For a Californian like me, the first time encountering a “Koolickle” is an unsettling experience. Stepping inside the local mom-and-pop gas station to fill up my gas tank and being asked if I have ever tried a Kool-Aid pickled cucumber put me on my heels. “It looks like it’s glowing,” I mumble to the lady behind the counter. But this tangy, sweet, salty, sour flavor combination is a staple of Southern cuisine.
The latest viral trend takes on a new dimension. Take one jar of pineapple spears, drain the juice, whisk together one packet of your favorite Kool-Aid with a cup of sugar, ladle it back in and you have a culinary invention of creative escalation. Countless clips of exuberant enjoyment follow: “Oh ma gawd!” or “dat bih gah” are some of the more humorous reactions.
But the more nefarious source of these sales is simply fraud.
A person is issued SNAP money to their EBT card. They go down to the store and buy items, cook up large batches of food (this is where you get these fantastical food combinations), and sell them in Styrofoam clamshells as “plates” while they are advertised on your social media channel of choice: “Plates $20, DM for orders.”
Hot plate hustles are not a new phenomena — a Michigan woman recently faced 10 years in prison utilizing this type of scheme.
All this being done in the grey area of the law. No health-code oversight. No formal payment processor. It’s turning SNAP-purchased food into a quasi-commercial product where cash is pocketed out of sight from any enforcement agency.
Trafficking in SNAP fraud is an escalation ladder. It sometimes appears as “tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent transactions” or, as with Kool-Aid pickled pineapples or hot plates, a SNAP recipient converts food assistance into a peer-to-peer transaction.
The transfer of government issued SNAP benefits into cold, hard cash is easy enough to understand. The trafficking and abuse is a long-running swindle. And the pickled pineapple is just the latest viral version.
All the way back in 2000, a CRS report extolled how “difficult to measure” the “extent of abuse” while noting a number of studies from the late 1990s telling a tale of “erroneous eligibility” and “intentional violations” which made the SNAP program ripe for abuse.
The formal food assistance plan, first implemented in 1939 to aid Americans coming out of the Great Depression, currently serves around 42.1 million people across the country (3.2 million of those being here in Texas). The federal government sends out hundreds of billions in SNAP funds every year, while much of it becomes part of a massive grift: “We know there are instances of fraud committed by our friends and neighbors, but also transnational crime rings,” said Jennifer Tiller, a senior advisor to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
Texas has an almost 9% error rate in SNAP payments. And under new Trump administration rules that seek to root out fraud and abuse in the program, Texas is potentially on the hook for paying $709 million in penalties if it does not reduce its current error rate.
These viral trends sit at the crossroads of MAHA and public assistance fraud. While large swaths of the country consider themselves part of a crunchy coalition and remain in a heated debate over seed oils and food additives, there is a portion of the population slurping down enormous amounts of sugar-submerged GMO fruits. As the federal government initiatives focus on rooting out fraud, entire communities are being sustained by this agency subsistence.
Some have tried alternative prevention measures. As part of the larger MAHA movement, Gov. Greg Abbott, the Texas Legislature, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have successfully prohibited the purchase of “junk food” like soda and candy with SNAP benefits.
Take a jar of pineapple spears (roughly 180 grams of sugar), dump in a cup of sugar (200 grams) and you have a concoction that blurs the line between indulgence and self-harm. Fruit is good for you. Sugar, in the proper amount, can be a part of a healthy diet. Yet, as the human palate may have evolutionarily evolved to be attracted to fruity flavors, even this edible excess stretches the bounds far beyond anything even Willy Wonka could even imagine.
A need for accountability is clear in the nightmare vision of this glowing elixir. Kool-Aid pineapple spears and SNAP benefit fraud paired with dietary-induced metabolic issues spawns a reevaluation. The symbiosis between the artificial elements of food and government assistance is accelerating.
We can laugh and share these amusing clips online, but something must be done to remedy this. And soon.
