The low-income population by law denied supermarket rotisserie chickens just had a stroke of good cluck, thanks to a group of poultry sympathizers in the U.S. Senate.
A bipartisan coalition in Congress is lobbying to lift the ban on so-called suitcase chickens for low-income Americans.
Food stamp recipients are currently prohibited from buying hot prepared foods.
Rotisserie chicken is generally ineligible for purchase with SNAP benefits (food stamps) because it is sold hot and considered a prepared, “immediate consumption” food.
Federal rules, intended to encourage home cooking, dictate that benefits must be used on groceries intended for home preparation, not hot take-out items.
Now comes the ‘Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act’ for SNAP users being proposed by a bipartisan Senate group.
The act would amend the 2008 Food and Nutrition Act by modifying the definition of food to add “hot rotisserie chicken.”
“Allowing SNAP recipients to purchase hot rotisserie chicken is a simple, practical step to make the program work better for the people it serves,” U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-WVA, said.
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-PA, called Costco’s $4.99 rotisserie chicken “America’s best and delicious affordability play.”
This is a good exception,….. nothing wrong with hot chicken for a meal,….
I usually boil down the left-overs, ‘n make chicken soup,…..
Of course we cannot expect SNAP beneficiaries to cook their own food. That would force them perform WORK, and might well trigger a severe allergic reaction. They may be able to cook the drugs they inject, but that is a whole different thing.
Those rotisserie chickens are often cheaper than raw chicken options. This exception makes sense.