Lawmakers in Texas are considering a bill that would keep Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) users from applying those benefits to junk food, with the news coming as President Donald Trump’s administration works to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA).
Lawmakers are debating Senate Bill 379, filed by Texas State Senator Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston), which targets consumable items such as soda, energy drinks, candy, chips, and cookies, Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate Fox 4 reported on Monday.
Middleton said he submitted the legislation in the hopes of returning to the original intent of the food stamp program and to help citizens focus on more nutritious foods.
“The USDA’s stated purpose for the SNAP program is nutritious food essential to health and wellbeing. Well, junk food certainly doesn’t fit that purpose. So having those types of foods and drinks qualified under the program is actually contrary to the entire purpose of the SNAP program, the food stamp program,” the lawmaker told Fox 4.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been shining a light on ultra-processed foods in an effort to help Americans regain their health, the Associated Press reported on March 15.
During his confirmation hearing in January, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke about the chronic disease epidemic plaguing Americans and their children, Breitbart News reported.
Per the outlet:
He provided some examples of how the United States could implement the MAHA agenda, using federal funding of the SNAP program — and school lunch programs — as examples.
“We shouldn’t be giving 60 percent of the kids in school processed food that is making them sick. … We shouldn’t be spending 10 percent of the SNAP program on sugar drinks. […] [W]e have a direct ability to change things,” he said, adding that “we need to focus more on outcome-based medicine, on putting people in charge of their own health care, of making them accountable for their own health care so they understand the relationship between eating and getting sick.”
During Trump’s first term, over 2.4 million households quit using the SNAP food stamp program “between February 2017 — when Trump finished his first full month as president— and October 2019,” per data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Breitbart News reported.
“Food stamp enrollment plunged after state legislatures passed work requirement reform measures to curb dependency on welfare, requiring food stamp recipients to work, volunteer, attend school, or receive job training for 20 hours per week,” the outlet relayed.
In 2022, food stamp benefits grew by 12.5 percent amid crippling inflation under former President Joe Biden, according to Breitbart News.
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