"no organic foods, no fresh vegetables, we were looking for the cheapest of everything," mcgovern said in an interview with the washington post at a washington supermarket. "we got spaghetti and hamburger meat that was high in fat—the fattiest meat on the shelf. i have high cholesterol and always try to get the leanest, but it's expensive. it's almost impossible to make healthy choices on a food stamp diet."
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even for those people who are not seeing eroding benefits over time, the reality is “there are health consequences” to living on such a limited budget for more than a few days. people on food stamps are often forced to choose foods with higher fat, breads that are not whole grain and processed foods with unhealthy levels of sodium and sugar—a dangerous combination for people prone to diabetes, heart disease or other diet-related health problems. “living (on $21 a week) for a week is different from living on it for six months,” weill said.
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that is why more people should demand to know why—in a year in which we are projected to give the wealthiest 1 percent of the nation some $56.5 billion in tax breaks, just to cite one example of the national priorities set by president bush—we can’t do better than an average of $21 a week to ensure that our fellow americans can have three decent meals a day.
