Why removing all processed food from SNAP won’t “Make America Healthy Again”
- Michelle Adams
- 5 days ago
- 17 min read
You can check out the video version of this article here.
Lately, there has been a lot of talk about the government cutting junk food out of the SNAP program. It is a decision that some people find unnecessary and insulting to people who rely on SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, while others believe that this really could be an effective step towards combating the epidemic of chronic disease in this country.
Today, I’m going to dive into the nuance of this debate and help you to see why the whole idea of banning junk food is not as simple as you may have thought. I’ll also talk about similar efforts to get people to eat healthier that have already happened in this country and what we can learn from them - particularly from their unintended consequences. Lastly, I will share my thoughts as a dietitian who has done research in public health with respect to what it would actually take to improve the health of all Americans.
But first, let’s start with a little background.
What is SNAP?
SNAP stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It is managed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and serves around 42 million people living under dire financial conditions in this country. About 13% of United States residents rely on SNAP to feed themselves and their families. It is by far the largest nutrition assistance program in this country, accounting for over two thirds of the USDA’s food and nutrition assistance budget.
Who qualifies for SNAP?
In order to qualify for SNAP, an individual or family must meet certain income limits and work requirements. There can be a lot of math involved when you factor in deductions for certain things like child care and medical expenses, but the amount of money that is brought in by the household each month is the main factor which determines whether or not a person or family can get this government assistance.
The current income eligibility limits are shown above. For a person living on their own, they have to be making less than $1,600 a month, which is less than $20,000 a year, to qualify. For a family of four, the limit is $3,380 dollars per month, which translates to a little over $40,000 dollars a year, to qualify.
Like I said before, these are people living in really difficult financial situations.
How much of the government budget goes to SNAP
The government spends about $133 billion a year on this program. That is a lot of money, but it’s nothing compared to how much we spend on healthcare. I mention this because people who argue for banning junk food from SNAP like to use the justification that we are “paying for both ends of this problem,” i.e. we are paying for the junk food that is making people sick, and then we are paying for the healthcare of those people who get sick from that junk food via Medicaid.
Each year, we spend
$422 billion on heart disease and stroke,
$413 billion on diabetes and the complications that it can cause like kidney failure and blindness, and
$176-179 billion on obesity.
These figures include not just medical costs, but also the economic toll of working-age adults being taken out of the workforce due to preventable illnesses. Keep in mind that these numbers are for the whole country, not just people on SNAP. This is going to be relevant to a point that I will make later regarding why targeting people on SNAP for eating too much junk food is an incomplete approach to a very complex problem.
So, what exactly is going on in the government with regards to SNAP?
RFK Jr.'s plans for SNAP
RFK Jr., our new Secretary of Health and Human Services, made a proclamation that he wants to “Make America Healthy Again,” and to that end he wants to block government funding for foods that are “making people sick.” He has specifically pushed efforts to get soda excluded from SNAP.
Federal efforts to modify SNAP
At the federal level, a bill was introduced this past February that would eliminate a much wider range of foods than just soda. Republican Senator for Utah Mike Lee introduced the Healthy SNAP ACT, which would bar SNAP participants from using their benefits to purchase “soft drinks, candy, ice cream, or prepared desserts, such as cakes, pies, cookies, or similar products.” If this bill gets passed, the USDA would have to determine what should and should not be considered as “food” and assess the nutritional quality of everything that can be purchased with SNAP dollars.
I can just imagine the USDA staff having to sift through the thousands of different products sold in grocery stores and determine which ones have enough real ingredients to make them worthy of the label “food.” It says a lot that we are at a point where we need to define what is real and what is not at the grocery store, especially in this age of incredibly powerful artificial intelligence (AI) technology which is forcing us to learn to distinguish between what is human and what is not in many areas of our lives.
Many state leaders are making proclamations that they too want to limit the foods that are covered by SNAP.
State-level efforts to modify SNAP
Back in November of 2024, Texas Republican Senator Mayes Middleton submitted Senate Bill 379 which would prohibit the use of SNAP benefits for the purchase of energy drinks, sweetened beverages, carbonated beverages, candy, potato or corn chips, and cookies,
with some exceptions for dairy and non-dairy milks, drinks sweetened with calorie-free sweeteners, infant formula, weight loss drinks and other drinks recommended by healthcare providers, fruit and vegetables juices without added sugar, and beverages with plant proteins, animal proteins, and those that are fortified with vitamins and minerals.
With all of those caveats, I can see food and drink manufacturers rushing to reformulate their products as “diet” versions in order to still be SNAP eligible if this bill passes. That would not necessarily be a good thing if it means that people would still be relying heavily on foods that are nutrient-poor, even if those food happen to be low-calorie.
For example – diet Skittles juice would still count as a nutritious option under these requirements, since it has no sugar and is artificially sweetened. This new bill does address artificially sweetened drinks, but it does not expressly prohibit beverage concentrates.
Surely, we are not saying that diet skittles juice is any better than the other junk that would be banned by this bill, right?
The governors of Arkansas, Idaho, and Indiana have expressed plans to prohibit the purchase of candy and soda using SNAP benefits, and the governor of West Virginia announced in March of 2025 that they would ban soda from SNAP.
Within this whole mishmash of legal measures, there are some potentially useful steps to be taken. Let’s start with the potential pros of limiting the purchase of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs).
The potential pros of removing "junk" from SNAP
The success of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes
There is evidence that if you force people to spend more of their own hard-earned dollars to buy a bottle of soda, then they will buy less soda. This is important to note, because close to 60% of SNAP participants do not get the maximum amount of SNAP dollars each month, meaning that they are expected to use a portion of their own income to buy groceries. Cities across the United States and around the world have made use of what are known as “soda taxes” wherein prices for soda and other sweet drinks are increased indirectly through taxes on drink manufacturers which get passed on to varying degrees to consumers. Generally, higher soda prices led people to buy less soda.
The first city in the United States to tax SSBs in an effort to combat obesity, diabetes, and other ailments linked to excessive sugar intake was Berkeley, California in 2015. The SSB tax worked, and people drank about half of the soda that they did before the tax. What's more, is that this change was sustained for years. The city of Oakland, California followed suit with a one cent per ounce SSB tax in 2017. There was a net decrease of 6% in the total volume of taxed SSBs sold after accounting for people going to neighboring cities without sin taxes to get their SSBs.
The outcomes of these sorts of taxes are not always rosy, however. Sometimes, these policies have unintended consequences. In some cities, when a tax on sweetened drinks caused the prices of those beverages to go up, people just opted to get their sugar fix in a cheaper way.
In 2017, the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania implemented a tax on sweetened beverages (sweetened with either sugar or artificial sweeteners), and the results were incredible. Adding a tax of 1.5 cents per ounce on sweetened drinks led to a 35% drop in the sales volume of taxed sweetened beverages after accounting for the people who decided to just drive to the next town over to get their sweetened drinks tax free. This striking reduction in sweetened beverage sales did not just last for a short while; for years after the tax was implemented, people kept buying less sweetened beverages. However, sales of beverage concentrates spiked in the same time frame by 34%, leaving an open question of how effective this measure was at getting people to drink less sugar overall.
Examples of beverage concentrates
There is also evidence that the sweetened beverage tax was linked to people buying more sweetened foods in the city of Philadelphia and in nearby cities. Basically, when the law made it harder for people to buy soda and other sugary drinks, a significant portion of people just found another way to satisfy their sweet tooth - and it wasn't with fruits. They bought more drink mixes and sweet snacks, and we have no idea if they ended up consuming less added sugar overall.
This leads me to the potential cons of trying to control people’s intake of sugar and junk food as a whole by restricting SNAP.
The potential cons of removing "junk" from SNAP
Limiting sugary beverage intake does not necessarily lead to less sugar intake overall
If the issue that lawmakers are trying to solve is that people are consuming too much sugar, then any legislation intended to help people consume less sugar needs to be comprehensive and cannot just target one high sugar item in the diet. It makes sense to want to go after SSBs because they contribute the most to the surplus of added sugars in the average American’s diet, but the data seems to show that when you take away SSBs, many people just find other ways to consume sugar.
Trying to limit all sources of excess added sugar could be a slippery slope
So then the question becomes, how far is the government able or willing to go to get so-called "junk food" out of SNAP? This could be a slippery slope, because added sugar is in more foods than you may realize, not just typical examples of “junk food” like cookies and cakes.
The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends that children have no more than 25 grams of added sugar per day. This is because consuming a ton of sugar not only increases your risk of developing diabetes - it also increases your risk of developing heart disease. Let’s take a look of some foods that would still be considered nutritious and SNAP eligible even with a junk food ban:
Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch has 13 grams of added sugar, which is over half (52%) of the added sugar allotment for the day.
Should sugary breakfast cereals be banned from SNAP?
Many parents feed their kids French toast sticks for breakfast. These Great Value (Walmart) brand French toast sticks have 17 grams of added sugar per serving, which is 68% of the daily limit.
Should these be banned?
And what about foods that are marketed as breakfast foods but are very pastry-like? Pillsbury Toaster Strudel has 18 grams of added sugar per serving, or 72% of the daily limit.
Should these be banned?
Yogurt is something that we think of as a healthy food, but some yogurt makers load their products up with so much sugar that the fact that they contain probiotics almost becomes null. This La Yogurt brand yogurt has 21 grams of added sugar per 6 ounce serving - 84% of the daily limit.
Should some yogurt brands be banned from SNAP?
You would also have to scrutinize dressings and sauces that have sugar as the first ingredient.
Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Barbecue Sauce has 15 grams of added sugar in just two tablespoons, 60% of the daily sugar limit, and we all know that nobody is eating just two tablespoons when they douse their baby back ribs in this thing. The first ingredient is high fructose corn syrup, so should it be covered by SNAP?
And what about cake mix? Brownie mix? Drink mixes are already a known second choice for shoppers who want sweet drinks but cannot easily access ready-made drinks - what about those? And what about raw sugar, just the sugar sitting by itself on the shelf? Should that be banned, too?
You can see how trying to get sugar out of the SNAP program could end up really limiting people’s options.
Trying to limit sodium intake could also severely limit people's options
Salt intake is another major factor in the development of some chronic conditions like high blood pressure - are we going to try to ban all high-sodium foods from SNAP next? That would mean that common cheap options like pizza, Hot Pockets, and ramen would also have to be excluded from SNAP. We would also have to question the inclusion of foods that have lots of salt but could still be considered part of a healthy meal, like olives, pickles, or any food that is in a brine. Even some veggie burgers and rice mixes would have to be taken off of SNAP. The amount of encroachment into what people can and cannot eat would just be too much.
Let me make it clear that I am not saying that anyone should subsist exclusively on packaged foods; I just want to highlight the fact that cheap and easy-to-prepare foods should be an option for people, even if they are not the healthiest, because sometimes people just don’t have the funds to pay for something nicer or they may be working three jobs and just want something quick that they can feed to their kids. It’s not ideal, but it’s something.
Examples of high-sodium foods
For some people, the choice is between eating something processed, or not eating anything
Beyond assessing the nutritional value of foods, it is also important to evaluate the context in which people eat “junk foods” or processed foods. Some people may have difficulty cooking due to vision loss, loss of function of their hands, or an inability to stand, and they may benefit from having the option to simply pop something into the oven or microwave with minimal preparation. Having the option to buy prepared meals, at least on occasion, could be essential for these people.
Some people also do not have access to a stove or oven due to homelessness or a lack of resources, so having things that they can eat that do not need to be cooked in a traditional sense needs to be an option. Yes, you can do a lot with a microwave, but can you imagine relying on that for everything? For people going through such challenges, processed food can be a really helpful alternative.
Another major reason why limiting SNAP to only "healthy food" could cause more harm than good, is that many Americans live in food deserts. I cannot tell you how many patients I have worked with that have told me that they have to drive an hour or more to get to a grocery store that sells fresh fruits and vegetables. For some people, they are faced with a choice between eating nothing, or eating something processed. If the goal of these restrictions is to get people to eat healthier, then I hope to see some companion bills that aim to ensure that everyone have access to affordable, appetizing, healthy foods. Otherwise, putting restrictions on SNAP without offering recipients a way to more easily access healthy options is not likely to lead people to make healthier food choices.
If legislators do end up cutting processed foods from SNAP, I also hope that they will simultaneously work to offer SNAP recipients more money each month in order for them to afford healthier foods, which can be on expensive side particularly for people living in food deserts. Such measures would involve a budget increase though, so I am doubtful that they would ever become a reality.
What a balanced approach to this issue could look like
Restricting sugar sweetened beverages and beverage concentrates from SNAP with the end goal of getting people to reduce their intake of the one thing that is adding the most added sugar to their diet could be an effective policy. While it may seem paternalistic, it ultimately makes sense when you consider that these drinks do way more harm than good and that there are far better things that people could be drinking that SNAP covers, like water or 100% fruit juice. For this to be effective, all beverages with added sugar would need to be restricted under the ban, including beverage powders and liquid concentrates.
On the other hand, extending the restriction to food can turn into a slippery slope that encroaches too far into people’s diets. We have to remember that not everyone has access to the healthiest options, so sometimes it’s a matter of choosing between allowing people to have access to things that may not be the healthiest or leaving them with nothing at all. No one should be dying from starvation in a world as abundant as our own, much less in a developed nation such as the United States.
It is also important that we do not just stop here. The food choices that a person makes are complex and if the goal is actually to help people to make healthier dietary choices, then lawmakers should also be trying to address that issue from all angles. People may make poor food choices because of lack of money, lack of education, lack of access to healthy food options, ingrained cultural habits, pressure from within their social groups, and many other reasons. Therefore, funding programs that help to ensure that people have proper income, nutrition education, access to grocery stores, and culturally-adapted healthcare is crucial.
Access is a major part of the equation, because we don’t just want people to drink less soda – we also want them to eat and drink more healthy stuff. One way to do this is to make fruits and vegetables more affordable so that people can actually feed their families without breaking the bank. There is one region of the United States where this was already done, and the results were pretty good.
The Healthy Diné Nation Act of 2014
In 2014, the Diné Nation, popularly known as the Navajo Nation, passed a junk food tax which simultaneously reduced the prices of fruits and vegetables. The money from the junk food tax went towards community wellness projects such as vegetable gardens, health classes, making sure that people have clean water, and the development of bike trails. By increasing the prices of junk foods and decreasing the prices of healthier foods, they created an environment where it was easier for people to make healthier choices, and it worked. Stores started carrying more fruits and vegetables, fresh fruit became more affordable, and people started buying more water instead of sugary drinks. This is a good example of how you can use policy not just to take from people, but to give back to them in a way that can transform their lives by making healthy choices more accessible.
Imagine if the US government actually prioritized health and not just budget cuts, because we all know that that is the major driver behind this conversation. Disincentivizing healthy habits could be one piece of the puzzle, but we need to be talking more about making fruits and vegetables (and other healthier food options) more affordable and more accessible for people living in food deserts, making it safe and easy for people to exercise in their neighborhoods, and so forth. For a lot of these lawmakers, they have Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s in their backyard, bike paths in their neighborhoods, and access to clean water, so I wonder how well they really understand the realities of Americans who rely on SNAP. I think that it is quite possible that there is a lack of empathy on the part of the people spearheading these changes, as they likely do not understand what life is like for Americans living in poverty. Impoverished or not, most people want to live long and healthy lives - but not everyone has equal access to the tools that make that possible.
I would also like to hear more talk about the fact that MOST people in this country, not just people on SNAP, do not eat enough fruits and vegetables and do not get enough cardio and resistance exercise. So, if the goal is to make all of America “Healthy Again,” then we need to create helpful policies that target everyone, not just those who rely on government aid. Those billions and billions of dollars associated with preventable chronic diseases that I mentioned near the beginning of the video aren’t just coming from SNAP participants – they are coming from people who can afford to buy food without SNAP too.
Until we prioritize the health and dignity of all people in this country and work to get everyone to adopt better health habits – and on top of that create a system where this is even possible - the epidemic of chronic disease in this country will persist.
Anyway, that is it for today’s post. If you learned anything new, please comment down below and tell us what you learned! If you know someone in your life who could benefit from this information, please share the article with them as well.
Take care.
References
About SNAP
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - Key Statistics and Research
Jordan W. Jones
Updated: 1/6/2025
SNAP eligibility
US Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service
Page updated: April 08, 2025
Chronic disease spending
Fast Facts: Health and Economic Costs of Chronic Conditions
CDC
July 12, 2024
Consequences of obesity
CDC
July 15, 2022
Legislation to change SNAP
S.561 - Healthy SNAP Act of 2025
Summary: S.561 — 119th Congress (2025-2026)
Sponsor: Sen. Lee, Mike [R-UT] (Introduced 02/13/2025)
Post on X by @mayes_middleton
Bill: SB 379
Relating to prohibiting the purchase of certain food and drink items under the supplemental nutrition assistance program.
Last Action: 04/09/2025 H Referred to Human Services: Apr 9 2025 11:27AM
Research papers
Lee MM, Falbe J, Schillinger D, Basu S, McCulloch CE, Madsen KA. Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption 3 Years After the Berkeley, California, Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax. Am J Public Health. 2019 Apr;109(4):637-639. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2019.304971. Epub 2019 Feb 21. PMID: 30789776; PMCID: PMC6417561.
Leider J, Powell LM. Longer-term impacts of the Oakland, California, sugar-sweetened beverage tax on prices and volume sold at two-years post-tax. Soc Sci Med. 2022 Jan;292:114537. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114537. Epub 2021 Nov 5. PMID: 34838326.
Petimar J, Gibson LA, Yan J, Bleich SN, Mitra N, Trego ML, Lawman HG, Roberto CA. Sustained Impact of the Philadelphia Beverage Tax on Beverage Prices and Sales Over 2 Years. Am J Prev Med. 2022 Jun;62(6):921-929. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2021.12.012. Epub 2022 Feb 25. PMID: 35221175; PMCID: PMC9124672.
Lozano-Rojas F, Carlin P. The effect of soda taxes beyond beverages in Philadelphia. Health Econ. 2022 Nov;31(11):2381-2410. doi: 10.1002/hec.4586. Epub 2022 Aug 17. PMID: 35978481; PMCID: PMC9804786.
Ricciuto L, Fulgoni VL 3rd, Gaine PC, Scott MO, DiFrancesco L. Sources of Added Sugars Intake Among the U.S. Population: Analysis by Selected Sociodemographic Factors Using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011-18. Front Nutr. 2021 Jun 17;8:687643. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2021.687643. PMID: 34222307; PMCID: PMC8247592.
Vos MB, Kaar JL, Welsh JA, Van Horn LV, Feig DI, Anderson CAM, Patel MJ, Cruz Munos J, Krebs NF, Xanthakos SA, Johnson RK; American Heart Association Nutrition Committee of the Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health; Council on Clinical Cardiology; Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young; Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing; Council on Epidemiology and Prevention; Council on Functional Genomics and Translational Biology; and Council on Hypertension. Added Sugars and Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Children: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2017 May 9;135(19):e1017-e1034. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000000439. Epub 2016 Aug 22. PMID: 27550974; PMCID: PMC5365373.
Lee SH, Moore LV, Park S, Harris DM, Blanck HM. Adults Meeting Fruit and Vegetable Intake Recommendations — United States, 2019. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2022;71:1–9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7101a1
CDC. National Center for Health Statistics
Exercise/Physical Activity
Last Reviewed: September 24, 2024
Video clips
4 states aim to prevent food stamps recipients from using program to buy candy, soda
ByWill McDuffie and Cheyenne Haslett
April 16, 2025
WV governor, RFK Jr. announced possible changes to SNAP in plan to get state healthier
WCHS Eyewitness News
Mar 31, 2025
WATCH: RFK Jr. shares his views on processed foods and kids
Channel: PBS NewsHour
Jan 29, 2025
Pres. Trump holds full cabinet meeting with Musk, RFK Jr, Gabbard, Rubio, Hegseth
Channel: LiveNOW from FOX
Apr 10, 2025
Elon Musk wields chainsaw at CPAC
20 Feb 2025
YouTube short from @dailymail
Foods shown
Skittles Zero Sugar Low Calorie Singles To Go Bulk Variety Pack Drink Mix - 2 Boxes of 40 Sticks Each - 80 Total Sticks - 4 Fruity Flavors: Strawberry, Orange, Green Apple and Grape - PACK OF 2
Kellogg's Raisin Bran Crunch Breakfast Cereal, Fiber Cereal, Family Breakfast, Mega Size, 26.7oz Box (1 Box)
Great Value Cinnamon French Toast Sticks, 16 oz (Frozen)
Pillsbury Toaster Strudel Pastries, Strawberry, 6 ct, 11.7 oz
La Yogurt Sabor Latino Probiotic Mango Blended Lowfat Yogurt, 6 oz
Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Barbecue Sauce
Examples of beverage concentrates:
Examples of high sodium foods:
What is a food desert
About the DINE Nation
UNDERSTANDING THE Healthy Diné Nation Act of 2014
Information about the Navajo Junk Food Tax on food of minimum to no nutritional value.
OUTCOMES OF THE Healthy Diné Nation Act (HDNA) of 2014
UNDERSTANDING THE Healthy Diné Nation Act of 2014
Information about the Navajo Junk Food Tax
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