An example of taxpayers' money being used for unhealthy 'cheeseburger delivery services'
Food delivery services that deliver bento boxes and frozen meals to your home are very helpful for families who cannot afford to cook at home but cannot afford to eat out every day. In the United States, there is a medical assistance program called
Food is medicine: Medicaid contractors delivering salty, fatty foods | STAT
https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/11/medicaid-food-is-medicine-medically-tailored-meals-quality-questioned/
Homestyle Direct , headquartered in Idaho, is a food delivery service that delivers 7.8 million meals a year across the United States, including menus for people with cancer and diabetes, as well as menus that are advertised as being 'heart- and kidney-friendly.' Homestyle Direct calls these menus 'medically tailored meals' (MTM), and apparently receives a large amount of medical assistance funding from Medicaid, which is funded by taxes.
However, several nutrition experts told STAT that many of the meals offered by Homestyle Direct are far from MTM, which is a diet-related disease that can help improve the health of people with diet-related diseases. 'Homestyle Direct doesn't look like MTM to me, or even healthy food in general,' said Dariush Mozaffarian , director of the Food and Medicine Institute at Tufts University.
MTM was originally developed in the 1980s as a diet for AIDS patients, and has since been expanded to include people with chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. There is no universally accepted definition of MTM, but most nutrition experts generally agree that a healthy diet should be low in certain nutrients, such as sodium, sugar, and saturated fats, and high in nutrients such as fiber.
However, STAT points out that many of Homestyle Direct's menu items fall far outside these requirements. For example, the Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sandwich, which is offered as a menu for diabetics, contains 980 mg of sodium, and the Biscuits and Sausage Gravy, which is for cancer and diabetes patients, contains half the daily amount of sodium and saturated fat for adults. The American Heart Association recommends that adults consume no more than 2,300 mg of sodium per day, and ideally no more than 1,500 mg, and Homestyle Direct's menu exceeds the recommended intake per meal. In addition, the Cheeseburger, which is intended for people with cancer, diabetes, heart and kidney disease, contains about 50 ingredients, which STAT pointed out are ultra-processed foods that are said to be linked to various diseases.
Homestyle Direct isn't the only company that advertises itself as a MTM meal delivery service but actually serves unhealthy meals. STAT has also found that other meal delivery companies, including
When Homestyle Direct first started its business in 1997, it advertised itself as a 'meal delivery service for busy people' and did not promote its health benefits. In 2009, it began receiving Medicaid medical assistance in six states, and by 2018, that number had grown to 18 states, but it was only in 2023 that it began to promote MTM.
In recent years, improving health through diet has become popular in the United States, and several non-profit organizations have announced certification programs for MTM. However, Homestyle Direct's menu does not meet the standards of these certification programs, especially high sodium and low dietary fiber. Dietary fiber is correlated with heart health and is said to reduce the risk of certain cancers and all-cause mortality. According to an analysis by STAT, Homestyle Direct's 'heart-friendly menu' contains an average of 5g of dietary fiber per serving, which is below the MTM certification standard of 8-9g per serving.
'There are a lot of companies trying to rebrand their meals as MTM when in fact they are not. This is a problem. It hurts the MTM movement. And what's even more problematic is that it hurts patients,' Mozaffarian warned.
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