The food stamp program is a buy “whatever you want to buy” program, including soft drinks, said former agriculture secretary Ann Veneman on Monday, while advocating that benefits be limited to nutritious foods. “What some of us have argued (is) that this food stamp program ought to look a lot more like the WIC program and truly be a nutrition program.”
Veneman, who led USDA during the George W. Bush era, lauded WIC as “one of our most effective nutrition programs.” The Women, Infants and Children program provides vouchers to pregnant people and new parents to purchase specific foods to supplement their diets, such as infant formula, baby food, fruits and vegetables, milk, cheese, tofu, canned fish and whole wheat bread.
“Some of us have argued that SNAP… is not a nutrition program at all, but rather it’s a ‘just whatever you want to buy.’ A little over 10 percent of SNAP money is spent on soft drinks, which have no nutritional value,” said Veneman during an Agri-Pulse farm policy conference in California.
Obesity and chronic diet-related diseases such as diabetes pose huge health care costs, said Veneman, who mentioned “this whole issue of nutrition generally” before diving into the role of public feeding programs. “If the public is paying for these programs, we’re paying for these diet-related diseases through our medical programs.”
There are few limits on purchases through SNAP, a much larger program at 41 million people than WIC, which serves 6.2 million. There have been repeated and unsuccessful proposals to bar purchases of soft drinks and candy with SNAP benefits in the name of better nutrition. But some analysts say there is little difference between the diets of most Americans and SNAP recipients.