Florida’s SNAP restrictions are the right call — but only half the job | Opinion
You can’t buy alcohol or tobacco with food stamps. So, why should taxpayers subsidize soda, junk food and candy?
Starting this week, Floridians who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP, also known as food stamps — can no longer use their benefits to buy soda, energy drinks, candy and prepared desserts, according to a Florida Department of Children and Families memo.
For some, it may seem like a Big Brother overreach. To me, it’s an overdue correction.
The new rules to SNAP don’t change the mission — they bring it back into focus. SNAP was originally designed to help Americans not have to decide between paying bills or feeding their families. It was built on the idea that the government could bridge the gap, lessen hunger and tackle malnutrition.
Subsidizing candy and soda doesn’t fight hunger. It contributes to chronic diseases plaguing communities like Miami-Dade County.
This is an attempt to reshape habits and encourage Floridians to make better food choices. It emphasizes individual responsibility.
Critics such as Joel Berg, the CEO of Hunger Free America, in an interview with NewsJax4, called the new restrictions counterproductive, saying it amounts to “punishing poor people for the supposed sin of being poor.”
But Berg’s framing misses the point. It’s not saying people can’t buy candy or soda. It’s drawing a clear line around what taxpayers will and won’t fund. That’s a reasonable boundary that has always existed within SNAP.
The government has drawn the line at alcohol and tobacco. Extending those limits to soda and junk food is consistency, not marginalizing.
In 2023, Jackson Health System conducted a survey and found one of the top three issues affecting people’s health in Miami-Dade County is access to fresh and natural food, the Miami Herald reported. The most prevalent chronic diseases are high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.
The cost is being measured in both dollars and longevity.
Florida’s embrace of Make America Healthy Again — a movement led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to make America healthier and end chronic disease, reflects a growing recognition that public health and policy are intertwined. This isn’t a political argument. It’s about refusing to subsidize choices that are making Floridians unhealthier.
But as with any good policy, it must be complete.
While the intention with the new SNAP restrictions and the MAHA movement is to encourage better food choices, the research into the question of whether restrictions work to change behavior is mixed. In 2023, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist and professor at Georgetown University, wrote in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that restricting specific food or sugary drinks purchases with SNAP benefits didn’t necessarily translate to better diets.
If Florida is serious about MAHA — First Lady Casey DeSantis appears to be — the next step is to make nutritious foods both more affordable and accessible. At the farmer’s market near my house on Saturdays, the produce stand doubles the SNAP benefits for the purchase fruits and vegetables. That model should be expanded beyond farmers’ markets and community grocery stores.
The goal is simple: It should be easier to make the healthier choice, not harder.
Public assistance should help families move forward, not trap them in a cycle of poor health and poverty. That means investing in nutrition as a public health priority, not treating it as an afterthought.
There are only two choices: Pay the farmer now or the doctor later. Florida has taken a step in the direction of choosing the farmer by drawing the line on what SNAP funds can be used toward.
Mary Anna Mancuso is a member of the Miami Herald Editorial Board. Her email: mmancuso@miamiherald.com
This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 2:36 PM with the headline "Florida’s SNAP restrictions are the right call — but only half the job | Opinion."