The state's top health official is going to Washington to convince federal officials that a candy bar does not deserve the same legal status as cauliflower.

The number of families receiving food stamps in Maricopa County has soared 15 percent in the past year and nearly doubled since 2002. Statewide, the figures are much the same, with nearly one in 10 Arizonans on food stamps, giving the state the distinction of having among the fastest-growing rolls in the country.

State officials have agreed to new procedures designed to ensure that food stamp applicants get their benefits on time.

Some have advanced degrees and remember middle-class lives. Some work selling lingerie or building websites. They are white, black and Hispanic, young and old, homeowners and homeless. What they have in common: They're all on food stamps.

Arizona is hiring three people to crack down on a particular kind of food stamp fraud.

Let them eat baked potatoes.

Use of food stamps (in their 21st century form of EBT cards) has soared by 15 percent in Maricopa County over the past year.

Indictments have been returned against 18 individuals, including four merchants, involved in defrauding the government of about $700,000 in food stamp benefits.

All it takes is a quick trip to your mailbox to participate in Arizona’s largest single-day food drive, one which helps St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance and Valley View Community Food Bank in Youngtown survive during the long, hot summer.

All it takes is a quick trip to your mailbox to participate in Arizona’s largest single-day food drive, one which helps St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance and Valley View Community Food Bank in Youngtown survive during the long, hot summer.

All it takes is a quick trip to your mailbox to participate in Arizona’s largest single-day food drive, one which helps St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance and Valley View Community Food Bank in Youngtown survive during the long, hot summer.

A first-term lawmaker has dropped his proposal to make food stamp debit cards bright orange.

A Chandler Republican lawmaker wants the debit cards now given to food stamp recipients to be bright safety orange.

A major improvement in how Arizona handles food stamp applications has netted the state a $2 million bonus.

Arizona’s largest single-day food drive — one which helps food banks survive during the summer — will take place May 14. That is when more than 230,000 letter carriers nationwide, including more than 5,000 in the Valley, will pick up canned food donations on their regular mail routes during the 19th Annual National Association of Letter Carriers “Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive.