Food Stamps y'all

I came across an interesting article today about how legislators in South Carolina are proposing to treat benefits payments. They basically want to restrict food stamps to only be able to buy healthy food. For those of you that are not aware, in the US, food stamps are how the most common form of benefits are distributed. They are coupons with a monetary value which most supermarkets accept and they are currently restricted so you can buy all food and drink but not cigarettes or booze.

In the UK, the BBC had a poll last year where they asked people about this idea as with the soon to be introduced Universal Credit could be used to bring something like this about using a prepaid credit card. Generally, according to the poll, the majority of the people favoured some sort of restriction on what benefits could be used on.

So the case in point with food stamp restriction. I think it is a great idea. Three quarters of society in the US (and two thirds in the UK) are obese. Obesity is more prevalent in lower income families. Billions of dollars are being spent on trying to make people eat more healthily and billions more on dealing with the effects of obesity. Obviously there need to be safeguards over what constitutes “healthy” food but I think it could work. Some frozen and canned food would be acceptable, as only fresh food means more trips to the supermarket meaning more in petrol or public transport costs and time. The only issue is that all the big purveyors of crappy highly processed food will lobby the hell out of not carrying it through. Guess why? Fast food companies can accept food stamps! 

The End of the Frozen Food Revolution

Although I am on a diet, I had a great big dirty Chinese takeaway last night. It was glorious. I really really like Chinese food, however I am under no illusion as to the general quality of your average takeaway. I go to one fairly close to my house and the food has always been good and I have never been ill, however when I was making my selection at home with the menu before I popped out to collect it, it found myself shying away from the beef and lamb dishes. I love beef in Chinese dishes. Literally, all of them. But you have to ask yourself the question, where do they get their beef from? If Waitrose have been hornswoggled over having pork in their beef meatballs then what chance does the local Chinese takeaway that buys in bulk from grotty wholesalers have?

Then that got me thinking. What about the frozen pizza in the freezer. The one with ‘spicy beef’ on it? Now, without using a DNA sequencer myself, how am I to know that the food isn’t tainted?  All these thoughts swirled around my mind as I picked up my Chinese chicken curry, egg fried rice, vegetable spring rolls, and crispy fried chicken with Peking sauce. Nothing can be relied upon now, well, at least, in my own mind it can’t be. This horsemeat scandal will change the supermarket dynamics completely as the cheap frozen meals that people buy will no longer be supplied under a ‘ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies’ type of deal. The questions have been asked and the lies have been told. This means that frozen food prices will skyrocket to take into consideration of the ‘extra’ (which should have been in place anyway) due diligence that the supermarkets and end processors will have to take. If this is the case, then no one will buy them, as the people who rely on them won’t buy them as they won’t be able to afford it, and the people that don’t buy them anyway – well nothing will change there as well. So will it bring about the end of the frozen food revolution which started in the 70s until now? I hope so.