Proposed Restrictions in FoodShare
| CommentsA couple of weeks ago, the internet was set ablaze by Gwyneth Paltrow attempting the SNAP Challenge, which asks people to procure and document their food intake for a week on a $29, an average week of SNAP/FoodShare benefits. Of all of the commentary, this is probably the smartest pieces that I read about it.
I bring it up today since our state assembly will be holding a hearing on AB 177, a bill that would restrict the ability of FoodShare recipients to 67% of the WIC-approved food items, with the addition of some proteins and canned white potatoes. If passed, the state would still have to obtain a waiver from the USDA, which operates the program, and DHS would have to foot the bill to implement it.
Healthy eating is an important basis for good health and we should do everything possible to help all people to eat healthfully. However, this bill does not address the biggest barrier to people on FoodShare eating healthfully, which is cost.
Per calorie, healthy food is more expensive than other options. If you are on FoodShare, you have a limited amount of money to buy all of food you need. By restricting what people on FoodShare can buy to a list of approved foods, it effectively lowers the amount of money they have to procure all of the food they may need. It also takes away their ability to shop around, buy in bulk, and manage their own grocery budgets the way they see fit.
The way the state could help to increase healthy eating would be to incentivize healthy purchases by investing public dollars to fund a healthy eating incentive program. This type of positive intervention would incentivize healthy eating, address hunger, boost local economies, and begin to tackle the key issue that prevents people on FoodShare from eating more healthfully – cost.
In fact, USDA studies have shown that when incentivized, people on SNAP make better food buying decisions because they have more money.
For example, early results from the USDA Healthy Incentives Pilot, which provided a credit of .30 cents for every SNAP dollar spent on fruits and veggies, showed that it increased fruit and vegetable consumption by 25%.
The early results from this pilot points to encouraging and innovative ways that we could help incentivize good eating habits rather than penalizing suboptimal eating habits mostly brought on by a lack of resources.
To learn more about our position on FoodShare restrictions, click here.