Subsidize Salads, Not Snacks - NYT

Subsidize Salads, Not Snacks - NYT
Tom Laskawy

Tom Laskawy blogs on food policy for Grist.org and Beyond Green.

Anti-poverty programs in this country currently operate from the premise that poor people cannot be trusted with cash benefits, and as a result such programs come with strict eligibility and performance requirements. Food stamps (now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) have been politically sustainable precisely because they are not cash transfers, and thus can’t be “misspent” by the “idle,” “improvident” or “uneducated” poor people to whom they are given.

Why, then, the furor over reform proposals that would allow the food stamp program to favor — even subsidize — the purchase of healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables over snacks and soda?

Could this controversy result from a belief on the part of pundits and policy makers that being poor in America means acquiescing quietly to a substandard diet? Healthy foods, in this line of reasoning, are a luxury that should be reserved for those who can afford them. As unjust as this sounds when presented so baldly, it is exactly this belief that underlies attempts to deny government the right to make good nutrition a cornerstone of the food stamp program.

We know that demand among low-income people for fresh, healthy food is high. New York City recently reported that food stamp use at its farmers’ markets doubled in the past year. The city’s subsidized vegetable cart program for underserved neighborhoods has also been a great success. And market research has for years shown no connection between buying organic and income level.

Food stamp benefits should be reserved for whole, nutritious foods — meats, grains, dairy, fresh fruits and vegetables. Such a common-sense position should be entirely uncontroversial. Shame on us that it is not.