USDA kicks in $31 million to help poor people eat better [Grist.org]

Samantha Sangenito 4/6/1512:00 PM

The Department of Agriculture has come to the shocking conclusion that poor people should be able to eat healthy food.

Today, the USDA announced that it’s awarding $31 million in grants to various programs, all aimed at different ways of allowing people on food stamps to buy more than just pre-made, calorie-rich, nutrient-poor junk. The problem is that when you are living hand-to-mouth, broccoli becomes a luxury item.

There are a couple ideas floating around for addressing that fact that the poorest people in the U.S. are the most prone to dietary disease. There’s the idea of restricting food stamps so that they couldn’t be used to buy (for instance) soda. On the other side, there’s the idea of increasing education and support for the poor to allow them to buy good food. The programs funded by these grants fall into the later category.

[For more of this story, written by Nathanael Johnson, go to http://grist.org/food/usda-kic...r-people-eat-better/]

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Wouldn't this come out to 1-2 dollars total per poor person? I guess every poor person gets 2 oranges. I really don't want to sound so negative but if you ever grew up poor and on food stamps you know all you can afford is high calorie, poor quality food from Aldies and Save-a-Lot. The only way I can see this working is using food stamps to buy seeds (hopefully w/o a terminator gene) to grow a vegetable garden.

4/6/1512:49 PM

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