Not a particularly novel idea to\u00a0source basic staples in bulk for\u00a0gov’d nutritional benefits – although\u00a0‘government cheese’ was as much about propping up dairy industry prices as providing sustenance.\u00a0It\u00a0would be\u00a0an interesting way to deal with food deserts if people were allowed to opt into the service because it suited their needs.<\/p>\n
The reality of selecting “basic staples”: anything you pick is going to make someone irate.\u00a0Remember Palin attacking Michelle Obama for saying she tells her kids dessert isn’t a right &\u00a0planting a vegetable garden? Until 2010, I didn’t realize that saying\u00a0eating dessert at every lunch and dinner wasn’t ideal or that eating some fresh vegetables was contentious. I know now. Sure, the whole thing was a political stunt; but\u00a0anyone want to proclaim\u00a0society has gotten\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0reasonable in the intervening near-a-decade?<\/p>\n The biggest problem I have with this “money saving” proposal is that I don’t see it saving any money. It’s not like everyone can get the same box. Delivering fresh vegetables and meats presupposes I have a refrigerator\/freezer and am dropping cash on the electricity to run it. I imagine we’re talking about shelf-stable foods (otherwise shipping in the Winter becomes a huge challenge –\u00a0I\u00a0did a free meal-delivery trial.\u00a0In the MidWest. In Winter. Got a\u00a0box full of frozen-solid ‘fresh’ food.).<\/p>\n There will need to be some mechanism for excluding items based on medical necessity (and a simple online account may not be viable). There’s an uproar if 95% of people claim to be severely allergic to lima beans and\u00a0spinach, or\u00a0excluding a food\u00a0takes a medical approval (which requires a trip to the doctor, which it itself a PITA). And like disability or injury law – there’ll be doctors who sign off on all sorts of dodgy stuff. Or at least the perception thereof.<\/p>\n Even with some mechanism\u00a0to avoid dropping peanut butter and tinned tuna into houses with allergies, I’m vegetarian. Or Kosher Jewish (religious discrimination!). Or whatever other deeply held dietary beliefs someone may have.<\/p>\n Now\u00a0they’re delivering vegan boxes (against the huge objection of meat industry groups) that comply with Halal, Kosher, etc restrictions\u00a0or<\/em>\u00a0there are a dozen different boxes and there’s a database indicating\u00a0who gets what. Either way, some percentage of\u00a0the boxes\u00a0still need to be one-off packed to avoid non-common allergens (or comply with the religious belief of the dude who founds the Church of the Carnivore and cannot eat that vegan junk).<\/p>\n And that’s just the packing challenges.\u00a0Just\u00a0sourcing<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0delivering<\/em>\u00a0this food every (week, month?) is a whole other logistical nightmare. Do they source locally or take money from the local economy and source the food from\u00a0single suppliers?\u00a0\u00a0And if they’re sourcing locally, can the gov’t really do so more efficiently than, say, the local supermarket chain?<\/p>\n The idea\u00a0inevitably includes industry “lobbying” to\u00a0have products included in the box. If Oprah cannot not like beef without getting sued,\u00a0and the FDA food pyramid\/plate\/<geometric shape of the year> cannot be built without industry uproar … I doubt the box will fair any better.\u00a0Plus\u00a0the potential for free advertising. There are people at my daughter’s preschool who send rice krispy treats as a ‘healthy snack’ because,\u00a0yeah, no idea. But would the government throw in crisps, candy, heavily processed anything … if the company offered it for free occasionally? And would people believe\u00a0everything they get in their box to be healthy … because it’s coming in the gov’t healthy-food-for-your-family box?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not a particularly novel idea to\u00a0source basic staples in bulk for\u00a0gov’d nutritional benefits – although\u00a0‘government cheese’ was as much about propping up dairy industry prices as providing sustenance.\u00a0It\u00a0would be\u00a0an interesting way to deal with food deserts if people were allowed to opt into the service because it suited their needs. The reality of selecting “basic …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[517,515,516,514],"class_list":["post-2109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-non-starter","tag-snap","tag-trump-budget","tag-wic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2110,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions\/2110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}