Plus, the program is teaching people about the benefits of good nutrition. One problem in the U.S. is that, all too often, the food that’s most plentiful is also the least healthy. Fast food and prepared meals tend to be loaded with sugar and salt, but they cost far less than healthier fresh fruit and vegetables.
That doesn’t mean everyone who goes through the program will make smart food choices all the time; in a free market, people sometimes opt for the unhealthy choice. But as educated food preparers, Oliver’s Kitchen grads are certainly more likely to make smart food choices, providing health benefits for themselves and their families for years to come.
Liberals and conservatives ought to be able to agree we can never spend enough to completely eliminate poverty. The poor, after all, will always be with us.
“On average, welfare spending amounts to around $7,000 per year for each individual who is poor or who has an income below 200 percent of the poverty level,” Heritage Foundation poverty expert Robert Rector reported in a recent paper. “This comes to $28,000 per year for each lower-income family of four.”
That level of spending is unsustainable. And, as the studies of hunger show, it’s also ineffective. Yet, Rector writes, the Obama administration aims to spend another $10.3 trillion on welfare programs.
The better way to deal with hunger would be to give the poor a hand up, not a hand out. Programs such as Oliver’s Kitchen have the right recipe. We need more of them.