Regarding the Sound Off “Food Stamps Not for Expensive Junk Food” (April 24 – 30) It doesn’t matter what people spend their SNAP benefits on at the grocery store. As a SNAP recipient, the thought of what a bad mother, person and citizen I must be for buying my children snacks, sometimes junk food, candy and occasionally soda, is reinforced because of judgments such as this. Yet when I unload from the shopping cart all of the real food I also use food stamps for, like meat, vegetables, milk, potatoes, and other items for cooking, the same thought of how undeserving my children and I are, and our lack of value as humans is reinforced by people who complain that “people on welfare” can afford to eat better food than they do. I can’t win. Apparently buying good healthy food, and actually cooking real meals for my children is just as bad as providing them some of the basics other children their age are entitled to, such as junk food. Why does receiving welfare, no matter what I do, make my children and I less valuable to society? The community, in my opinion, should strive for education and encouragement over ignorant, intolerant value judgments.