Sen. Cory Booker said the United States needs a “food revolution,” blaming sugary and processed food for contributing to the nation’s health woes during a South Jersey visit Thursday.
“What’s stupid is that we’re sitting here talking about the cost of healthcare and how to pay for it, but not why we need so much healthcare in the first place,” Booker said during an almost hour-long speech to the Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey at the Westin Mount Laurel.
The speech was one of four stops Booker made in South Jersey Thursday. The Newark Democrat also packed sandwiches at the Cathedral Kitchen community kitchen in Camden, one of the nonprofits shouldering a greater demand amid rising grocery costs and cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program enacted by President Donald Trump. Booker said he would try to steer federal resources to the group, and that he hopes at least one chamber of Congress will flip so Democrats can push to restore money for Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies.
But during his speech to the chamber, Booker signaled support for one piece of Trump’s health agenda by criticizing the use of SNAP for soda. Booker, a vegan, aligns with some of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s policies on nutrition though he vehemently opposes Kennedy’s push to scale back recommended vaccines for children.
“Sugar water companies literally, annually, make billions of dollars from SNAP payments,” Booker said after joking about Coke and Pepsi not being members of the chamber. “You all know what SNAP stands for: Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. Yet we allow SNAP payments to be used for that, but make it really hard for them to be used for the kind of food we want people to have abundant access [to].”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the green light to nearly two dozen states — mostly Republican — to restrict people from using food stamps for sugary drinks, the New York Times reported, though just eight were actually implemented as others are in the process or have been blocked by a court ruling.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania are not among those states.
Booker said the country should support small farmers more, and decried that the vast majority of agricultural subsidies go to “massive commodity crops” such as corn and soybeans that are used for ultra-processed foods instead of “specialty crops” like fruits and vegetables.
The ballroom podium was unnecessary for Booker, who paced on stage and juggled a microphone between whatever hand he wasn’t reaching, pointing, or otherwise speaking with.
“Think about this: A kid in Camden goes into a bodega and gets a Twinkie product cheaper than an apple because we subsidize everything in the Twinkie product and nothing in the apple,” he said.
“Or hear this: You go to a fast food restaurant and you get a $1 meal, and if you want to get a bucket of salad, it costs you $15. How can we be a system that sustains such high levels of illness?”
He told a story about meeting with a Las Vegas-based business owner whose healthcare costs decreased after replacing deep fried food options for his staff with healthier choices, and shared an anecdote about a woman whose health improved after an urban farm was established in Newark, where Booker was mayor.
In an interview after his speech, Booker said he’s pushing for the restoration of programs that connect crops from small farms with people in need of food.
“New Jersey farmers are suffering with tighter and tighter margins,” he said.
Booker got tips on making a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich and placed ham and cheese on bread alongside volunteers at Cathedral Kitchen. He said nearby workers cracking eggs were “doing some egg-celent work” and that at first he didn’t know “what the shell” they were doing. In line with his dad jokes, he chatted about how he wants to have kids soon with his wife Alexis Lewis, whom he married last year.
Carrie Kitchen-Santiago, the president and CEO of the Camden-based organization, said 2022 set a record for demand for meals, groceries, and hygiene products, and it’s grown each year since. She said the organization mostly relies on donations and revenue from a catering program but expects the need to increase when benefits cuts are implemented later this year.
She said roughly 2% of the organization’s budget is from government funds but that it does not have any federal funding.
Kitchen-Santiago said providing nutritious meals is a balancing act.
“You want to make sure people are healthy, but also give them something they’ll eat and be culturally appropriate,” she said. “Like, we’re not going to be able to give a stuffed acorn squash. Nobody’s going to eat that. On the other hand, we might be able to do a stew that has vegetables and meat in it.”
The speech and visit to the kitchen were part of a larger swing through South Jersey by Booker while the Senate is on recess. Booker also presented a $2 million check to Inspira Medical Center in Mullica Hill to expand technologies and telehealth services — a congressional allocation from Fiscal Year 26 — and visited Salem Community College’s Glass Education Center.
His schedule on Friday includes presenting $1 million to AtlantiCare Health System and a visit to Atlantic City’s Orange Loop, a neighborhood that was designated an Opportunity Zone under a law he co-authored. He was also slated to visit the Cape May–Lewes Ferry Terminal in North Cape May and a Cumberland County farm.
