It's good to reduce sugar. That doesn't make him an expert.

Why can’t a poor family give their kid a soda as a treat every once in a while. My brother had the idea that a flat amount of benefits (maybe $50?) could be used for “junk” food. But I don’t necessarily even agree with that because I don’t want to dictate to people about what they should eat.

My brother is a delivery driver for a major soft drink company. We have a mandatory 10 cent deposit on all beverage containers in Michigan.

While making his deliveries, he would routinely see people walk out of a convenience store with a 12 pack of Soda, pour it all out on the ground, then take the bottles inside to buy beer. Taxpayers paying for the soda & deposit, just so someone could cash in the bottles for the $1.20 and buy beer.

He saw this happen multiple times while making his deliveries at certain stores. Probably happened at lots of others, just that he didn't witness it.

who had recently been in the hospital where her eating and drinking had essentially shut down and she had nearly died.

She needed to stay hydrated, but literally the only things she would drink were Swiss Miss and those little cans of Coke. She was also entirely dependent on food stamps.

Were these the healthiest things she could have been drinking? No, but they were the onlythings she would drink, and they were much healthier than dying of dehydration.

I'm all in favor of encouraging healthier eating, but not of micromanaging people's food and drink choices, since we genuinely don't always know an individual's circumstances.