# 16 Eliminating Hunger in America

Feeding America

Certified Food stamps, WIC, Suppliemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Restaurants.

It has been said that America has the fattest poor people in the world. Typically people respond that it’s that cheap food has lots of fat. While this is true it doesn't cut to the heart of the problem. One problem is that many people are poor simply because they cannot compete. They are the bottom 10 percentile. They didn’t learn how to read, they are not computer literate, and they have developmental problems, whatever. If I was playing dungeons and dragons still I would say these are all those discarded dice rolls you made when making your character. They have 3-5 points of strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, charisma, or constitution.

That said, in America we give people money to get food if they are poor. The most recent name for this is SNAP What we don’t do is cook for them. What makes you think they know how to do anything more than warm up a can of beans or eat a hot-dog microwaved in hot water?

Why don’t restaurants serve the poor? One, they don’t have money. Two they can’t accept the type of money they are given. Three, there is no profit in it.

Solution,

Allow certified restaurants, to accept SNAP cards. These restaurants can be franchises or chains, faith based, or not. The menus would need to be simple, affordable food. Think Mac and cheese, Spaghetti and meat sauce. What we call staples, hearty meals, or comfort foods. Big pots and casseroles. The key being how cheap are the menus. Restaurants would earn rewards for feeding the most with the least, for the least. Serve a healthy pre-determined recipe to 10,000 people for $1.00, for example 8 ounces of mac and cheese, with computerized, unaltered results. Then you receive a percentage of the profits of all the restaurants in the same classification. In other words, a portion of the income tax’s collected from all the restaurant’s go to your restaurant.

Some more information on what SNAP does currently.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/09/using-snap-benefits-for-fast-food-restaurants-is-a-state-decision/245085/
-It might go without saying but the qualifications for this would need to change, and it would be best to make this change at the national level, after a few prototype programs are administered in small, medium and large states.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/retailers/eligible.htm
Hot food restriction would need to change.

More clarification:
Restaurants would need to serve a menu of 3 to 10 pre-determined and required menu items that meet FDA health and nutrition guidelines.