US states are restricting sugary drink and snack purchases under SNAP

Research has found that a growing number of US states have been amending the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to restrict recipients from purchasing sugary beverages and snacks. The government has approved 18 out of 31 states’ requests to place such bans. 

The study reveals that 31 US states took 40 different measures to limit what people can purchase with food stamps since SNAP lacks nutrition standards. Such actions include proposed bills, passed laws, and governors’ orders — mainly aimed at removing sugary products and ultraprocessed foods from the program. 

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine research points out that the government-approved requests that become binding mostly came from states fully controlled by Republicans. Many proposals came from states with diverse political parties and two fully Democratic states also got approval.

Since only Congress can change the definitions of eligible foods under SNAP, it introduced a bill in 2025. For now, states are testing approaches to improve nutrition.

The research finds that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) previously rejected such proposals under Democratic and Republican administrations. Last year, Health and Human Services (HHS) and the USDA urged states to request waivers to remove soda from SNAP, which were blocked by a federal judge last month.

Nutrition Insight speaks with Jennifer Pomeranz, JD, MPH, associate professor of Public Health Policy and Management, New York University (NYU School of Global Public Health, to learn more.

What has been happening with SNAP programs lately?
Pomeranz: The Big Beautiful Bill that passed last summer increases work requirements, shifts funding requirements to the states, and reduces SNAP funding by approximately US$186 billion over 10 years. Separately, the Secretaries of the USDA and HHS announced their collaboration to “encourage healthy eating and lifestyle habits” and “urge every governor to submit a waiver to the USDA to remove soda from SNAP in April 2025.” 

Jennifer Pomeranz says that the waivers’ evaluation requirements are key to understanding exclusion impacts.In 2025–26, the USDA approved 23 such state waivers to exclude candy, various beverages, snacks, and prepared desserts. However, the USDA was sued by SNAP participants in five states to block the enforcement of the waivers. Last month, a federal district court ruled that the USDA exceeded its statutory authority in granting five of these waivers and vacated those five. This has broader implications for all 23 waivers.

Your study found 40 policies across 31 states in 2025, yet activities with the force of law mainly came from Republicans. What explains this partisan split?
Pomeranz: The divide may be due to many various things, including that there are more Republican-controlled states and political divides across the states in response to the federal administration and different concerns within states. This includes anti-hunger groups that generally oppose any type of cuts to or restrictions on SNAP, whereas certain public health groups seek methods to improve the nutrition of the program.

The USDA rejected these same waiver requests for years under both parties, then reversed course in 2025. What changed?
Pomeranz: USDA’s rationale for rejecting the past state requests to restrict the definition of SNAP-eligible food included concerns over administrative complexity, insufficient evaluation plans, too large a test population, and difficulty defining the foods to be excluded. 

Although the USDA may have raised valid concerns, the agency generally did not raise concerns over legal feasibility, so the past denials were not based on the USDA’s authority to grant the waivers. The reversal in course will largely depend on what happens with the court case and whether the USDA successfully appeals.

What was the legal basis for a federal judge blocking the soda-exclusion results last month?
Pomeranz: The federal judge vacated five waivers that covered various drinks, candy, and certain snacks and desserts. The judge found that the USDA did not have the statutory authority to grant the waivers. Specifically, the USDA relied on its authority to increase the efficiency and improve the delivery of SNAP, but the court found that the waivers were focused on health and nutrition, not efficacy or delivery. 

In 2025–26, the USDA approved 23 state waivers to exclude candy, various beverages, snacks, and prepared desserts but was sued.Even though the case applied to five waivers, since the USDA relied on the same authority for all 23 waivers, this case has broader implications for all 23 waivers. If USDA does not appeal or loses its appeal, Congress could change the law related to demonstration or pilot projects to expressly permit USDA to pilot projects to waive the definition of SNAP-eligible food.

These waivers exclude sugary beverages, candy, snacks, and prepared desserts. But defining those categories is difficult. What implementation problems do states face?
Pomeranz: Certain state exclusions use definitions that may increase complexity for retailers or SNAP participants, while others are more straightforward. One goal of the waivers is to test and evaluate the exclusions. A benefit of the waivers is that they all include data collection and evaluation plans that would be lost if Congress unilaterally changes the definition of SNAP-eligible foods.

In a microsimulation study, researchers found that a combined food incentive or disincentive program produced the largest modeled gains in health and health care savings.

Improving nutrition in US
Discussions on improving health in the US have been ongoing, especially sparked by the Make America Healthy Again movement. Nutrition Insight previously explored whether banning junk food and soda from SNAP could fix the US nutrition crisis. We explored whether bans can truly solve deep systemic issues that shape food-insecure people’s purchasing decisions.

Meanwhile, recent research suggested that the Nutrition Info Box, proposed last year by the US FDA, may only be useful to consumers with high nutrition literacy. Another study found that “high in” nutrition label is more effective than the US FDA info box