WIC and EBT ... What's the Difference?

Currently pregnant with my third child, I have been pregnant two times before and for at least part of both of those I was a part of the WIC program, for this pregnancy though I am more destitute than I was during either of the other two I will not be. I am however receiving Food Benefits through the EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) here in Washington state, and for a very short period of time in 2006 I received them in NY, so I will share the experiences I have had with those as well.

Like many people, I waited as long as I possibly could to even apply for food stamps. My husband and I both are for the most part entrepreneurial and kept on telling ourselves and each other "Something will come through soon...Something.". We are employable (aside from my growing belly!) and our most recent jobs paid between $26-125/hr, I only mention this because we thought we were above asking for help, but as you will see at the end, it is absolutely worth looking into if you are facing unexpected hard times. Our ventures are looking good but they are taking time and a lot of work without pay...for us it took realizing we might lose our house in the next 2 months, having our water shut off about a week or two ago (with electricity scheduled to be shut off the next day), losing health insurance, and having nights we literally we scrounging the cupboards & fridge which had 2+ empty shelves to find food for our beautiful children. Decisions between money going to food, insurance, gas, or bills were difficult.

Last week on Friday I decided to go for it, I submitted the application online and called them yesterday to follow up, finished the interview on the phone, and then today I was able to go pick up our EBT, or "Electric Benefits Transfer" card and get some real grocery shopping done. For comparison in NYC I was a single mom who had just left an abusive relationship and it took almost four months to get food stamps, the main complication being that as I had left where we were living and was staying with various friends, no stable address was a problem. I used WIC in NYC much more than Food Benefits.

Why not WIC?

As I mentioned, I am pregnant, it doesn't take much more than that to be able to get WIC (Women Infant Children) which provides only non-organic milk, eggs, cheese, beans, carrots, cereal, peanut butter, juice & sometimes there is vouchers for fruits and vegetables too, though for me that was only in the summer in NYC that I was able to get those. What I didn't mention is that both myself and my husband, so likely our children too, are allergic to dairy, eggs, many grains (definitely gluten), and I am also allergic to most beans & peanuts. Also we are a family that takes the risks of eating non-organic food very seriously because we have done a lot of research on the subject and it is a decision we have made to get organic as much as possible since we eat a lot of fruits, vegetables and meat to avoid our allergies. In New York when I was there the WIC foods I got often couldn't be kept, we would eat the cereal but leave the perishable milk, cheese, and eggs at friends houses because being in my car most of the time they would not stay good.

Why not just skip those items?

Well, with WIC, you get a check that has a list of very specific items that you must buy the items on the check which often has many gallons of milk, containers of eggs etc. Morally, it doesn't seem right to me that we go get these benefits when we will only eat a fraction of what it offers, not to mention increasing the popularity of a program that is promoting such a diet that is so highly dairy and grain that neglects needs like fruits and vegetables. We have not had our kids tested yet though we know through our own allergy experiences that dairy, egg, and gluten are some of the most common allergies and we don't want to feed our children a diet that mostly consists of that kind of thing. Also the links between diary or grains to my diagnosis of MS are startling, and I don't want to play any games with that.

So What is Food Stamps or EBT?

With these benefits, the customer/beneficiary of the funds has a lot more flexibility, which I do see as something that can be good or bad, but for me and my family it is great. To be able to buy gluten-free flour to cook with, goat milk, tons of fruits and vegetables and some organic meat too with it is a dream come true. Only limits with food benefits are the amount of money you have to spend which depends on income and that you only use it to purchase food, no diapers or toilet paper for instance.

What this means for me

At this point, most of the money we have is from these articles that I am writing for Yahoo, and what this means is that the money I get from that can go towards gas to get my husband to his job interviews, and to get me to my midwife appointments and my daughters to their classes. We don't have to decide if the 4 dollars we scrounged up in quarters will go towards gas or if we can get a decent meal out of it which is a massively huge benefit.

Of course once a job does come by we will have to say good bye to these lovely benefits but until then, I feel much better knowing that my kids are taken care of.

Articles Linked to:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5615010/mom_with_ms_no_more_health_insurance.html
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2878510/increase_the_risk_of_multiple_sclerosis.html

Other Sources:

PaleoDiet.com - http://paleodiet.com/ms/MSCordain.txt