Interesting chart comparing expenditures for SNAP (program which replaced food stamps) and non-SNAP households:
About 40 cents of every food purchase dollar was spent on basic items like meat, fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, and bread.
• Another 20 cents was spent on sweetened drinks, desserts, salty snacks, candy, and sugar.
• The remaining 40 cents was spent on a variety of items such as cereal, prepared foods, other dairy products, rice, beans, and other cooking ingredients.
• The top 10 summary categories (Table 1) and top 7 commodities by expenditure were the same for SNAP and non-SNAP households, although ranked in slightly different orders.
Marian Nestle summarizes:
My reading of the report suggests that in this study, SNAP recipients spent more of a combination of their SNAP benefits and their own private money on:
•Sugar-sweetened beverages
•Hamburger
•Frozen meals
•Salty snacks
•Lunch meats
•Flavored milk
•Kids cereals
•Frozen French fries
•Convenience foods in general
•Infant formula