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NBC News Features Veggie and Fruit Program For Michigan Food Stamp Recipients

August 24, 2014, 1:57 PM

NBC News' chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman reports on an innovative Michigan program called "Double Up Food Bucks,"that gives residents on food stamps an opportunity to get more fruits and vegetables on their tables. 

NBC explains that food stamp recipients bring a special SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) card to a farmer’s market, food truck or grocery store. If they spend $20, they get an additional $20 to spend on Michigan-grown fruits and vegetables.

“We take a SNAP program that was initially intended as an anti-hunger program and turn it into an anti-hunger and pro-health program, we literally can pay the farmer now instead of the doctor later,” says the program's creator Oran Hesterman, founder of the Fair Food Network.

Hesterman tells NBC that at farmers markets in Michigan, 93 percent of Double Up participants say they’re eating more fruits and veggies, and 83 percent say they're buying fewer high-fat, low-nutrition snacks.


Read more:  NBC Nightly News


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