Organic Food Blog

Double your Foodstamps with Wholesome Wave

There has been a big debate during the last few years in the United States about the choices that we provide our children when it comes to nutrition. Many times food stamps end up being used to buy unhealthy foods and sweetened beverages and considering that we are in the middle of an obesity epidemic just add to insult to injury a group that already has a higher prevalence of weight-related illnesses. Many people naturally resist the idea of being told what they can, and can not buy at the grocery store (with or without government help) but some don’t like the idea of our tax dollars going towards meals that will just end up burdening the next generation with higher health care costs.

At the same time, many of the arguments being made against this idea are soft drink companies who stand to loose out on millions of dollars of revenue if food stamps were not allowed to be spent on them. While there are many arguments for or against this idea I think that we can all agree that at the very lease expanding the options available to consumers to actually include healthy choices.

There is a company called Wholesome Wave based out of Connecticut that created the “Double Value Coupon” program. Through this program people are invited to get double their money’s worth of food stamps (now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) so long as they use it on participating farmers markets located across the country. In the last three years they have expanded to include over 150 farmers markets across the country. Check out their website at WholesomeWave.org