• Posted April 16, 2025

Arkansas, Indiana Push to Ban Candy, Soda From SNAP Program

WEDNESDAY, April 16, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Republican governors in Arkansas and Indiana are asking the federal government for permission to ban soda and candy purchases with food stamps.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said her goal is to improve the health of the nearly 350,000 people in her state who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Associated Press reported. 

“Taxpayers are subsidizing poor health,” Sanders said Tuesday during a news conference with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. “We’re paying for it on the front end and the back end.”

In Indiana, Gov. Mike Braun made a similar announcement alongside U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who now heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Braun said the state’s changes would focus on putting "the focus back on nutrition — not candy and soft drinks.”

If approved, Arkansas’ plan would take effect in July 2026. It would ban the use of SNAP to buy:

• Regular, low- and no-calorie sodas

• Fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50% juice

• Artificially sweetened candy

• Candy made with flour, such as Kit Kat bars

However, the plan would allow people to use SNAP for hot rotisserie chicken, which is not allowed now.

Indiana’s plan also targets candy and soda. Braun added new work rules for SNAP users, brought back income verification rules and even ordered a review of possible payment mistakes in the program, The Associated Press said.

SNAP, which helped nearly 42 million Americans in 2024 and cost about $100 billion, is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture but run by individual states. 

Benefits can be used to buy almost any food item but not alcohol, tobacco and hot meals.

Since 2004, six other states have tried to get federal waivers to restrict certain food purchases through SNAP. None were approved.

Congress would likely need to change law to allow these restrictions, experts say.

“They changed our food system in this country so that it is poison to us,” Kennedy said. “We can’t be a strong nation if we are not a strong people.”

Critics and anti-hunger groups say the changes unfairly target low-income families.

“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 American Beverage Association and the National Confectioners Association also criticized the plans. 

“SNAP participants and non-SNAP participants alike understand that chocolate and candy are treats – not meal replacements,” National Confectioners Association spokesman Chris Gindlesperger said.

More information

The USDA Food and Nutrition Service has more on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

SOURCE: The Associated Press, April 15, 2025