Let Them Eat Rotisserie Chicken!
It's cheaper than a raw chicken, and also delicious.
Most of the time, when politicians complain about what people can buy with their SNAP benefits, it’s a lot of huffing and puffing from Republicans over the fact that anyone is allowed to buy anything other than actual, literal gruel. For some reason, the idea that people receiving these benefits might remotely enjoy the food they are eating is particularly galling to some folks, so we have a lot of restrictions on what people are allowed to get.
One of those things is hot prepared foods. This is because the program was specifically designed to encourage people to cook at home, because godforbid anyone feed the poor without getting all holier than thou about it. However, there is a new bill on the table looking to change that. Well, some of it anyway.
In what may very well be the first non-shitty thing he’s done since being elected to office, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is leading the charge on a bipartisan bill that will allow people to use their SNAP benefits to buy hot rotisserie chicken at the grocery store.
Fetterman is joining forces on the "Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act" with West Virginia Republicans Jim Justice and Shelley Moore Capito and Democrat Michael Bennet of Colorado — a group so especially milquetoast that one would be forgiven if they wondered if there were not some secretly shitty aspect to the bill. As far as I can tell, there is not.
“America’s best (and delicious) affordability play is Costco’s $4.99 rotisserie chicken,” said Fetterman. “It’s one of my family’s favorites, and I’m proud to join this bill with Sen. Justice for all to try. SNAP funds would be well spent to feed our nation’s families who need it.”
Now that is certainly a better use of his time than, you know, kissing Donald Trump’s ass and betraying everyone who voted for him. Unless he runs as a Republican (which he’s claimed he has no plans to do), he has pretty much no support from anyone, especially his fellow Pennsylvania Democrats in the House. But if he wants to do something good, we may as well let him.
It’s also nice to see in light of this administration’s push to cut off SNAP benefits for thousands of people, as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s thoughtless quest to ban people from using their benefits to buy “junk food.” Godforbid someone be able to make a birthday cake for their kid or have a nice treat themselves every once in a while.
As anyone who, unlike Donald Trump, does their own grocery shopping knows, it is significantly cheaper to get rotisserie chicken than it is to get a raw chicken and cook it yourself, even if you’re not getting the $4.99 chicken from Costco. At Mariano’s, where I do most of my shopping when I can’t get to Trader Joe’s, the rotisserie chicken is $7.99 and a whole chicken is around $12, so getting one not only saves time, it saves money. It’s good on its own, as a meal, or as the thing you realize you ate some of in the middle of the night when you wake up in the morning with a spot of barbecue sauce on your face. It’s also, frankly, a whole lot easier (and cheaper) to use rotisserie chicken to make chicken pot pie than it is to cook a whole ass chicken for the purpose yourself (big fan of this recipe from Southern Living).
Currently, people are allowed to buy rotisserie chicken … but only if it’s cold. Like, grocery stores literally have to take the hot rotisserie chicken and put it in a refrigerator so that people can buy it with their SNAP benefits, which makes literally zero sense and helps no one with anything.
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I’m not saying it’s hard to bake a chicken — shove a lemon and some herbs up its ass, season, and throw it in the oven for an hour and a half and you’re good to go. But not everyone has that hour and a half! They are hungry when they get home from a hard day at work and just want something that is both easy and relatively healthy for their families.
The restrictions on hot prepared foods from the grocery store are incredibly outdated and not in line with the way busy, hard-working people manage their lives. Much of the time, it’s cheaper and less wasteful to get these dishes than it is to buy all of the ingredients individually, especially if they are not ingredients one is going to use in other dinners.
Hopefully this is one that will pass relatively easily so that our legislators can then move on to the important business of figuring out how we bring Kenny Rogers Roasters back to the United States, because it’s actually pretty unfair that they still have it in other countries while we barely even have any Boston Markets left. Let the rotisserie revival begin!
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
"Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act"
Was the "Keep Fucking That Chicken Act" already taken?
OT: Donnie loses again.
𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗨.𝗦. 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝘀𝘆𝗹𝘂𝗺 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀
𝘈 𝘧𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘋𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘥 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱’𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯 “𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯” 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘜.𝘚.-𝘔𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘤𝘰 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘭, 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘜.𝘚. 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴𝘺𝘭𝘶𝘮. (Washington Post)