What should poor people be allowed to eat? That is apparently one of the most burning questions on the minds of some lawmakers. Republican Missouri State Representative Rick Brattin recently sponsored a bill proposing that recipients of food stamps under SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, not be allowed to use their benefits to buy “cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood, or steak.” And Republican Maine Governor Paul LePage is supporting a bill that would prevent people from purchasing “unhealthy products” with food stamps. The rationale of politicians like Brattin and LePage is that the poor should be using government assistance to purchase healthy food rather than junk food or luxury items.
There are several problems with their reasoning. For one, preventing the poor from eating seafood would deprive them of one of the best sources of nutrition available. Also, enforcing restrictions on SNAP purchases is not exactly a clear and efficient way to promote better nutrition for several reasons, according to a report released by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service: there exist no universal standards on which foods are healthier than others, restrictions would not clearly improve purchasing patterns, SNAP recipients have been found to be no more likely than others to make poor nutritional choices, and restrictions would increase the difficulty and cost of administering SNAP. But perhaps the most troubling aspect of these bills is that especially in an era of heightened inequality and stagnant incomes, legislation designed to control the lives of the poor only increases problems of social inequity.
Efforts to control the diets of the poor are not a new societal development. As Tom Standage notes in his book A History of the World in 6 Glasses, one British lawmaker in the eighteenth century “suggested that tea should be made illegal for anyone with an annual income less than fifty pounds.” The argument was that tea was a luxury only the rich could afford to enjoy and that the poor should spend their limited resources on more nutritious options.
Sound familiar? Today Brattin says the impetus for his bill was when he saw “people purchasing filet mignons and crab legs with their EBT cards.” Like tea 300 years ago, steak and shellfish are viewed as luxury food items that a poor single mother would be irresponsible to feed her family with. Yet what if that mother and her family had been eating exceptionally cheap and simple meals for weeks just so they could afford a nice holiday steak dinner? Would it be just to deny her and her family the rare opportunity to enjoy a fancy meal for a special occasion?
Rather than using their time in office to strip the less fortunate of the simple yet significant pleasures of an occasional nice meal, elected officials should seek policies that strengthen the economy so that the poor do not need to rely on government assistance in the first place. Conservatives like to point out that the United States is a country based on the preservation of individual liberty. They should practice what they preach when they consider how to effectively address the issue of hunger in America. Limiting the freedom of individuals to make decisions for the well being of themselves and their families is antithetical to American values and only worsens class tensions in today’s increasingly unequal society.
Politicians should be careful in judging the choices of the less fortunate and have more trust in the ability of fellow citizens to live their lives in a responsible and fulfilling manner. Just as a ban on tea for the poor appears ridiculous with 300 years of hindsight, one should view contemporary attempts to control the diets of the poor as equally absurd and contemptible. It is high time that our nation’s leaders move beyond petty and unfair scrutiny of the poor and their lifestyles and focus on the issues that truly matter.
Image Credit: Flickr // U.S. Department of Agriculture