A nutrition education program for people who receive SNAP benefits hasn’t been running since October 2025. President Donald Trump’s federal tax and spending bill defunded the SNAP Education initiative, commonly known as SNAP-Ed.
In Connecticut, the program was federally funded at over $4.6 million in its final year, according to the state Department of Social Services. It was implemented by several groups in the state, including the Department of Public Health, Hispanic Health Council, and three departments at University of Connecticut.
But the program didn’t just hand out recipes, it took a hands-on approach. Nutrition experts taught food preparation and safety skills to thousands of SNAP recipients, and demonstrated how to shop on a budget.
“You actually go and … compare prices in the store, you do shopping tours, or you do a mock one in the class,” said Mike Puglisi, who teaches at UConn's Department of Nutritional Sciences, and oversaw their SNAP-Ed program.
Puglisi said the program’s goal was to meet people where they are. That included housing sites, senior centers and senior meal programs, to help individuals stretch their benefits as far as possible.
“It's daunting to try to do a lot with a little. So that was a benefit of the SNAP-Ed program: to help people work within that framework,” Puglisi said. “And that doesn't come across in just giving information, that has to be a skill development.”
A balanced diet is key to preventing illnesses like heart disease, cancer and diabetes, according to the World Health Organization. SNAP-Ed was also part of the puzzle of fighting food insecurity, which has also continued to increase since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest report from the state’s Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity and Opportunity (CWCSEO).
“Access to information is not sufficient to provide food security by itself, because you still need affordability and physical access. But it is a necessary condition,” said Christian Duborg, the CWCSEO food policy analyst, after the report’s release.
Research in other states shows that skills taught in SNAP-Ed helped improve families' access to healthier food. Puglisi said that in Connecticut, participants would report an improvement in their dietary intake, such as eating more fruits and vegetables or reducing their added sugar intake.
The program was some individuals’ only access to counseling with a registered dietitian, Puglisi said. Those who had seen a dietitian usually had only seen one for a short period of time. In contrast, groups would meet five or six times for SNAP-Ed, he said.
According to the CWCSEO food report, SNAP-Ed was the second highest-federally funded nutrition program in the U.S. The highest is the WIC program, which is limited to pregnant, breastfeeding and postpartum women, and infants and children under 5.
Puglisi said while SNAP-Ed wasn’t perfect, it was frustrating that the program was eliminated without expert input.
“This is very unprecedented in, I would say the last, 30, 40, years or so, to have this kind of disruption to this level,” Puglisi said. “It was a disingenuous way to approach a very nuanced and very difficult environment that, unfortunately, we'll see in the future.”
The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education program, or EFNEP, does still have funding. But Puglisi said something needs to take the place of SNAP-Ed.
"It's taken a long time for those partnerships to be established,” Puglisi said. “And without the funding, without the support, we miss the opportunity to connect with our populations in Connecticut, and connect with the people with the greatest need.”
