Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) led the way for a bill prohibiting welfare recipients from using government-issued debit cards to get cash through ATMs at strip clubs, casinos or liquor stores. This is just part of a long history of debate about the “modern welfare state” the United States has supposedly become. One of the most active of these debates is the fundamental Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more widely referred to as food stamps.
For millions of Americans who are unemployed, underemployed or facing dire situations, the food stamp programs are vital. Yet, with the rising rates of obesity and hyperawareness about the flaws in our food system, many are criticizing the food stamp program, and calling for more regulation on how, where and on what welfare recipients spend their benefits. That fast food restaurants like Taco Bell and Jack in the Box were added to the list of restaurants food stamp recipients were able to use their benefits at raised a lot of heat last fall.
It should come as no surprise that America is in a unique political climate surrounding food. Now more than ever there are calls for reform in the food system, and demand for local and sustainably grown food is strong and growing. There is much debate in America about individuals’ food choices. It is widely accepted that individuals have the power of the pocket: our consumer power can drive real change. In this way, the larger part of the environmentalist movement and now the food movement is convinced that “we can do our part” if we make conscious, sustainable choices. Yet, in reality, we are still participating in a system that is inherently unsustainable.
The food movement has inherited this consumer-oriented mentality from its sister environmental movement. Media, government agencies and society at large focus on the ethics of the choices of individuals. In this sense, the responsibility of the environment rests on the consumer’s shoulders; if one doesn’t shop for organic produce or go to the local farmers’ market then they are shunned by the “foodie” world. Don’t get me wrong: I am all for supporting local farmers and businesses and believe in the merits of organic farming. But I believe this insistence on consumer responsibility to make the ethical and healthy alternative choice is problematic because it shifts the focus away from the structural problems that lie at the root of the food system.
What needs to change is the industrialized, capitalistic way of producing and distributing food. Such change needs to occur at every level, from monoculture, industrialized production to agribusiness-controlled distribution and a runaway food processing industry bent on stuffing empty calories down the throats of every American. When all the pressure is on the individual to make the ethical choice, we forget that some of the structures are so institutionalized and assisted by government that no consumer “vote” will matter. In the case of food stamps, politicians have focused on and passed judgement on the food choices poor people make; in reality, it is the fundamental economic inequalities that have created an environment where low-income, working class people have neither the time nor the money to make the ethical and healthy choice.
There have been great strides in the food stamp program, including some cities allowing recipients to cash in their credit at local farmers’ markets, attempting to increase their accessibility to fresh, healthy food. Still, many criticize poor people for buying unhealthy, cheap junk food with their SNAP benefits. While it is easy to pass the blame off on the individual for not making the healthy or ethical choice, I argue that there needs to be a refocusing of the spotlight on the system that is creating these cheap, unhealthy and unethical choices. When we blame welfare recipients’ food choices on their own irresponsibility, rather than on the system of government subsidies that makes unhealthy corn byproducts ridiculously and artificially cheap, we are left short-sided and blind to the real roots of the problem with our food system.