Another $31.5 Mil to Give Food-Stamp Recipients Fruits, Veggies

Enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars keep pouring into a scandalous Obama administration program that aims to provide low-income minorities—already getting free groceries from the government—with healthier foods.

It’s part of the First Lady’s effort to eradicate “food deserts,” area’s with limited access to affordable and nutritious foods, and so far the administration has spent a fortune with no end in sight to the cash flow. Announced just a few weeks ago, the latest allocation is for $31.5 million to “create projects that increase the purchase of fruits and vegetables among low-income consumers” that already get food stamps from American taxpayers. This will be accomplished by providing “incentives” at the point of purchase, according to the government’s announcement. Officially the funds have been coined Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive grants.

Judicial Watch has reported extensively on this outrageous waste of public funds, which is part of a $4.5 billion law pushed through by Michelle Obama to provide affordable healthy fare such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat milk in neighborhoods determined by the administration to be “food deserts.” The ultimate goal is to revolutionize the inner-city diet by providing fresh government-subsidized produce and grilled lean meats as alternatives to greasy, fried foods that tend to be more popular in those areas, presumably because they’re cheaper

Although the administration continues dedicating huge sums to this costly initiative it’s failing miserably, according to an academic study made public earlier this year. The probe focused on Philadelphia, an area that’s received a chunk of money to eradicate food deserts. Besides getting cash from the First Lady’s measure, the area has also received generous grants from a $15 billion fund tied to the president’s disastrous healthcare law as well as stimulus money to combat obesity. The funds have helped build new markets and added healthy food options to convenience stores in the city’s low-income neighborhoods.

However, the effort has not paid off. Residents of the underserved areas are no healthier after getting their government-funded fruits and veggies, the study found. After six months, there was no significant improvement in the body-mass index of local residents or in their consumption of fruits and vegetables, according to the academic researchers. The extensive probe considered more than 1,000 Philadelphia residents who lived in areas once considered food deserts because there were no affordable healthy things to eat. Uncle Sam’s lofty investment made no difference, but won’t stop the dollars from rolling in.

Besides creating projects to boost fruit and veggie consumption in the inner-city, the new $31.5 million allocation will also fund programs that test strategies to help “our understanding of how best to increase the purchase” of these healthy items by food-stamp recipients. Sales marketing will also be a big part of this initiative, evidently to spread the word among food-stamp recipients that healthy fare is on the house. The term food-stamp is not actually used because the Obama administration banned it and replaced it with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to eliminate the stigma associated with the welfare benefit.

Under Obama the nation’s food-stamp rolls have grown immensely and a record-number of people—some 47 million—get free groceries from the government. This costs an astounding $80 billion a year. As is typical with these types of bloated government programs, fraud and corruption has tainted this one, which is run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA Inspector General has revealed that many food-stamp recipients use their welfare benefit to buy drugs, weapons and other contraband and that some trade food stamps for reduced amounts of cash. Last year JW reported that illegal immigrants have received food stamps by the vanload for decades. A former certification case worker charged with vetting applicants in north Florida and Indiana provided JW with the alarming information.