Soda out, chicken in under Sanders' SNAP reform plan
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Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday announced her administration is seeking to ban federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) dollars from being spent on soda and candy in the state.
State of play: Arkansas, along with the nation, has a chronic disease epidemic that drives higher health care costs, Sanders said while explaining the SNAP waiver sent to the federal government.
- "It's important for us to examine a system that actively encourages and subsidizes unhealthy, highly processed, addictive products," she said.
- SNAP provides money to low-income people for food.
Zoom in: The waiver seeks to ban SNAP from covering soda, fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50% natural juice, "unhealthy drinks," and candy including "confectionary products with flour and artificially sweetened candy."
- The waiver requests that rotisserie chicken be added as an eligible item to purchase with SNAP, which excludes hot and prepared foods.
- "Right now you can use food stamps to buy a soft drink or candy bar from a gas station, but you can't use them to buy an Arkansas-raised hot rotisserie chicken from a grocery store," Sanders said. "That's the definition of crazy."
The intrigue: The state is also proposing to dole out SNAP education nutrition program funding directly to schools, food banks and other community agencies to distribute foods like fruits and vegetables and provide education and outreach about healthy food choices, according to the waiver.
The big picture: The move comes as Trump administration officials are looking to remove "junk food" from the program serving more than 41 million Americans.
- The proposal raises a number of questions, such as the impact on people who live in food deserts without much access to healthy food, as well as how to define "junk foods," Axios' Sareen Habeshian writes.
What they're saying: "The SNAP program is designed to help those in need of assistance, not to hurt them, and is also funded by the American taxpayer who deserves a say in how the program is administered and what the program funds," United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday.
- Rollins also clarified the state is not seeking to cut how much money SNAP recipients receive.