Food stamp recipients sue USDA over restrictions on candy, energy drinks

Recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Wednesday, challenging its food restriction waivers that reduce the types of foods that can be purchased with benefits.

Represented by the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ), a nonprofit focused on advancing justice for low-income families, five SNAP recipients from Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia sued the USDA for implementing its waiver restriction pilot projects.

The restriction waivers bar SNAP recipients from using their benefits on junk foods, sodas, energy drinks or other “non-nutritious items.” The USDA has approved 22 restriction waivers so far, with the types of barred foods varying across states.

The USDA declined to comment on the pending lawsuit, directing inquiries to the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs.

“The food restriction waivers contain no exceptions for individual medical, nutritional, or household circumstances. Instead, the food restriction waivers place on recipients and retailers the responsibility for determining whether a particular product is a permissible SNAP purchase under each state’s altered definition of ‘food,'” the suit reads.

The suit stated that Amanda Johnson, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, would no longer be able to purchase the foods that her daughter, a disabled teenager with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), eats once the restrictions in Tennessee go into effect.

“Because of her daughter’s ARFID, she can safely consume only a very limited number of ‘safe foods,'” the lawsuit says. “If she is unable to eat those foods, the only alternative is nutrition through a feeding tube. Her physicians have advised Plaintiff Johnson to provide her daughter with whatever foods she is able to eat in order to avoid nutritional deterioration and invasive medical intervention.”

The suit alleged that USDA violated the Administrative Procedures Act. Plaintiffs are asking that the pilot programs be declared unlawful, delay the implementation of any approved waivers, block any waivers that have not yet gone into effect and stop any active waivers.