Soda companies rake in $4 billion a year of taxpayer money via the government food stamp program (SNAP)

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: food stamps, soda subsidies, junk food

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(NaturalNews) Sugary sodas and aspartame-laced diet sodas can all be purchased with taxpayer money via the federal food stamp program. It's called the "Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program" (SNAP), and it provides free food credits to 42 million Americans who use the credits to purchase junk food, birthday cakes, sodas and more.

As a result, U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing the soda industry to the tune of $4 billion a year while low-income food stamp recipients drink themselves into chronic diabetes and obesity.

What could possibly be wrong with such a program?

Food stamps routinely used to buy soft drinks, candy, cookies and ice cream

Far from what most people believe, the federal food stamp program (SNAP) isn't a program to provide nourishment to people of low income. It's actually a program engineered to keep the masses sick and diseased while pumping tens of billions of dollars each year into the processed food industry run by powerful corporations like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Kraft.

The USDA SNAP website admits, "Soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items" and are therefore eligible for purchase using food stamps.

(Soft drinks are FOOD? Somebody at the USDA needs to wake up and smell the processed coffee...)

This means the U.S. government is subsidizing the aspartame industry as well. All the poisons that are put into these foods -- sodium nitrite, MSG, petrochemical food colorings -- are all being subsidized with your tax dollars.

Meanwhile, in order to block nutrition, the USDA program specifically forbids the use of food stamps to purchase vitamins. So while taxpayer money can be used to load up on Diet Coke, not a dime can be used to protect health with something like vitamin C. How's that for making sure people stay sick?

Food stamps used to buy lobster and steaks, too

It's not just junk foods that food stamp recipients can purchase with taxpayer dollars, either: it's also luxury food items like lobster, shrimp and steaks. Once again, the USDA openly admits this, saying, "Seafood, steak, and bakery cakes are also food items and are therefore eligible items."

According to the USDA, "energy drinks" are also food and may therefore be purchased using food stamps. Birthday cakes are also considered "food" and are therefore eligible as well.

"Soda makers bag an estimated $4 billion a year in taxpayer money through the food stamp program," reports Breitbart.com. "Efforts to kill the so-called "soda subsidy" have been met with fierce resistance and lobbying by the soda industry."

The real purpose of the food stamp program is to keep Americans sick and dependent

Far from helping "poor, starving people" gain access to nourishment, the federal food stamp program is nothing more than a taxpayer subsidy to junk food and soda companies who are making the population sick and diseased.

When people consume these foods, they become riddled with diabetes, cancer and heart disease. This makes them easy prey for pharmaceutical companies who also operate on government subsidies (Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare) to bilk taxpayers for billions more in ill-gotten gains.

This is what happens when you let the government run the food system and the health care system: You get nothing but crony capitalism masquerading as welfare. Certain corporations that have the lobbying power to influence Congress become the recipients of all the cash these programs are stealing from taxpayers. The original idea of all this -- to have compassion and help prevent people from starving -- has been utterly abandoned. Now, the SNAP program is nothing more than a national ANTI-nutrition program that keeps people sick while enriching wealthy junk food corporations.

A better solution: Limit food stamps to non-processed foods

An obvious solution to all this would be to limit the use of food stamps to only "non-processed" food items such as fresh fruits and vegetables, bulk bags of rice and beans, fresh meats and so on.

After all, if you really have compassion for people who are starving -- which is largely a myth anyway, as the majority of the people on food stamps are obese -- then why wouldn't you want to help them with healthy foods?

Only in America are we so socially insane that we give out free credits for overweight people to purchase processed junk food that causes cancer, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Then we wonder why our health care system is such a failure...

Remember: Obamacare is a subsidy to Big Pharma and the health insurance companies; food stamps are a subsidy to junk food and soda manufacturers.

Sources for this story include:
BOOMTOWN 2: Taxpayers Have Spent $15 Trillion on 'War on Poverty'
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013...

'Soda Subsidy' Gives Tax Dollars to Beverage Companies
http://www.cnbc.com/id/40452370