preach. this or basic necessities like socks, underwear, gloves, pads, tampons, body wash, shampoo, hygiene products in general, etc etc.

I mean, yeah, sure. ...but I'm still conflicted about the local heroin addicts standing in the frozen aisle scarfing a bucket of ice cream.

I mean, I don't really give a shit about the theft, but they tend to stand there with the door open and thaw the rest of the ice cream while they're at it. It's enough of an issue locally that a couple of local chains have literally started chaining up their ice cream like it's the goddamn crown jewels. I just want non-crystallized ice cream!

Also... In my experience, people mostly don't steal food outside of cases like having the heroin hungries. Food banks do an okay job at keeping people fed at least. (Aside: When you donate to your local food bank, donate money, not food! They can buy much more food in bulk - your dollars will go farther that way!) Mostly, I see people stealing things like resaleable electronics or OTC drugs that have useful precursor chems.

Don't get me wrong - I know fuckin' Krogers can take it. I just see this meme about seeing people stealing food and like... That's mostly not a thing. Food banks and food stamps work okay. They aren't great, the food often sucks - but generally speaking, you don't have to steal food to survive when you're poor in America. You might need to steal drugs and airpods though.