The Foundation for Government Accountability ( FGA ) has released a new report that urges states to abolish subsidies for candy and sugary sodas, which account for the majority of food stamp purchases and contribute to chronic disease.
According to the FGA report, which is based on a 2016 government study that has not been re-run, the 42 million Americans who are eligible for food stamps spend nearly twice as much on sweetened beverages as healthy fruit, with purchases of fruits and vegetables combined by more than$ 400 million a year.
” Candy and drink are two of the most popular food items that people buy with food stamps. Our duty cash may finance better diet, no power the fat epidemic”, Paige Terryberry, senior research fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability, said in a statement to The Federalist. ” Our nation’s physical and governmental health can be improved if states and Congress eliminate the bad from food postcards.”
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ( SNAP ), administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture ( USDA ), cost roughly$ 113 billion in fiscal year 2023. According to the 2016 federal investigation, about 20 percent of every money went towards sweet beverages or various junk foods such as chocolate, sweets, or salty snacks. With the full expenses from FY2023, that would total to more than 22 billion federal money going toward goods that have no real nutritional value.
In January, Republican Rep. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma reintroduced legislation to eliminate soft drinks, chocolate, ice cream, and prepared snacks from food stamp registration.
” If one wants to buy junk foods on their own coin, that’s up to them”, Brecheen said. ” But what we’re saying is to not ask the payer to pay for it and then to assume the payer to foot the bill for the ensuing health problems”
In an op-ed for The Hill next week, California pediatric urologist Robert Lustig  shared his thoughts with two educational colleagues about how Americans pay half to keep bad items covered by SNAP.
” First, they pay for procuring the unhealthy food itself, at a rate of$ 23 billion annually”, they wrote. ” Next, they pay for the medical of SNAP individuals who develop nutrition-related illnesses from consuming these products, and the expenses are staggering”.
The item referenced a 2021 report from The Rockefeller Foundation which “found that diet-related disorders cost the U. S.$ 1.1 trillion annually, equivalent to 25 percent of total health expenses”. Medicaid, meanwhile,” cost$ 606 billion in 2023 — about 10 percent of the federal budget”.
” Besides providing no nutritional value, the regular consumption of sugary drinks produces health outcomes similar to alcohol, including liver disease, obesity, high blood pressure and other cardiometabolic diseases”, Lustig and his colleagues added.
According to the USDA, taxpayers are projected to contribute more than$ 240 billion to the junk food industry over the next ten years and$ 60 billion to soda alone, according to Brecheen in 2023 and The Hill article this week.
According to the Centers for Disease Control ( CDC ), 90 percent of all healthcare costs in the United States are devoted to treating chronic disease and mental health conditions. More than 40 percent of U. S. adults are categorically obese, which raises the risk of nearly every chronic illness. The CDC reports 6 in 10 Americans already suffer one chronic condition, and 4 in 10 suffer at least two.
In a Senate confirmation hearing last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president’s choice to lead the nation’s health crusade, criticised the current food stamp program for causing obesity and chronic illness.
” We shouldn’t be spending 10 percent of the SNAP program on sugared drinks”, he told the Senate Finance Committee.
Kennedy, however, was nominated for secretary of Health and Human Services ( HHS), not the USDA, where SNAP is managed. Former White House employee Brooke Rollins will most likely lead the agriculture department, which lawmakers unanimously rejected on Monday. Kennedy’s team pushed for Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky for the top job, but Trump’s alternative pick, according to Politico, illustrated the “potential limits of Kennedy’s power to pursue his ‘ Make America Healthy Again ‘ agenda in a Trump administration attuned to the concerns of industry”.
When the USDA announced a former seed oil lobbyist would be the agency’s chief of staff, a new hire made it a second hire. This also irritated Kennedy allies in the administration. The pick was a” slap in the face to the MAHA movement,” according to a source close to Kennedy.
Meanwhile, Big Soda has employed powerful Washington lobbyists to thwart Kennedy’s plan to enact industry subsidies that are a part of the government’s food stamps.
” Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Keurig Dr. Pepper are mobilizing to stop him”, the Wall Street Journal reported in December. Coke’s biggest rivals and its loyal supporters are bringing their case to Capitol Hill, highlighting the fact that the soda companies are selling more zero-sugar beverages. These, combined with clear calorie labels on beverages, allow consumers to make healthier choices, they say”.
Dr. Lustig countered the industry’s argument that artificial sweeteners are healthier in his 2021 book, Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine:
Recent studies argue that artificially sweetened beverages are associated with diabetes, cardiovascular issues, and dementia. Thus far, all of these studies have been correlative — we don’t yet have causation. Nonetheless, quantitatively, the data suggests that the toxicity of two diet sodas is equivalent to one sugared soda, and that they’re now way worse than water in terms of obesity and diabetes development.
The American Beverage Association made$ 6 billion from food stamps in 2016, according to the FGA report.
The report states that efforts to study the effects of sugar-sweetened beverage restrictions have been stopped even at the pilot level because of their persistent corporate lobbying efforts to halt food stamp restrictions. ” Junk food companies aggressively lobby to keep soda and candy on the approved list.”
While the SNAP program is administered by the federal government, local governments determine eligibility and benefits.
” The American people elected Donald Trump, in part, because of his commitment to work with people like RFK, Jr. to Make America Health Again”, said Terryberry, the author of the FGA report. ” If the administration is serious about making good on the MAHA promise, that starts with ending taxpayer-funded junk food”.
