In Maine and throughout the nation, food stamp use is soaring as unemployment and home mortgage foreclosures continue to mount. Participation in Maine reached 222,261, or one Mainer in seven as of Dec. 1. Nationally, there are more than 36 million users.

The program grew out of a plan in 1939 in the midst of the Great Depression to use farm surplus crops to feed the hungry. It reached 20 million people in half the counties of the United States. Still, many felt embarrassment at presenting the coupons at grocery counters.

The Bush administration acted to remove whatever stigma was attached to using food stamps. It called the program “nutritional aid” instead of welfare and substituted inconspicuous plastic cards, much like ordinary debit cards, for the old coupons. The food stamp program has now been renamed the U.S. Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program or SNAP. Maine calls it simply the Food Supplement Program.

A recent report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed that state-by-state participation rates varied widely, from 47 percent of eligible persons to 100 percent in Missouri. Maine, usually near the top with 94 to 97 percent participation, is now in second place.

Officials attribute such a high rate in Maine to the state’s one-stop system of applying for various benefits. To apply for the supplemental food aid, all it takes is a visit or telephone call to the local Department of Health and Human Services Office of Integrated Access and Support. After an inter-view to determine the level of eligibility, and after verification of details, a contract will be presented to the applicant for signature and the aid can begin within 30 days. In an emergency, the assistance may start within seven days.

The program was once highly controversial with claims of fraud and waste. But the Government Accountability Office found n 2004 that only 4.5 percent of food stamp benefits were overpaid and that two-thirds of the overpayments were the fault of caseworkers, not individual recipients.

While both national and Maine state officials describe the program as promoting a nutritious diet, the evidence is mixed on this point. A federal government study is said to have concluded that recipients are more likely than other low-income consumers to buy fruit, vegetables and other healthful foods. But the supplemental plan does not bar such items as fries, doughnuts and sweetened soft drinks.

A 222-pound, 6-foot-3 reporter for CNN lived for a month last winter on the $176 that a food-stamp recipient could get in Louisiana. He said that he had eaten pretty well and noticed that, while fruit and vegetables are expensive, a pizza would have cost three times as much.

With increasing numbers of people relying on SNAP, improving its nutritional benefits is overdue.