In the war on obesity, a new battleground has been chosen. For those receiving public assistance, the idea that food stamps can’t be used for anything you might want is nothing new, which is why there’s such a big black market selling food stamps for cash. You can’t buy cigarettes, alcohol, food in restaurants, imported food, paper products, or toiletries with food stamps, and if New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his way, soda may be taken off the list of food-stamp-approved purchases.
“The city would bar the use of food stamps to buy beverages that contain more sugar than substance — that is, beverages with low nutritional value that contain more than 10 calories per eight-ounce serving,” wrote city health commissioner Thomas Farley and state health commissioner Richard F. Daines in a joint op-ed piece in the New York Times. The pair added that the ban would “not apply to milk, milk substitutes (like soy milk, rice milk or powdered milk) or fruit juices without added sugar — and its effects would be rigorously evaluated.”
The goal is to reduce the weight of folks receiving free money from the government. Since taxpayers are going to have to pay for their health care, there’s no sense in contributing to their unhealthiness, say supporters of the anti-soft drink food-stamp initiative. Detractors say the poor have just as much right to be fat as the rest of us.
Tags: New York City, New York, Michael Bloomberg, food stamps, public assistance, food stamps banned from use for sodas, soda taken off food stamp approval list, nutrition, US Department of Agriculture, Thomas Farley, Richard F. Daines, food stamp restrictions
