Posted on 07/18/2014 1:09:13 PM PDT by jazusamo
After having made her mark on school lunches, you know, replacing mac n cheese for quinoa salad thereby leaving kids across the nation hungry and unhappy, first lady Michelle Obama is moving on to bigger and better things, it seems.
Via The Washington Free Beacon:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is suggesting major changes to grocery stores to nudge Americans to purchase healthier foods when they shop.The agency commissioned an expert panel to make recommendations on how to guide the more than 47 million Americans on food stamps into spending their benefits on fruits and vegetables.
The group released an 80-pagereportthis month presenting their ideas, which include talking shopping carts and a marketing strategy for grocery chains that would feature better store lighting for healthier items.
To encourage Americans, including food stamp recipients, to purchase and eat healthier foods, USDA has come up with a few suggestions, including SNAP-Ed cooking classes, and consultations with dieticians in grocery stores, a point system whereby shoppers could receive perks like movie tickets for buying healthy food, and of course, the talking shopping cart:
The MyCart grocery cart would provide dividers for shoppers to make sure they are selecting enough items in each MyPlate category, the USDAs food icon.MyCart is a nonfinancial approach that would use behavioral economics to encourage healthier purchases by any consumer, including SNAP participants, the report said.
The cart would be color-coded, physically divided, and have a system installed so that when the shopping cart reaches its healthy threshold it would congratulate the customer.
The algorithm would group the purchases to classify them using the MyPlate designations and to provide consumers with a message of support or encouragement (e.g., You achieved a MyCart healthy shopping basket!), the report said.
And the cost? Oh, a measly $30,000 for every store.
Whether or not youll find yourself using a talking shopping cart in the near future remains to be seen. More likely, shoppers will be confronted with one of the agencys other, more realistic nanny state marketing schemes, which is sure to make Michelle O happy.
The USDA said the ideas are intended to change the choice architecture of the food retail environment to make healthier choices more prominent, which is in line with first lady Michelle Obamas stated second term agenda to impact the nature of food in grocery stores.
Yep, and I wonder how many taxpayer dollars went to that agency commissioned expert panel.
Just had an awful thought triggered by your comment: This sounds like the basis for more Federal employment or contractors. Each cart must be multilingual and identify each customer. Full time staff would survey the target customers and update the languages as necessary. A legal department would be required to defend against allegations of favoritism in language or accessibility. Alternatives to verbal communication would also be required, etc. etc. How to think like a big government liberal.
Hey, I’m actually FOR food stamp leeches making better nutritional choices!
Just require that ebt cards can ONLY buy rice, beans and ground beef.No alcohol, no cig’s, no steak, no lobster, no cakes or candies.
This should cut the food stamp expenditures to one-third, and it doesn’t cost the stores anything!
If a food stamp leech brings luxury items to the cashier and makes a scene, the store can report them and they lose their handouts for a year.
I’m picturing something like Pete Drake’s Talking Steel Guitar.
Sure would stop people from wanting to be on the program.
Agreed, and it wouldn’t cost taxpayers for any surveys, the USDA already have lists of healthy foods and the card would only accept those foods.
That works too!
Then they don’t even have to go to a real store. Just show up at ANY Federal government building and pick up a sack of kibble.
(Kibble is not soylent green though, is it?)
Oh, please, First thunder thighs-no esta mierda otra vez...
How much cheaper for all concerned to just limit the EBT/food stamp purchases to fresh, non-processed food only-no more frozen dinners, sodas, chocolate milk, sugary cereal in boxes, ice cream, instant potatoes, etc. Then the welfare queen learns to cook real food right now, and loses some of that extra weight we taxpayers pay for her and the brats to maintain, or everyone gets hungry until she does cook...
In “This Perfect Day” they were called totalcakes, and they were what there was to eat...
Can there REALLY be, at this point, anyone in America who doesn’t think these two are the biggest *ssholes in the nation’s history?
There shouldn’t be, at least anyone with a half a brain or more.
I sure wish Michelle would get to do to Food Stamps what she’s done to school lunches - make them INEDIBLE.
That would SERIOUSLY lower the cost of the Food Stamp program as people would have to use REAL MONEY to find food they could hold down. And it would teach the TAKERS one heck of a lesson.
I wonder if Ebonics will be a language?
5.56mm
Ok, who capitalized Ebonics?
Damn, did it again.
5.56mm
Limiting SNAP benefits to only healthy foods would give a lot of people on welfare an incentive to get a job.
It would also limit the abuse of the welfare benefits.
And it would eventually reduce the correlation in the US of obesity to poverty (poor people most likely to be fat).
And how the heck is a cart gonna know the difference of what is put in it. They can fill it to the healthy threshold with Lucky Charms and it will still say congrats. Frickin idiots.
Depends on how intrusive they want to be. If RFID chips were mandated for food, like they are for some clothes, the cart could have a reader that would automatically record every item in the cart and react accordingly. The cost of near field chips has dropped so much that things like this could be considered.
A more benign use is the concept of speeding regular checkouts by just wheeling your cart through a scanner and everything is automatically recorded and billed.
The first time I run across a talking shopping cart, is the day I go to the service counter and have a very pointed and none too subtle talking with the manager, at which time I will explain to him, in perhaps colorful language, why I will no longer be patronizing his establishment.
This initiative maybe the greatest thing for mom & pop grocery’s in a long time.
This has awesome hacking potential I believe...
“Deport Obama”
“Vote for Ted Cruz”
“Abort Hillary”
will they force this on the small independents too?
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