New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg just went there. The city is asking the USDA for permission to stop food-stamp recipients from using the benefit to buy soda or sugar-sweetened drinks.

This news comes on the heels of phase two of NYC’s anti-soda public-information campaign, another gross-out video and advertising blitz. While there are many things you currently can’t purchase with food stamps, aka the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), such as beer, wine, and even — some might say misguidedly — prepared foods, restricting something that many do indeed consider a “staple food” is controversial, even among anti-hunger advocates. Many view attempts to restrict purchases of particular foods as stigmatizing poverty, while others think that depriving low-income residents of small pleasures other people get to enjoy is simply too harsh.

I participated a few months back in a The New York Times Room for Debate on this very subject, in which several participants raised such objections, and I was in the minority. As I argued at the time:

 Could this controversy result from a belief on the part of pundits and policy makers that being poor in America means acquiescing quietly to a substandard diet? Healthy foods, in this line of reasoning, are a luxury that should be reserved for those who can afford them. As unjust as this sounds when presented so baldly, it is exactly this belief that underlies attempts to deny government the right to make good nutrition a cornerstone of the food stamp program.