Perhaps you’ve read something about a paper from the Rudd Center published today in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.  The paper looks at sugar-sweetened beverage purchases of households receiving federal assistance.

But what you may not have heard are some very important facts.  The very same paper also shows that about 48 percent of the beverages purchased by those households were no- and low-calorie choices.  In fact, the authors found that the households evaluated in this paper bought the equivalent of one can of sugar-sweetened beverages per household per day – including juice drinks, soft drinks and flavored waters – using food stamps. That’s right – one can.  Furthermore, 92 percent of federal assistance dollars went towards foods, not beverages.

So, before you make any assumptions from what you read from the media, remember to look at all the facts.