Trump Wants To List Canned Spray Cheese Sauce And Beef Jerky As ‘Staples’ For Food Stamp Users
Ah, spray cheese. A highly processed food that's a go-to in any pantry.
Though my sarcasm may be apparent, the Trump Administration is reportedly very serious about this. Along with beef jerky, lemon juice, and pimiento-stuffed olives, canned spray cheese could count as a staple food for those in the federal food stamp program under a proposed rule.
While Bloomberg reports that the U.S. Agriculture Department says this would save stores money "under the revised minimum stocking requirements for staple foods," the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) was not content with the proposal from a nutrition standpoint. Said requirements would allow stores to stock up to six fewer items, saving them $500 per store over the span of five years. Although retailers would save money, low-income families and their access to healthy food options would be harmed, CSPI concludes.
"You don’t have to have a nutrition degree to know that canned spray cheese sauce is not a staple food," CSPI's vice president for nutrition Margo Wootan told Bloomberg.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)-formerly food stamps-requires stores to carry a certain number of meat, dairy, grain, fruit, and vegetable options. They note that "The Federal Register notice cites "canned spray cheese sauce" as an example of a dairy staple. It would count "beef jerky" as a staple in the category of meat, poultry or fish. [And] lemon juice and "jarred pimiento-stuffed olives" would be counted as fruit and vegetables."
Wootan even told Bloomberg this plan really harkens back to when President Ronald Reagan made a controversial effort to deem ketchup a vegetable at school lunches. Since we are, in fact, what we eat, let's aim to be better than canned spray cheese.
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