Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 28, 1992 TAG: 9201280009
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Kim Sunderland
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
GROCERY TRIP OFFERS FOOD FOR THOUGHT
About a month ago, shortly before the holidays, I was pushing my cart around the grocery store, trying to pay attention to my shopping list while ignoring my hunger pangs.Somewhere between the cereal aisle and the bakery counter, I ran across a family that looked to be underprivileged: They wore raggedy clothes, holey shoes and no winter coats.
The mother, her child and a grandmother trounced about the store filling their cart. I didn't pay particular attention to them and, completing my shopping list, I headed to the check-out counter.
Shortly after standing in line and getting my personal check ready, I turned around and there was this family again, standing behind me in line.
I was right, I said to myself as I watched them get their food stamps ready, they were a low-income family.
This time I couldn't help but notice the contents of their cart: a dozen eggs, three six-packs of soda, two packages of doughnuts, a package of chocolate eclairs, cigarettes, ready-made biscuits and some candy.
Come on, I thought. What a bunch of junk. And they're allowed to buy that stuff with food stamps? My tax dollars are supposedly helping poor people, but I didn't really consider this gut-rotting junk food nutritional.
Who's monitoring this? I wondered.
I've been covering health and human service agencies for more than two years, but I just couldn't understand why this family was buying stuff that wasn't good for them.
"The quality of food that someone buys is not the issue," said Mary Ellen Verdu, director of the Montgomery County Social Services Department. "They have a right to buy lobster tails and starve the rest of the month if they want to."
Basically, if you can't eat it - such as paper products, tobacco, alcohol or cleaning products - you can't buy it with food stamps. "And they don't have to buy cheap food," Verdu said. She said many families don't get enough food stamps in the first place and have to supplement them with cash, which they usually don't have.
Also, it's the grocery store's responsibility to make sure the food stamps are used appropriately and that employees check IDs, but Verdu said, "They rarely do."
Nutritional information is available at most non-profit agencies and at local hospitals and clinics. But are people reading it?
"In the past 12 years or so, people seem to be getting the message," said Montgomery Regional Hospital's clinical dietitian Ellen Coale. "And a well-rounded diet is that message."
Doughnuts and soda aren't a well-rounded meal, are they?
"Getting nourishment is what's important," Coale said.
Despite the upswing of healthy eating starting in the mid-1980, report after report suggests that most Americans are lazy, overweight and generally unhealthy. In families where compulsive habits and a lack of money have been the basis for a shopping list, the problem is generational.
Having spent time at the New River Valley Free Clinic, where a nutritionist works to help people curb bad habits and live a healthier life, I've learned that poor eating habits aggravate diabetes, hypertension and a host of other ailments.
In other words, eating junk food doesn't help the problems people may already have, and it causes more problems in the long run.
I shouldn't care what anyone eats. Sometimes I don't watch what I eat. And, to be honest, doesn't everyone have a right to eat what they want, no matter who pays?
Kim Sunderland covers New River Valley social services for the Roanoke Time & World-News.