A federal judge has overturned the Trump administration’s ban on using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to buy candy, junk food, or sodas.
The SNAP ban went into effect in 5 states on January 1, 2026.
In a 68-page decision on Monday, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson found that Congress did not authorize the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) “to amend or waive” Congress’s definition of eligible food under the Food and Nutrition Act. The judge added that the USDA could not simply “cut types of food out of SNAP entirely.”
The judge’s ruling means millions of recipients living in Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, and West Virginia can use SNAP to purchase candy, potato chips, cakes, processed snacks, sweetened juices and soft drinks in addition to traditional groceries.
The ban is part of a push by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to eliminate unhealthy foods from the diets of those who receive federal SNAP benefits.
“We cannot continue a system that forces taxpayers to fund programs that make people sick and then pay a second time to treat the illnesses those very programs help create,” Kennedy said in a statement in December.
Statistics show diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity rates increased among those who eat unhealthy diets. Those conditions lead to kidney failure and other terminal diseases.
Disease and illnesses related to poor diets cost the federal government billions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid payments.
Kennedy, who is not a licensed doctor, says the ban will help reduce chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes associated with sweetened drinks and foods.
But critics argue the federal government shouldn’t police the food people eat.
SNAP Benefit Ban BLOCKED pic.twitter.com/KjQHrv2iVt
— FOX26Houston (@FOX26Houston) June 23, 2026