I wonder if this is why papa Murphy sells uncooked pizza. I’ve never had the desire to buy pizza and cook it in my own oven, but it makes sense to sidestep the EBT rules.
Context here, at least my understanding from when I worked in a deli ~10 years ago, is that EBT can only cover cold food. So they're offering to let you buy cold chicken then warm it for free.
Raw. And then they'll cook it. Which means you (and maybe your kids) don't have to wait to get home and cook it, plus you save on whatever fuels your stove. This must be the kind of store that also sells raw ingredients as well as cooked. If they have the grill or fryer hot already, it's not a big loss for them, and you'll probably also buy milk or whatever, but it's still a big kindness.
As I recall, it wasn't just hot food, but any food meant to be consumed on the premises, such as fountain sodas instead of canned ones. I remember a talking point about that being would get more nutritious and cheaper food buying a bag of rice and dried beans than it would for them to buy pre-made burritos, chili or whatever.
As someone who did food safety with a health department there certainly is no arresting going on over such food service. At most a health inspector notifies them of the problems and provides guidance on requirements of serving food publicly.
But I think every example I remember of this happening in a rural town: it is a trespass charge filed as a complaint from a property or business owner that involves police.
[Very sarcasm] Noooo, don't feed the poors hot food! They'll, uhh, Idunno, it's like feeding gremlins after midnight or something! Probably!
So I just got my EBT card and I'ma go use it tomorrow. Will hopefully get to have some variety and even snacks! Woo! Hopefully the cash assistance thingle comes through too or I'ma get scared again 😅 😰 ... Dunno why I'm saying any of this here. Hi! Hello. It's good that somecritters are working around dickish law :3
Around 2020 my wife had to quit her job and we had a newborn at home. I forget what she had called the local benefits office to setup but the lady basically said "I'm going to get you every benefit I can" and we ended up with Medicaid, EBT and WIC. So we used that shit to make sure the whole family ate as well as we could.
I was still working and we don't have extremely high expenses, plus it was early in the pandemic so we were avoiding shopping or leaving the house as it was, so we just continued grocery shopping normally (other than grabbing extra of whatever WIC covered that month) and would swipe the benefits card before the debit card and consistently only had to pay for one or two things out of pocket
This is how WinCo sells hot pizzas for EBT. They sell you an uncooked one, and then offer to cook it for free.
Walmart, too, kinda. You can buy any of the hot things on EBT as long as you get the ones that are in the fridge and not the thing that keeps them hot. Rotisserie chicken, corn dogs, popcorn chicken, etc.
Basic compassion seems like such a foreign thing in late stage capitalism, but there is still goodness all around us. It’s important not to lose sight of that.
The American welfare system is byzantine, unfair, corrupt, and ineffective. People need this workaround on cooked food because there are irrational, pointless restrictions on what kinds of food people can buy with EBT. That's the dystopia part.
It's awesome that good people do good things to fix the problems caused by a dystopian system. But if the system wasn't broken, they wouldn't have to.
There is a lot of good discussion here, but I'm going to keep things light, since I doubt I can add much of value given how far the conversation has gone.
Are you talking about the poll? It appears to be created by gay people, for gay people, and shared by gay people, on a site well known for its giant lbgtq+ community.