Kennedy says states can ban sodas from SNAP, praises state food dye laws 

 In Martinsburg, W. Va. today, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the Trump administration will begin allowing states to bar recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)  from using the money to pay for soft drinks, while he also praised West Virginia for passing a law banning foods containing most artificial food dyes and two preservatives, The New York Times reported. It is remarkable that Kennedy rather than Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins made the announcement, since SNAP is a USDA program. States have applied to USDA for waivers for pilot projects to stop SNAP participants from buying sodas and some other foods. Anti-hunger groups and the food industry have opposed such proposals in the past.  Kennedy is talking to 15 other governors about similar moves, Calley Means, a health food entrepreneur who recently joined the White House to help carry out Kennedy’s agenda, told the Times. Kennedy told the audience in West Virginia that the food companies had used science to make their products addictive, just as tobacco firms had, the Times added.

–The Hagstrom Report