The curious case of NECCOs as health food

I sit here, digging through the depressing pile of medical bills I paid last year.

It's tax time and I have a heck of a lot of chemotherapy bills, receipts for medical procedures and prescription reimbursements to organize. With over $20 grand paid out in medical bills in 2008, I'm itemizing this year.

But I was doing what I usually do when faced with an overwhelming chore - trying to cut it down to size, literally. I was trimming off all the extra junk on the pharmacy receipts (these things are longer than my arm!!) and then matching the receipts up to my insurance forms.

I started looking all over for the date - and can't, for the life of me, find it on some of these things. I realized I had cut the dates off because they were conveniently at the bottom of the super long register receipt. Oops.

But in looking at the receipts, I discovered something VERY interesting.

NECCO wafers, those sweet candies that taste like chalk or pepto bismol, are acceptable to purchase with food stamps.

WHAT?

Aren't food stamps supposed to buy the most rudimentary, healthy foods for those in need? Cans of corn? Milk? Cheese? Orange juice? Fresh vegetables? Since when are NECCOs a part of that list? So I looked further. Red licorice is food stamp eligible. So is Haagen Dazs ice cream. And every kind of candy purchased by my children.

But guess what? Dinty Moore beef stew is not. Yes, boys and girls, if you're poor in the state of Oregon, you can buy all the NECCO wafers you can swallow, but don't bother buying meat. Campbells soup is not eligible, either - based on my receipts.

As a low income mom myself, I have to wonder what this says to the people in need in my community. And what does it tell my kids?

"Time for dinner, kids. We're having Hershey's!"