Murray Carpenter , 2025-05-02 08:30:00
Critics of the soda industry have long highlighted an unsavory pattern: Americans have spent billions of funds from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka SNAP, better known as food stamps, on sugar-sweetened beverages.
Sugar-sweetened beverages are actually the No. 1 item Americans buy with SNAP funds. Amplifying the pattern, some stores place window stickers on the soda coolers to remind consumers that they accept SNAP funds.
As I argue in my new book “Sweet and Deadly,” sugar-sweetened beverages are also the single largest dietary contributor to chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and overweight and obesity. The growing epidemic of chronic diseases didn’t emerge from a vacuum. It emerged in large part because Coca-Cola and other food giants flooded the market with unhealthy foods while misleading the public about the associated health risks.
It’s hard to calculate the total spending on sodas through SNAP. A November 2016 USDA report summarized data from a major grocery chain for 2011 and found that soft drinks were the No.1 purchase of 238 commodities it tracked. This was a taxpayer-funded windfall of $3.7 billion for Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other bottlers that year alone. Add in other sugar-sweetened beverages like sports drinks and energy drinks and the figure grew to more than $6 billion. Now, 14 years later, the total SNAP spending for sugar-sweetened beverages could be over $10 billion annually.
In his book “Saving Gotham,” former New York City health commissioner Tom Farley noted that the federal funds spent on sugary drinks in 2010 were five times the size of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s budget for the prevention of chronic disease. Despite years of effort by state officials and legislators, the USDA, which administers SNAP, has never granted a waiver for a state to initiate a pilot project. That’s changing in a hurry.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to ban the practice as part of his Make America Healthy Again campaign. He argues that the sodas are not only contributing to chronic disease, it is also likely that those disease costs will be paid for through Medicaid and Medicare. So federal dollars are buying the soda and then treating any diseases they cause. The authority to restrict the use of SNAP for sodas lies with USDA, and a recent op-ed written by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and Kennedy makes it clear that they are in agreement.
Although soda is clearly unhealthful, and it might seem a no-brainer to restrict the purchase of sodas with food stamps, there is no data to show that it would actually reduce soda consumption and improve health. And advocates for people with low incomes argue that limiting purchases stigmatizes people who are already marginalized, and seems a bit paternalistic. So the issue remains fraught.
The nutritionist and author Marion Nestle has been pointing out the counterintuitive pattern of SNAP for sodas for years. She’d like to see it changed, but thoughtfully. She says she favors “pilot projects to answer questions about how this would work and how it feels to participants.” Nestle points out that other federal food support programs, like Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), do not allow the purchase of sugar-sweetened beverages.
Sara Bleich, professor of public health policy management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has studied sodas and health extensively, and agrees that it makes sense to test the restrictions and get some data.
It’s been an uphill battle to gather such data. For more than a decade, every effort to reform the spending has seen fierce opposition from Coke and Pepsi, and their allies and proxies. In October 2010, New York Gov. David Paterson and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg requested permission from the USDA for a two-year pilot program to eliminate soda from SNAP. Within a day, Bloomberg got letters from the CEOs of both Coke and Pepsi strenuously critiquing the move. That proposal went nowhere. Legislative efforts to limit SNAP funds for sugar-laden foods were also killed in Florida and Maine after stiff opposition from the soda industry.
To fight the current initiatives, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are letting the American Beverage Association carry their water.
“Millions of Americans rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help feed their families. They deserve the same freedom to choose the foods and beverages that best fit their needs,” the ABA says on its website. “Restricting products — like soda — from SNAP won’t make anyone healthier or save a $1 in taxpayer spending, whether SNAP costs today or healthcare costs tomorrow. Instead, restrictions will only grow government bureaucracy and costs while creating a slippery slope to government deciding ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods.”
It’s an argument with echoes of the tobacco wars: Let consumers decide what’s best for them, not government. But it looks like the train has already left the station. In a public display of solidarity on April 15, Rollins joined Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kennedy joined Indiana Gov. Mike Braun to show their support for restricting SNAP spending. And in late April, the American Heart Association endorsed the effort.
This moment induces cognitive dissonance for the health advocates now finding agreement with Kennedy, who gained his political prominence by espousing anti-vaccine, anti-science positions, and has used his Cabinet post to eviscerate critical public health programs.
Still, if these efforts work to reduce soda consumption, they will join a small list of effective interventions aimed at protecting public health. Soda taxes have been shown to reduce soda consumption, and in Philadelphia may even be improving public health. Soda labeling is the other strategy that has proven effective, especially in Chile. Both interventions overcame fierce opposition from the soda industry.
Health advocates may soon have what they’ve long sought: data to show whether the SNAP restrictions can reduce soda consumption. It’s an important and overdue step toward understanding soda habits, and maybe toward improving public health.
Murray Carpenter is the author of “Sweet and Deadly: How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick” and “Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts and Hooks Us.”
