Happy Friday, and welcome to Food Fix. I just got back from Aspen Ideas: Health, where I ran into a couple readers of this newsletter! Always a delight. Traveling back to DC was a nightmare though. Oof.
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Calendar note: Food Fix will not publish next Friday because it’s the Fourth of July.
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Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
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Congress poised to advance billions in SNAP cuts in coming days
Congress is one step closer to enacting nearly $190 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over the next decade.
The Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday announced that it had been officially given parliamentary approval for changes it made to the SNAP cuts language in the reconciliation package — the legislation that Republicans in Washington now refer to as the “big beautiful bill.”
The approval clears the way for a controversial provision that shifts some SNAP benefit costs onto the states.
How it works: Throughout the program’s history, the federal government has fully covered benefit costs, but the budget package would shift billions in benefit obligations onto the states. Under the Senate plan, states that get their SNAP error rates down below 6 percent wouldn’t have to pay for a portion of SNAP benefits. Right now, however, most states are over 6 percent, meaning they’d be required to pay anywhere from 5 to 15 percent of the benefit costs.
The updated Senate plan allows states to choose either the fiscal year 2025 or fiscal year 2026 SNAP error rate to calculate their state match requirement that starts in fiscal year 2028. This change essentially gives states more time to prepare for the potential cost-shift.
(Editorial note: Paid Food Fix subscribers may be wondering: Wait, didn’t these cost-share changes already get the green light from the parliamentarian? I reported as much on Tuesday. Apparently there was a bit of miscommunication, and the committee announced it had approval before it was official.)
Cost-share debate: Critics have argued that this cost-share proposal will eventually lead to serious SNAP benefit or eligibility cuts because states won’t be able to foot the bill. Proponents have argued that states have a path to zero cost share, they just need to get below the 6 percent error rate.
State officials, meanwhile, have pushed back hard against the cost-share idea without much luck. The bill also shifts more of the administrative costs onto the states, from a 50/50 split to 75/25.
State pushback: All 23 Democratic governors wrote this week to congressional leaders warning against the reconciliation changes.
“Recent U.S. House and Senate proposals would effectively gut this critical food assistance that helps families with children, older adults, and working people afford the rising cost of groceries and put food on the table,” the governors wrote. “Congress has proposed profoundly changing the relationship between the federal government and states—by shifting unprecedented costs to states for the first time in the 50 years of SNAP’s history. Under this plan, states will need to find millions or even billions of extra dollars in their budgets or be forced to leave the SNAP program entirely, potentially cutting off millions of Americans from this vital assistance.”
Expanded work requirements: The reconciliation package also expands existing work requirements for able-bodied adults aged 55 to 64 as well as those who have school-aged children who are 14 and older (the previous Senate version was 10 and older). Historically, work requirements have applied only to able-bodied adults 54 and under without dependents, a subpopulation known as ABAWDs. This means that millions more adults who previously did not have to meet a work requirement of 20 hours per week would face that additional hurdle if they want to get SNAP benefits for more than three months in a three year period. The bill also makes it much harder for states to waive these work requirements.
SNAP-Ed: The budget package also eliminates funding for SNAP-Ed, which is the largest nutrition education program in the country. SNAP-Ed supports cooking classes and other nutrition programs targeted at low-income families.
Stepping back: Taken together, this is the biggest cut to SNAP in the program’s history. Most of these policy changes could not get 60 votes in the Senate, which is usually what’s required for a farm bill (where SNAP policy is usually handled). But reconciliation only requires a simple majority so the policy can be more partisan.
The reconciliation package is still facing a lot of challenges, even if it’s seen as all but inevitable in Washington right now. The parliamentarian (think legislative referee) has ruled against many of the Republican proposals, including some of the Medicaid cuts. In other words, the reconciliation package has 99 procedural problems, but for right now, SNAP is not one of them.
What’s next: It increasingly looks like the Senate is going to corner the House and try to ram through its version. President Trump has said he wants to sign this bill by the Fourth of July, which is next week.
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What I’m reading
Nestle, ConAgra promise to ditch artificial dyes (Food Safety News). “Nestle and Conagra have promised to eliminate artificial colors from their U.S. food and beverages,” reports Coral Beach. “They are the latest big food companies to make such a pledge. Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo, Danone North America, TreeHouse Foods, Tyson and General Mills have all announced that they are working to remove synthetic color additives from their products. The actions come after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Administrator Martin Makary requested food companies to voluntarily stop using certain artificial food dyes. Chicago-based Conagra said it will remove artificial colors from its frozen foods by the end of this year. Conagra’s frozen brands include Marie Callender’s, Healthy Choice and Birds Eye. The company also said it would remove the dyes from products for schools by the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year, and it will work to discontinue artificial dyes across its entire portfolio by the end of 2027.”
Brace yourself for watery mayo and spiky ice cream (The Atlantic). “Natural and synthetic substances, called emulsifiers, are added to processed foods to give them the textures that Americans have come to love. They’ve also become targets in Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to remove many food additives from the American diet,” Yasmin Tayag writes. “The ‘Make America Healthy Again’ report, published in May, groups emulsifiers with other additives, some of which it says are linked to mental disorders, metabolic syndrome, and cancer. Like seed oils and food dyes, emulsifiers have raised some real health concerns, particularly about gut health. But distinguishing their ill effects from those of the foods they’re in is challenging—and probably a distraction from the diet changes that would really make Americans healthier.”
Texas joins states banning lab-grown meat, citing health and safety concerns (Hoodline). “Texas has recently joined the growing list of states banning lab-grown meat, following the approval of Senate Bill 261, which is expected to take effect on September 1, 2025,” reports Alyssa Ford. “This law prohibits the sale of ‘cell culture protein for human consumption within’ the state, placing Texas alongside Indiana, Nebraska, Montana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida in taking a stance against cultured meat products. In defiance of nationwide trends leaning towards sustainable and alternative meat sources, Texas Governor Greg Abbott sealed the fate of lab-grown meat in the Lone Star State by signing a bill that demands a clear distinction between conventional meat and its cell-cultured counterparts.”
CDC nominee Susan Monarez sidesteps questions about disagreements with RFK in Senate hearing (AP News). “Susan Monarez, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told senators Wednesday that she values vaccines, public health interventions and rigorous scientific evidence, but largely sidestepped questions about widespread cuts to the agency, elimination of programs and whether she disagreed with any of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s actions to date,” Jonel Aleccia reports. “Monarez repeatedly said she had not been involved in decisions earlier this year to cut hundreds of staff and eliminate CDC programs, but that she would work to retain the agency’s core functions and transition key programs to other parts of the Health and Human Services department. In the two-hour hearing, Monarez was sharply questioned about Kennedy’s recent move to fire all 17 members of a crucial committee that evaluates and recommends vaccines, his downplaying of the risks of measles during a nationwide outbreak and staffing cuts to a program that investigates lead poisoning in children.”
By cutting dyes from your diet, you’re getting another important built-in benefit (CNN). “In the crusade to reduce chronic disease and neurobehavioral issues in the United States, synthetic food dyes are a hot target,” Kristen Rogers writes. “Some state legislators were inspired by the scrutinization of artificial food dyes by the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement launched by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The US Food and Drug Administration announced in April its plans to work with industry to phase out the use of petroleum-based synthetic dyes in the food supply. But experts find it important for policymakers and the public to remember that dyes are just one component of highly engineered ultraprocessed foods. Accordingly, ‘removing synthetic food dyes does not automatically transform the products into healthy foods or beverages,’ said Dr. Jennifer Pomeranz, associate professor of public health policy and management at the New York University School of Global Public Health.”
New study underscores nationwide prevalence of poor diet quality, urgent need for federal nutrition programs (Nourish Science). “A new study of nationwide food and nutrition data shows the striking relationship between poor diet quality and the health of nearly every American. Findings indicate that more than 86% of people have low diet quality and over half of the nation has very low diet quality. Given this alarming national diet quality crisis, nutrition experts at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, and the non-governmental organization Nourish Science, suggest the first set of data-driven diet quality measurement categories health leaders and policy makers can use to track changes to the well-being of the U.S. population and provide science-backed data to inform the types of interventions to be implemented.”
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