JOE HERNANDEZ, BYLINE: Elines Olivares is standing inside Ray Food Market, a small corner store in West Philadelphia, hoping to chat with customers about nutrition.
ELINES OLIVARES: So we teach people about fiber, what they can eat, what they should eat, let them have a little taste test of our oatmeal today.
HERNANDEZ: Olivares is a nutrition educator with The Food Trust, a local nonprofit focused on food and nutrition security, and she’s here as part of their Healthy Corner Store Initiative, which aims to get more healthy food into convenience stores in lower-income neighborhoods. She strikes up a conversation with customer Sherron Dudley.
SHERRON DUDLEY: OK. I thought it was just me.
HERNANDEZ: Dudley has been wondering if the honey wheat bread she likes is actually healthy.
DUDLEY: I thought honey wheat was like, OK, they might not say nothing about the honey, but at least it’s got wheat in it.
HERNANDEZ: Olivares told her it was, in fact, flavored white bread. And after the conversation, Dudley said she planned to switch to whole wheat.
DUDLEY: So I got to change my bread.
HERNANDEZ: That program and many others across the U.S. are funded by an offshoot of SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called SNAP-Ed. The decision by the Trump administration to eliminate SNAP-Ed has confounded nutrition experts like Tashara Leak, a professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University.
TASHARA LEAK: It doesn’t make sense when we have an administration, the Make America Healthy Again efforts that are focused on decreasing consumption of ultra-processed foods and wanting to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables, to then get rid of the largest federally funded nutrition education program that helps to achieve those goals.
HERNANDEZ: The White House did not provide specifics to NPR about how or whether eliminating this program aligned with the goals of the Make America Healthy Again agenda, but White House spokesperson Anna Kelly touted sweeping changes made to SNAP food benefits as a whole, including shifting more costs to states and expanding those subject to work requirements to include older people and parents of teenagers. Kelly said in a statement that the president was, quote, “strengthening SNAP for the Americans who need it by ensuring these programs are sustainable for future generations.”
The Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP-Ed, said it would continue to provide nutrition education through other initiatives. SNAP-Ed critics have pointed to a 2019 government watchdog report that said the USDA wasn’t effectively tracking the success of its nutrition programs, but people involved in SNAP-Ed say a reporting system set up recently was working well.
GINA CRIST: We had a very robust reporting mechanism.
HERNANDEZ: Gina Crist oversaw SNAP-Ed in Delaware.
CRIST: We had to gather the data, and then it was actually reported nationally.
HERNANDEZ: An association for SNAP-Ed educators found that 40% of participants said they were eating more fruit, and 34% ate more vegetables. Advocates say changes like this can produce future healthcare savings by lowering rates of food insecurity and obesity. Heidi Gorniok, vice president of programs at The Food Trust in Philadelphia, says the loss of the program comes at a difficult moment for many Americans.
HEIDI GORNIOK: We’re at a time where food in general is becoming less affordable. There’s SNAP cuts coming, food insecurity is rising and one of the goals of SNAP-Ed is to teach people how to shop and cook healthy on a budget.
HERNANDEZ: SNAP-Ed providers with any remaining funding have to spend it by the end of September.
Joe Hernandez, NPR News, Philadelphia.
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