MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Florida SNAP recipients can no longer use their benefits to purchase soda, energy drinks, candy, and ultra-processed prepared desserts under a new federal pilot program approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n
WATCH BELOW: \u2019We should be increasing their food stamps they so can access healthier foods,\u2019 Rob Ranieri tells WPTV’s Cassandra Garcia<\/p>\n
Impact of SNAP benefits change in Florida<\/p>\n
The USDA said the restrictions are an effort to improve access to nutritious foods and support the health of low-income families. The changes are part of a two-year pilot program. Florida will have to report the impact of the changes in 2028.<\/p>\n
Rob Ranieri, CEO of House of Hope, a Treasure Coast nonprofit that helps underserved people, is against the restrictions.<\/p>\n
“To me that’s over reach,” Ranieri said.<\/p>\n
Ranieri argues the new guidelines put more pressure on those who already have limited access to food, adding that many recipients have seen their SNAP funding reduced.<\/p>\n
“Why would we tell a struggling family, ‘No, you can’t use your food stamps to buy a birthday cake for your child. No, you can’t take a bottle of soda home to celebrate your student’s graduation,'” Ranieri said.<\/p>\n
He said many clients have seen their benefits cut twice in recent months.<\/p>\n
“For most of our clients they’ve seen now in the last about 12 or 14 months two reductions and that’s a lot harder to navigate,” Ranieri said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jordan Bromberg, medical director of the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic, pointed to the connection between nutrition and overall health.<\/p>\n
“Malnourished people\u2014much higher instance of certain diseases and eating the right foods is important. Eating the wrong foods\u2014we have an increase in diabetes hypertension,” Bromberg said.<\/p>\n
Some Floridians say the change is a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s great to encourage everyone to eat and consume more healthy things and sense it’s being paid for by all the tax dollars all the people who work for a living that it shouldn’t be wasted,” Tommy Gavin, a Floridian, said.<\/p>\n
Ranieri said he supports encouraging healthier eating but believes families will need more funding to make it possible.<\/p>\n
“If this was a health initiative we wouldn’t be reducing their food stamps we would be increasing so they can actually access the healthier food in the grocery stores,” Ranieri said.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Florida SNAP recipients can no longer use their benefits to purchase soda, energy drinks,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[28,110430,110431,1160,171,173,172,414,11732,109194,179,110432,12758],"class_list":["post-253295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-florida","tag-florida-snap-changes","tag-house-of-hope","tag-martin-county","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-snap","tag-snap-benefits","tag-snap-restrictions","tag-treasure-coast","tag-volunteers-in-medicine","tag-wptv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}