LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas officials moved Tuesday to ban soft drinks and candy from the program that helps low-income people pay for groceries, becoming the first state to ask the Trump administration to let it restrict such items from the program long known as food stamps.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the request is aimed at improving the health of nearly 350,000 Arkansas residents who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
“It is clear that the current system encourages and subsidizes the overconsumption of unhealthy, highly processed and addictive food and beverages,” said Sanders, who announced the request at a Little Rock news conference with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
American taxpayers “deserve a say in what the program funds,” Rollins said.
The Arkansas plan, which would take effect in July 2026, would exclude soda, including no- and low-calorie soda; fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50% natural juice; “unhealthy drinks;” candy, including confections made with flour, like Kit Kat bars; and artificially sweetened candy. It also would allow participants to use benefits to buy hot rotisserie chicken, which is excluded from the program now.
Arkansas is among nearly a dozen states seeking to strip the purchase of certain foods that may contribute to poor health through the federal program that spent $100 billion to serve nearly 42 million Americans in 2024. The restriction has been a key goal for Rollins and U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
“We shouldn’t be subsidizing people to eat poison,” Kennedy said in a February interview on Fox News.
Anti-hunger groups oppose the restrictions, saying that research shows that SNAP participants are no more likely that other low-income Americans to buy sugary drinks or snack foods. And they say that limiting food choices undermines the autonomy and dignity of people who receive a benefit of about $187 per month — or about $6.20 per day.
“They just seem to be targeting a specific population without having data that says that they are the issue or that this is going to improve,” said Gina Plata-Nino, a deputy director at the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit advocacy group.
The SNAP program is run by the USDA and administered through individual states. It is authorized by the federal Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, which says that SNAP benefits can be used for “any food or food product intended for human consumption,” except alcohol, tobacco and hot foods. In general, benefits are available to households with gross income at or below 130% of the federal poverty level, or about $33,500 a year for three people.
Excluding any foods would require Congress to change the law — or for states to get waivers that would let them restrict purchases, said Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research group.
Over the past two decades, lawmakers in several states and from both political parties have proposed halting SNAP payments for soda, chips, ice cream and “luxury meats” like steak, as well as bottled water and decorated birthday cakes. Since 2004, there have been six previous requests for waivers, including four that were not approved, one that was withdrawn and one request that was incomplete.
In rejecting the waivers, the USDA said there was no clear standard to define certain foods as unhealthy and that restrictions would be difficult to implement, complicated, costly and might not change participants’ food purchases or improve health.
After submitting the waiver to USDA, Arkansas will allow 30 days for public comment.
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Aleccia reported from California.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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