News
Can Low-Income American afford a Healthy Diet?
In the November 2008 edition of Amber Waves an article about the affordability of a healthy diet was published. You can access the article at the link below. Among the points discussed were:
- Low-income households that receive maximum benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program usually have the purchasing power necessary to afford healthy diets; others may not.
- Relative to other households, low-income households must allocate a higher share of both their income and time budgets to food if they wish to consume palatable, nutritious meals.
- For many American households, achieving an affordable healthy diet will require reducing their expenditures on less nutritious foods and moving nutrient-dense foods, such as fruit and vegetables, to the center of their plates and budgets.
It is interesting to me that “households that receive the maximum benefit from SNAP/Food stamps usually have the purchasing power necessary to afford healthy diets; others may not.” Most households receiving benefits DO NOT get the maximum allotment however, making it a challenge for these households to make those benefits stretch.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/November08/Features/AffordHealthyDiet.htm
Amber Waves is a publication of the United States Department of Agriculture