SNAP benefits don’t cover costs of healthy diet: Study

As 42 million low-income recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are stuck in an ongoing government shutdown, a new study suggests the program’s purchasing power is falling short of helping people afford healthier eating plans.

Indiana-based researchers studied whether SNAP benefits, which are based on the frugal food plan model of a low-cost diet, provide enough money to cover the costs of three widely recognized healthy eating plans: Harvard Healthy Eating Pattern; Mediterranean diet. and Dietary Approaches to Stop High Blood Pressure, or the DASH diet.

SNAP benefits do not cover the full costs for all demographics of maintaining the Mediterranean diet or the DASH diet, both of which can reduce chronic disease, according to the study. But she decided that food assistance was enough for each population group to purchase foods that conformed to the Harvard Diet, which emphasizes vegetables, fruits, whole grains and healthy proteins.

The researchers concluded that because financial assistance does not cover all “health-focused alternative diets,” SNAP recipients are effectively burdened with a “poverty tax” as they try to feed themselves.

SNAP benefits are intended to supplement the amount recipients spend on food, and recipients are expected to receive about 30 percent of their net income. The average recipient family receives a monthly payment of $332, according to the USDA.

Funding going to beneficiaries’ electronic cards was at risk during the government shutdown that began on October 1. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to make the final payments for November.