Restaurant Meals Program – California

State seeks to educate food-stamp recipients about fast food, By Ricardo Lopez, August 2, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Anna Harrald likes to eat at Taco Bell because the hard-shell tacos are ‘nice and cheap and good.’ From KFC and El Pollo Loco, the chicken she stores in a friend’s refrigerator will feed her for days. The 46-year-old homeless woman, who sleeps by a canal along the 710 Freeway in Long Beach, is one of at least 141,000 people in Los Angeles County eligible to use their food stamps at local restaurants under a state program aimed at helping the elderly, homeless and handicapped get a meal. When California launched the Restaurant Meals Program in 2004, advocates hailed it as a solution to feeding those who don’t have the means or ability to prepare their own meals. But nearly 94% of participating restaurants in the state are fast-food establishments, and U.S. Department of Agriculture officials are concerned that the program may be undermining the goal of promoting healthful eating…”