There are federal predecessors to the Trump administration’s “Harvest Box” proposal, to provide half of food-stamp benefits in the form of a box of processed and packaged foods, says the NPR blog The Salt. “Among those horrified at the thought: American Indians who recognized this as the same type of federal food assistance that tribes have received for decades, with devastating implications for health.”
University of Oklahoma researcher Valerie Blue Bird Jernigan told NPR, “There’s even a name for it — it’s called ‘Commod Bod.’ That’s what we call it because it makes you look a certain way when you eat these foods.” Since 1977, the USDA has distributed nonperishable food as part of the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations. The program was designed as an alternative to food stamps because many Native Americans do not have easy access to grocery stores. The packaged foods are high in salt, fat and sugar and by their nature, preclude fresh fruit and vegetables.
Rates of obesity and diabetes among Native Americans and Native Alaskans are far higher than among Americans in general. “But these diseases didn’t become prevalent until tribes adopted a more processed Western diet, notes Elizabeth Hoover, who is of Mohawk and Mi’kmaq ancestry and teaches about indigenous food movements at Brown University.”