What Is the Top Item Bought With Food Stamps?
Calley Means identifies soda as the top item bought with food stamps. He says roughly 30 states had removed it from the program, names Texas and Florida as participants, and identifies California as a state that had not made the change.
He connects that policy to what he sees as a contradiction between taxpayer-funded sugary drinks and public health spending. Means cites figures for teenagers with prediabetes, teenagers who are overweight or obese, and young adults with fatty liver disease. Those are his health-statistic claims in the interview, not independently established prevalence figures here. He says health briefings alone did not move officials; the possibility of bad press or disappointing the coalition's voters was the pressure he used to advance food policy.
