USDA and Michelle Obama Want Shopping Carts to Tell Customers What to Eat

A commissioned expert panel, requested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has released an 80-page report on how to “nudge” Americans on food stamps to make healthier choices in the nation’s grocery stores. Their ideas include talking shopping carts and enhanced lighting for the healthier choices such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.

“In this approach, the supermarket is the classroom and shoppers receive support on how to maximize their healthy choices using products retailers promote via the weekly store circular,” the report concluded.

Other ideas presented in the report include a points system that food stamp recipients could participate in when making healthy food purchases. These points could then be used to get prizes such as movie tickets.

For her part, Michelle Obama has made healthier nationwide eating a priority for her second term, er, her husband’s second term, and the USDA report dovetails neatly with efforts she’s made to change public school lunch programs across the country.

If this doesn’t feel like a way to spend a fortune while getting almost nothing in return, I don’t know what would. I’m not sure what percentage of Unfiltered Patriot readers are currently on or have ever been on a government food stamp program, but how would it make you feel to be assumed too ignorant to buy what’s healthy for you? To be too stupid to tell the difference between a healthy radish and a box of Teddy Grahams?

This is, of course, part and parcel of the liberal way of thought. People – especially poor Americans and minorities – are simply too uneducated and dumb to make their own decisions in life, so they need the government to do it for them. Of course, that begs the obvious question: if the government is paying for the food in the first place, why do we need to go through this whole charade of incentives and KITT carts and better lighting for the lettuce? Why can’t the government simply say, well, this is what you can buy, this is what you can’t?

The simple truth is that’s exactly what the government could do. They already do, in some instances, place restrictions on what can be bought with food stamp dollars. The reason they don’t want to limit purchases to “healthy” choices in the grocery store is because the libs depend on food stamp recipients to vote for the next Democrat. If those voters get to the grocery store and find that they can only buy squash, apples, and whole-wheat bread, they may be a lot less likely to support the next socialist who runs for office. By playing the middle ground and limiting government interference to “helpful suggestions,” the Democrats can have their cake and eat it too.

Well, not cake. Zucchini bread, maybe.