In the Us, the government does not distribute food; it provides poor people with food vouchers for them to eat for free in predetermined restaurants.

http://eatatnationalplace.com/meal-deal-program/

Background: Inadequate complementary feeding partially explains micronutrient deficiencies in the first 2 y of life. To prevent malnutrition, the Mexican government implemented the Programa de Apoyo Alimentario (PAL), which transferred either food baskets containing micronutrient-fortified milk and animal food products or cash to beneficiary families along with educational sessions.

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/early/2015/11/11/jn.115.2159...

So the two approaches work just as well as each other, right? Nope. While in kind and cash transfers caused equivalent increases in consumption, people using their own money bought different things than those in the food basket. The basket contained powdered milk, for example, whereas only 18 percent of people receiving the cash transfer consumed powdered milk at all.

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/26/5845258/mexico-tried-giving-poo...

When the program started in 2003 it provided beneficiary households either a cash transfer of 150 Mexican pesos (equivalent to approximately 14 USD at the time) per month or a monthly food basket with a cost to the program of 150 pesos. The size of the cash transfer and the amount of food was the same for all households, i.e. no adjustments for family size or composition were made. The basket contained a number of staple and basic food products and powdered whole milk (Liconsa), which is fortified with Zn, Fe, Vitamin C, and folate (Table 1). The composition of the food basket conformed to the Mexican norm for food aid programs (NOM-169-SSA1-1998), which states that food transfers need to provide at least 20% of the recommended daily energy and protein requirements.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01304888

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Beneficiary households received either a food basket (including micronutrient-fortified milk) or cash. A random sample of 206 rural communities in Southern Mexico was randomly assigned to one of four groups - a monthly food basket with or without health and nutrition education, a cash transfer with a cost to the government equivalent to the food basket (14 USD/month) with education, or control. The food basket contained a number of staple and basic food products and powdered whole milk (Liconsa) that was fortified with zinc, iron, vitamin C and folate. This composition conformed to the Mexican norm for food aid programmes. It contributed 450 kcals per adult in an average sized household. The impact after 14 months of exposure was estimated in a panel of 5,823 households using a double difference regression model with household fixed effects.

http://www.ennonline.net/fex/39/impact

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I chose 'basket' because the PAL program also refers to 'canastas básicas', which I've only seen translated as 'food baskets'.

In this case, 'basket' obviously doesn't mean a wicker container.

https://books.google.es/books?id=rp9qh5XdHv0C&pg=PA85&lpg=PA...

Unintended effects

In 2003, the Mexican government launched the Programa de Apoyo Alimentario (PAL), which provides poor, rural households living in remote areas with either a cash transfer or a basket of food of equivalent value each month. An INSP evaluation of the program showed that PAL, like similar cash and in-kind transfer programs in Mexico and other countries, effectively increased the wealth of recipient households but had only a limited impact on child stunting.
- See more at: http://insights.ifpri.info/2014/09/lightening-the-double-bur...

Other LatinAmerican countries have employed different indicators such as household food inventory,7 or the Basic Food Basket or the evaluation of internal adjustment strategies that poor households implement to cope with economic crisis in Venezuela.11 Again, as expected, these studies show that food diversity is compromised in food insecure household.6,11

http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?pid=s0036-36342011000400...