SNAP Junk Food Ban - January 2, 2026

TOPIC 1: SNAP BANS ON SODA, CANDY AND OTHER FOODS NOW IN EFFECT IN FIVE STATES AS 2026 KICKS OFF

• Starting Thursday, Americans in five states who get government help paying for groceries will see new restrictions on soda, candy and other foods they can buy with those benefits.
• Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah and West Virginia are the first of at least 18 states to enact waivers prohibiting the purchase of certain foods through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
• It’s part of a push by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to urge states to strip foods regarded as unhealthy from the $100 billion federal program -- long known as food stamps -- that serves 42 million Americans.
• “We cannot continue a system that forces taxpayers to fund programs that make people sick and then pay a second time to treat the illnesses those very programs help create,” Kennedy said in a statement in December.
• The efforts are aimed at reducing chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes associated with sweetened drinks and other treats, a key goal of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again effort.
• The five state waivers that take effect Jan. 1 affect about 1.4 million people. Utah and West Virginia will ban the use of SNAP to buy soda and soft drinks, while Nebraska will prohibit soda and energy drinks. Indiana will target soft drinks and candy. In Iowa, which has the most restrictive rules to date, the SNAP limits affect taxable foods, including soda and candy, but also certain prepared foods.
• https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/snap-bans-soda-candy-foods-effect-states-jan-128784918
• https://www.newsweek.com/snap-benefit-map-shows-states-with-junk-food-bans-in-2026-11244581

Intro Elements: FS map of the states enacting new restrictionsCall for: SOT KYLE DIAMANTAS, FDA DEPUTY COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN FOODS ON MAHA DIETARY AGENDAFox and Friends / Tuesday Z25156167[07:49:33] we finally have an administration in place that's willing to tackle these big problems. It's going to start with the dietary guidelines for Americans. //[07:49:47]They touch things like school reform, school lunches, WIC, SNAP reform, and a number of other federal programs. And really what Secretary Kennedy and this administration wants to do with the dietary guidelines is return to common senseCall for: FS of estimated costs for retailersA report by the National Grocers Association and other industry trade groups estimated that implementing SNAP restrictions would cost U.S. retailers $1.6 billion initially and $759 million each year going forward.https://www.fmi.org/docs/default-source/communications-uploads/snap-reform-impact-report-final.pdfTOPIC 2: LOOKING AHEAD TO THE 2026 MAHA AGENDACall for: SOT Dr Oz on MAHA 2026 agendaIngraham Angle /TuesdayOZ: [19:46:37] Moms in this country are crying for help. It is so much harder for them raise healthy children than it was for their parents to raise them, and they know it. And they spoke loudly in 2024, they're going to speak in the midterms, and Secretary Kennedy will not be daunted, and he's got the president's full support to make sure we push this agenda. So you're going see dietary guidelines coming up, a more clear definition of what ultra processed foods mean, and with that question, we have issues, even in the rural health transformation bill we talked about earlier, that $50 billion fund that we put out, In there we're asking states to commit to waivers on the food we give to folks on SNAP to make sure it's healthy. [19:47:13]