New Orleans        When we are honest with ourselves and the world, we all shrug, somewhat guiltily, while listening to the lectures on healthy eating.  Sure, they might be right, but we know what we like.  We also know what we can – and cannot – afford.  The top shelf takes deep pockets.  The joke in my own family for years has been the full knowledge that no matter how they might be banned at home, it’s hamburgers on the road, and, yes, even McDonald’s despite being told endlessly that it’s “fake food” and “white death,” meaning sugar, salt, and white flour.  Who wants to – or can — pay the prices for something different?

We all will admit that the Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) folks who have clustered around the USDA and Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s Department of Health Services (DHS) make some good points.  Many of them are not new.  Let’s not forget that Michelle Obama’s signature campaign as First Lady was getting healthier options on the public-school cafeteria menus.  Catsup is not a vegetable for example. Are they on that campaign still?

Even conceding some of their points, requires a warning that the government and MAHAs need to put money where they want our mouths to be.  This week new restrictions on nutritional offerings, under the influence of DHS, were imposed on retail establishments that sell food and are approved by the USDA to accepted SNAP or food stamps for payment.  The low estimate is that 5000 stores will be barred from the program, but more realistic assessments, including by the well-regarded DC think tank, Center for American Progress (CAP) put the number closer to 27,000 stores.  These places in many cases will be mom-and-pop operations in all likelihood.  For a certainty, this Trump iteration of the once derided “nanny state,” will now create almost that many food deserts.

A map CAP produced made it even clearer as they broke down the number of authorized SNAP approved stores compared to the families receiving SNAP benefits.  For example, in Orleans Parish, whose boundaries align with the City of New Orleans, the ratio was over 1000 to each store.  We won’t know for a minute how many in the city are being banned now, but we do know it will blow up the ratio per available store.  These forces SNAP families, already in a life-and-death fight to simply retain their SNAP benefits to figure out, often with double jobs and inadequate transportation, how to make it out of the food desert to feed their families.

The suburban and child-centric moms who are the face of MAHA should consider the consequences of their advocacy on other moms and their children.  Not only does this make life immeasurably harder, it also doesn’t draw a straight line to healthier either.  No food is still worst that junk food, as hard as that is to say.  Furthermore, this is just another wave in the SNAP tsunami before the Medicaid waves hit next year.  For all the talk about working stiffs, there are huge numbers of children impacted.  As a case in point, Texas is at the sharp edge of the conservative spear and put out its February numbers, the other day.  There are already 56,000 fewer kids under 5 enrolled now than last year of the 381,221 less than 2025.

Nutrition is great, but where are MAHA folks when it comes to making sure children and their families don’t starve.  These are not unintended consequences, but deliberate results.  The nutritional trees of life are important for lower income and working families on SNAP, but the broader forest is even more critical.  Americans can’t become healthy again when they can’t afford food and its out of their reach, physically as well as financially.