Why can't people use food stamps to buy hot/cook foods?

[wercal]

12. A local gas station sells hot chicken, etc.

And then they refridgerate some of it, and put it on the counter with a label 'SNAP Approved'....and they have a microwave right there. Its a way for them to sell more chicken, at crappy marked up gas station deli prices. Anyway, there are ways around the rule.

I think there are a few reasons for the rule. For starters, I bet the rule was born out of an era where most people bought staples from a grocery store, and made their own food...and ready made food of any kind was unusual and considered a great luxury.

But even today, hot food costs quite a bit more than cold...and quite frankly, if you are in need of SNAP, its better to stretch your food dollar more, and stay away from restaurants.

....and before you call me a heartless bastard, let me finish. I volunteer at a food bank - they always need volunteers to do repetitive labor intensive tasks associated with sorting and bagging. During the introductory training, they explained to us that the food bank gives classes - precisely because as a society, we seem to have lost the ability to prepare food from basic ingredients...and are dependent on prepared foods. And, quite frankly, if you're getting food at this food bank, its in your own best interest to prepare your own food, even if you have SNAP.

And, another thing we learned. They have a great program, where they issue out a backpack full of food to schoolkids on Friday afternoon...so the kids that rely on school lunches for most of their nutrition can eat over the weekend. The food in these backpacks is deliberatley bland. Why? So their parents/older siblings/extended family don't eat their weekend supply of food. That's terrible - but that's the world we live in. I can certainly understand the utility of buying a $5.99 rotisserrie chicken, and I wouldn't call that a waste of money at all...for for every person who buys something decent like that, there will be at least two others, who abuse hot foods...and literally take food out of their children's mouths, so they can buy a nice dinner for themselves at a restaurant. Call me cynical, but again, that's just the world we live in.