Discounts on food benefits stand in the way of RFK JR. For a healthier national diet

Albani, Georgia – Pelinda McCleid was thinking about peanut butter.

McCloid, 64, receives a small monthly payment through the Federal Additional Feeding Program, previously known as food stamps.

She said, “They do not give you a lot to work with him.” To fit its narrow budget, Nodelz Roin – high on sodium and low on feeding – eats several times a week.

McCloid, who has been diagnosed with multiple stiffness and heart problems, said if she has more money, she will buy more grapes, melons, Chuck barbecue, floor Turkey, cabbage and turnip vegetables. This is what I did when legislators doubled their sudden interest during the epidemic.

But now the conference led by the Republican Party agreed to $ 186 billion of discounts in the nutritional aid program until 2034, McCleid, who worked in the field of retail until it retired in 2016, is not sure how to eat any healthy food if its benefits are reduced again.

McLeide said that her only hope for healthy eating may be to resort to peanut butter, which she heard “everything” in it.

“I get everything I can get,” said McCloid, who is using a walk to wander around its large community in southwestern Georgia. “I try to eat in good health, but some things I cannot, because I do not have enough money to take care of it.”

The second Trump administration said healthy eating is a priority. I released a “Make America healthy” report again Quoting the poor diet as a cause of childhood and chronic diseases. The states-including Arkansas, Idahu and Utah-are allowed to reduce unhealthy food purchases with the benefits of the federal surprise for the first time in the history of the anti-century program of the last century.

President Donald Trump has also signed a law on taxes and spending on July 4, which will transfer the costs to the states and make it difficult for people to qualify for Snap by expanding the current work requirements. The bill reduces about 20 % of the Snap budget, and the deepest program lower program. About 40 million people are now receiving sudden payments, but 3 million of them will completely lose their help in nutrition, and millions of others will witness their low benefits, according to an analysis of a previous version of the draft law by the non -party congress budget office.

Researchers say sudden cuts are working It contradicts the efforts made to help People prevent chronic disease through healthy food.

“People will rely on the cheapest foods, which we know are more likely to be treated and less healthy,” said Kate Power, a professor of participation of food science at the University of Michigan University.

“It is,” Oh, we care about health – but for the wealthy, “she said.

About 47 million people lived in families with limited or unconfirmed arrival in 2023, According to the US Department of Agriculture. The agency’s research shows that people who live in food living families More High blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The Trump administration opposes that financing discounts will not harm people who receive benefits.

“This is complete fear,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in an email. “The bill will eventually enhance Snap for those who need it by implementing cost -sharing measures with countries and one Work requirements“

Tiffany Terril, who was founded in 2017 to bring fresh foods to people who cannot travel to the new store, said McCleid and other residents in Dujeri County in Georgia, where Albani is already facing highly slope barriers in front of access to healthy food, from narrow budgets and high rates of poverty to few groceries and transportation.

More than a third of the population gets early benefits in the black boycott that web du bois described as “the heart of the black belt” and a place “of hope and strange pain”, where people have struggled to move forward on the land of the previous cotton farms, in his book in 1903, “The Sould of Black Folk”.

Terrell said that a healthier diet can reduce many of the diseases she sees in her community. In 2017, school bus seats were replaced with shelves filled with fruits, vegetables, meat and eggs, and led the grocery store around higher societies, public housing developments, and rural areas.

She said that the discounts in nutritional assistance will destroy the area, which restores efforts to help the population strengthen their diet with fruits, vegetables and other nutrient foods and treat chronic diseases.

Terrell saw how receivers like McLOYD ate more healthy when nutritional assistance increased during the epidemic. They got the eggs, instead of the pasta, fresh and productive meat, instead of canned sausage.

Starting in 2020, the SNAP beneficiaries received more than one pandemic assistance, which corresponds to a 9 % decrease in the people he says Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. Once the payments ended in 2023, more families faced a problem in buying enough food, according to The study published in health affairs In October. The study found that non -Latin black families, in particular, witnessed an increase in anxiety.

“We know that even periods of short food insecurity for children can harm greatly to develop them in the long term of health and cognitive,” said Katie Berg, a chief policy in the food aid team at the Budget Policy and Priorities Center. Discounts to pick up “you will put a healthy diet out of reach of these families.”

The Trump administration said it enhances healthy eating for low -income Americans with restrictions on what they can buy with Snap benefits. The approval of the state’s requests began to reduce the purchase of soda and sweets with the benefits of Snap.

The Minister of Health and Humanitarian Services, Robert F. Kennedy Junior in their bold leadership and their steadfast commitment to making America healthy again. press release About requests. “I invite every ruler in the country to make a malicious concession to eliminate sugary drinks – taxpayers should not draw the products that feed the chronic disease epidemic.”

Although countries have requested such restrictions in the past, previous departments, including the first Trump administration, have never agreed to them.

Research shows this Programs encourage people to buy healthy food More effective than organizing what they can buy. The researchers say that these boundaries increase the stigma of shame for families that receive benefits, and are stressful for retailers, and are often difficult to implement.

“People are making incredibly difficult options to survive,” said Gina Plata Nino, Deputy Director of Snap at the Research and Fooding Center, a non -profit support group, and a former political consultant in Biden Administration.

“It is not about soda and sweets,” she said. “It is related to access.”

Terrell said she is not sure how people remain if their nutritional benefits are cut.

“What do we think people will do?” Terril told the best way for grocery, who also opened a market for the loud society last year selling fresh juices, juices and wellness shots in the center of Albani. “We will have people to choose between food and bills.”

This is true for Stephen Harrison, 22, who supports his monthly use, along with his parents and his younger brother. During the epidemic, use the additional help to buy strawberries and grapes, but now it comes in a better way to grocery to buy orange when he can.

Harrison, who studies cooking arts at Albani Technical College, said that his family budgets carefully to provide meals such as pork slices with corn bread and coloni, but he said that if his advantages are cut, the family would have to resort to cheaper foods.

“I will buy hot dogs,” he said.