As a potential halt in food aid looms, The Dallas Express found that many luxury groceries remain available for purchase with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on Amazon.

 

In a review of Amazon’s grocery listings, The Dallas Express discovered that several high-end food items — including Caviar, Lobster, Lump Crab, Kobe Beef, and White Truffle Oil — were labeled as SNAP-eligible, according to product pages on Amazon.

 

Among the listings was a bottle of A to Z Wineworks Oregon Pinot Noir, a 750ml red wine, which was marked as eligible for SNAP/EBT purchase. The page stated the wine contained 13.5% alcohol by volume.

However, the USDA explicitly prohibits the purchase of wine and other alcoholic beverages with SNAP funds, according to the USDA Food and Nutrition Service website.

When The Dallas Express asked Amazon to explain how an alcoholic product became listed as eligible for SNAP, a spokesman responded that the listing was an isolated error and that the company had removed the SNAP eligibility label.

The apparent availability of luxury items under SNAP comes as Texas and several other states move to ban the use of food benefits for soda, candy, and other processed foods starting in 2026, DX reported. Yet few jurisdictions have imposed restrictions on higher-end foods, despite occasional proposals in state legislatures.

A 2016 bill introduced in New York sought to prohibit SNAP users from buying “luxury” or “unhealthy” foods, including high-end steaks and lobster. The lawmaker behind the proposal, Republican Sen. Patty Ritchie, argued that taxpayer-funded programs “help low income consumers make wise and healthy food choices,” per the Christian Science Monitor.

Opponents argued that the law tackled a non-issue. “Our food-stamp system is set up for people that do not have enough access to food to be able to get food,” Jeremy Saunders, co-executive director of Vocal New York, was quoted by the outlet. “This is a Republican attempt to make it appear that poor people use tax dollars to buy steak and lobster.”

The Senate bill did not pass.

Brookings Institution economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach argued restricting SNAP purchases would be difficult to implement and “inefficiently targeted” in testimony before Congress in 2017. She said that proposed bans on items like junk or luxury foods would require classifying countless food products and would “entail substantial administrative costs.”

Proponents of restricting junk food eligibility have said that the policy is necessary to protect recipients’ health and avoid later healthcare costs to taxpayers. “If you want to buy a sugary soda — the U.S. taxpayer should not pay for it,” US HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy previously stated, per DX. “The U.S. taxpayer should not be paying to feed kids foods, the poorest kids in the country, that will give them diabetes.”

While the debate over what SNAP recipients should be allowed to buy continues, data suggest that recipients often struggle to make benefits last. A recent analysis by Numerator found that SNAP households spend an average of $832 per month on groceries, about 20% more than non-SNAP households, but exhaust their benefits before the end of the month in 86% of cases.

Not every Texan receiving SNAP may be out of their taxpayer support on November 1. Texas Health and Human Services notes that unused SNAP benefits roll over for up to nine months, after which they are removed from a recipient’s account.

“Benefits you don’t use stay in your account for nine months from the date they are put into your account,” the agency website states.

The Lone Star State also allows recipients to purchase groceries online through services such as AmazonFresh, where the DX review found sample luxury products labeled as “SNAP eligible.”