SNAP v. Rotisserie Chicken

Today's thought bubble is simple: should our country's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Benefits be usable to buy a hot rotisserie chicken at a grocery store?

I argue yes, it should, and lay out my reasons as follows:

• Stores are already working around the guidelines by preparing hot chicken, allowing it to safely cool, then packaging and selling the bird this way.
  It is a more efficient use of resources to allow someone to buy the chicken while it is already hot, rather than wasting energy resources in cooking, cooling, then reheating it if they were going to eat it that day.
  Using temperature as a deciding factor as to whether someone can purchase a food item is silly.
  While we have people dedicated to working around those guidelines as they stand (thank you, Papa Murphy's Pizza, I remember your delicious take and bake pizzas), it would be more unifying to not need these temperature hacks just to help my fellow human not feel hunger.

• Unhoused individuals often do not have a way to safely reheat cooked chicken that has cooled, or to properly cook raw chicken.
  By limiting those individuals (who may be recipients of SNAP) from buying a minimally processed product -- that is, meat lightly seasoned with perhaps salt, pepper, possibly lemon or garlic, then roasted, that's it, you frequently push that person toward choices of highly processed meat products like luncheon loaf, potted meat, and other tinned meats, or to cold cuts that are frequently laden with nitrates and nitrites if they want to eat an animal protein.
  While yes, they can still buy the cold versions of those rotisserie chickens, many may feel discouraged without clear signage showing that it is okay; it makes far more sense to just unblock the hot purchase and say "Have your chicken, friend, cold or hot. Whichever way you want it."

• Let's look at a busy single mom of two who happens to benefit from SNAP.
  Can we offer her a hand?
  If we can take one prep item off her list every once in a while, it would be nice.
  People can buy other service deli items at the grocery store with their SNAP benefits -- Cole slaw, potato salad, and what have you.
  Maybe we can save her twenty or thirty minutes when she gets home with the children who are hungry and ready to eat by letting her just get the hot chicken that might be on the week's special (cold chicken was excluded for some reason, ahem).

• It's just inappropriate to limit the purchase based on temperature for SNAP beneficiaries, when in prison, my right to have food served at appropriate temperatures is practically enshrined in state and/or federal laws.
  As shown earlier, the temperature limitation shows a bias against a class of people who are generally considered economically disadvantaged.
  Here, as a prisoner, I have a right to lodge a complaint against our food services provider when food is served in an unsafe manner.
  There, people who are on SNAP are told to grin and bear it, if you don't like it, get off SNAP and get a job.
  I appreciate my rights, and think beneficiaries of one of our social nets for the economically disadvantaged should have better rights, better access to foodstuffs that are less likely to full on wreck their health, and a fairer chance for improved outcomes.

• I place as one last consideration the elderly.
  There are quite a number of elderly people on SNAP. It could be someone's mom, grandpa, tía y tío, whatever it takes to make this real in your heart.
  If I can save that person, those people, a little bit of labor in their advancing ages to make sure they have eaten something other than a miniature sleeve of saltines and a tin of Vienna sausages, can I ask that we open our hearts and our government's eyes to the concept of removing that temperature gate on SNAP benefits?

All I want to see is more access to more foodstuffs for more people.
Is that cool?