Why Food Stamps Rock

We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our EBT card. Contrary to popular belief, food stamps no longer come in stamp form. They come on a nice little EBT card, which stands for Electronic Balance Transfer. It looks just like a credit card and as far as the person behind you is concerned, that’s exactly what it is! We were on it for a short time in Massachusetts, but haven’t had one in about 2 1/2 years. It’s pretty awesome because, unlike WIC, there are no restrictions on brands of food you can use it for. If it’s edible, it’s eligible! There are some obvious caveats, like you can’t be beer with it, but other than that it’s pretty flexible.
    The coolest part of the food stamps is that their value is doubled at farmers markets! That means I can manage to buy free-range chickens, organic grass-fed beef and hand-crafted sausages and cheese at a fraction of the cost of the factory-farmed junk at Wal-Mart. It tastes great, helps support local agriculture, eases our conscience about the environmental impact of factory farms, and best of all it’s a great outing with the kids, who love to look at all the different stands and beg for free samples! At the farmers market here in town, everyone uses these wooden coins. You go to the farmers market information booth, give them your cash, credit card, debit card or EBT card, and you buy these nifty coins. To the individual farm stands, your coins are exactly the same as anyone else’s coins. It’s a great equalizer, which is another benefit of this system.
    I hope that other people on food stamps take advantage of this deal. I make a conscious effort to prepare healthy meals for my family with fresh produce whenever we can. We also try to buy organic when we can, because I’m paranoid about all the pesticides in the blueberries and genetically mutated giant chickens. But it’s hard to buy healthy food when you are poor. The thing is, when you are broke you can cancel your cable, stop going to the movies, stop going to restaurants and buy second-hand clothes, but the cost of food keeps going up and up, so it’s hard to save in that area. I can see why so many people who live in poverty are also fat. Junk food tends to be cheaper than healthy food, at least it appears that way. The cost to your health makes it an unwise temporary bargain that ends up biting you in your ever-expanding ass. Doubling your food stamp value at the farmers market is a great way to counter that trend!