There have always been restrictions on what you can buy with food stamps, now dubbed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (a godsend to sub-editors everywhere).
The simple, if perhaps occasionally dubious, pleasures that alcoholic beverages provide have been denied to those on this crucial benefit; cigarettes, having only ever been considered a foodstuff by likes of Kate Moss, are recorded by the USDA on its list of items you can’t buy with food stamps. Incidentally, live animals and cleaning products are also banned.
New legislation has come to pass in five states which means that to varying degrees the residents of Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, and West Virginia are now denied the opportunity to buy sodas and candy with their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards. Thirteen other states have signed up to implement similar rules. Maryland is not one of them, but Virginia is on the list.
As is the American system, each state has come up with its own fuzzy rules within the framework of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s plan to make America healthy again (one wonders at what point Americans were ever healthy. RFK certainly wasn’t referring to his own past Recounting heroin addiction and spiritual awakening, RFK Jr. urges focus on prevention and community | PBS News but I digress). In Indiana the restrictions are limited to soda and candy so you can legally buy as many chocolate chip cookies as your SNAP allotment allows and if there’s anything left over you can wash them down with canned coffee replete with sugar. Iowan rules allow for cakes; Utah will deny you only sodas; while Virginia won’t let you buy any sweetened drink (no cans of coffee for you). Interestingly, there’s no reference to high sugar cereals in any of the states’ plans.
The plan is new and there’s no real indication how this will all work, or how it will even be evaluated on its effect on Americans’ health, but this is the reality for some, and it will soon be real for many more individuals and families across the nation.
Here’s where you can have a look at the full list of states who have been approved to implement the new plan and what their own restrictions are: SNAP Food Restriction Waivers | Food and Nutrition Service