fluid intake. Two purchases of individual bottles of either water or soda will be more expensive than than a case of soda or water. If they ARE purchasing single bottles, that in itself is a horrible decision that they need to stop immediately because it is virtually the same cost as bulk. It is twenty cents more to buy a 6 pack than a bottle from a vending machine, and $0.50 than that for a 12 pack.

And, as you said, many of them have families. I can guarantee you... They'd learn very quick that it's cheaper to buy cans of soda in bulk instead of bottles for their kids, which then leads us right back to... why are they buying that instead of the water?

I don't know what to say. It's just plain not good decision making if they are truly choosing between soda vs water. More realistically, they aren't even making that choice (tap water in most places is safe enough to drink). However, in the hypothetical scenario, there isn't a rational explanation for choosing soda, just emotional ones and I'm not particularly swayed by those. Your second paragraph is mostly rhetoric without any real relation to the situation at hand. I feel like you don't want to accept the reality that sometimes they make bad decisions just because. And if you do admit that, then you more or less agree with what I'm saying. Them being in a tough situation has no bearing on whether a decision is good or bad.

/r/changemyview Thread Parent