Preservative-free products unaffordable for financially disadvantaged people
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has decided to take charge in the battle against obesity by restructuring the state’s food stamp plan with the intent to bar unhealthy foods from the program. Haley met with three leaders of South Carolina state agencies on Thursday to announce their plans of seeking a waiver from the federal government in order to change their current food stamp policy.
Haley’s plan is bold and sounds good in principle. She obviously thinks so too, suggesting in her Thursday announcement of her aspirations to set a trend for other states to follow. However, restructuring the food stamp program to allow its users to only buy healthy foods may be a theory best left to exist exclusively on paper.
About 18 percent of South Carolina citizens are on food stamps, and Haley thinks the $1.4 billion a year that the state receives in subsidizing the cost of these people’s food shouldn’t be going to “candy and chocolate and sodas and chips.” The health-oriented streamlining is certainly relevant to the state’s overall health as well: About one-third of the state is obese, and another third is overweight.
Consequently, it’s not too surprising to learn about the state’s incredibly poor health rankings, especially in categories such as diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure and heart disease. All things considered, Haley’s charge is admirable by any measure, although it isn’t quite that simple.
It may not even be practical, either. It’s easy to say you’re going to ban candy and soda and other items that readily fall under the unhealthy classification, but what of canned and frozen foods? Those latter items are a necessary dietary evil for these people. For starters, they’re cheaper to begin with, which results in savings for the federal government or savings for the food stamp user. Furthermore, their shelf life is much longer than the organic or preservative-free alternative, meaning fewer products are wasted due to expiration, and fewer trips and purchases are required to maintain a pantry for these homes.
One must remember that a household on food stamps probably doesn’t have the breathing room to afford additional trips to the store when they’re already busy stretching their dollar for arguably the most essential good of all: food and drink. In any case, the net result is the same: The current system is cheaper for both parties than the proposed one would be.
It’s altogether unfortunate that a system proposed to better aid its beneficiaries would ultimately drive them further into the poverty that necessitates the system itself, but such is the world we live in. We can’t expect to solve that which involves personal choice, such as poor diet, by eliminating the options. The solution, like so many of the country’s problems, lies in education.