One of the casualties of South Carolina’s war on junk food? Sweet tea | Opinion
It’s been 30 years since South Carolina named sweet tea the official state hospitality beverage.
Now, the state wants to stop people from using food stamps to buy junk food, sodas, energy drinks and drinks with at least 5 grams of added sugar. Sweet tea is one of the casualties.
Pour one out for southern hospitality.
Half a million South Carolinians — 1 in 10 state residents — rely on federal food stamps to feed themselves and their families.
It’s safe to say many of them enjoy a ready-made sweet tea at home every so often.
The war on junk food is a result of Gov. Henry McMaster’s executive order to restrict food stamp purchases to healthier items. Thursday, McMaster ordered state officials to obtain federal approval to join 12 other states in restricting what food stamps can buy. He said his order “aligns with President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to improve health outcomes across the country.”
It also conflicts with centuries of South Carolina history and our bottomless love of sweet tea. The language of the order bans “sweetened coffee, tea, lemonade and other noncarbonated drinks” with 5 or more grams of “added sugar or other natural or artificial sweeteners.” It’s literally an attack on something South Carolinians have savored for centuries.
The first tea plants in America took root in South Carolina soil in the 1790s. Summerville became the birthplace of sweet tea in the 1800s. And Prohibition put the delicious drink over the top, especially in the South, in the 1920s. I had three glasses of sweet teas with my turkey sandwich at DiPrato’s on Saturday and three more with my smoked chicken tacos at Home Team BBQ on Thursday.
There are government mandates that are valuable and I support many, but I know I wouldn’t be the only South Carolinian to raise a glass to personal liberties and limited government. In fact, it was only a decade ago the U.S. government tried to make America healthy by banning the sale of junk food in public schools to fight obesity, and South Carolina was one of several states to resist.
Then-state Education Superintendent Molly Spearman approved a number of school fundraiser exemptions at the time, advocating for “local decision-making” over “forcing us to follow” federal mandates. She said it was “wrong” of Washington “to dictate how we run our schools in South Carolina.”
She said that even though the most recent data pegged the economic cost of obesity in South Carolina at around $8.5 billion a year — and growing. Back then, the estimate was 2 out of 3 South Carolina adults and 1 out of 3 children in the state were overweight or obese. State officials say obesity is still a threat today.
‘A nanny state’
McMaster was lieutenant governor when South Carolina opposed that federal overreach.
Now he welcomes a similar approach from the Trump administration dubbed “Make America Healthy Again.”
Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants Americans to be healthier by consuming less candy, soda and other sugary snacks and beverages. McMaster’s approach is a way to force some of those changes, but they wouldn’t be the first food stamp restrictions. The U.S. government already bans purchases of hot point-of-sale food, beer, booze and cigarettes.
Kennedy, of course, is also undermining U.S. vaccine policy without scientific backing and despite overwhelming support for vaccines from Americans, and he was criticized for it by Republican and Democratic congressional leaders alike in a contentious hearing on his approach to Americans’ health Thursday. Vaccines work, by the way.
After issuing his executive order last week, McMaster said food stamp recipients would still be able to buy sweet things with personal money, just not taxpayer funds. But money is always tight for food stamp users. It’s not like they have spare money just lying around. This is why they need federal aid in the first place. And why they might choose to spend it on a treat once in a while.
While many people say they’re happy to see a push for healthier foods, a lot of experts consider the new restrictions punitive for people already plagued by the stigma of accepting government support. Still others say additional aid or better access to healthier food purchases, which tend to cost more money, would help far more than government-enforced limitations on sweets.
However, there’s no doubt that food stamps are crucial for South Carolina families.
State residents received $104 million in federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits in August alone.
It’s interesting to contrast the political situation now — McMaster and Trump are Republicans — to the one then — Spearman was a Republican and the White House was occupied by a Democrat.
Barack Obama was president at the time, and then-first lady Michelle Obama was leading the federal government’s healthy schools initiative. The Obamas’ government regulation went too far for some of the right’s most prominent pundits and politicians.
In 2010, Fox News broadcaster Sean Hannity told his audience, “Your America is turning into a nanny state thanks to the Obama administration’s efforts to rein in the junk food industry.”
In 2013, with Obama elected to a second term, Sarah Palin, a former governor of Alaska and the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, sipped from a 7-Eleven Super Big Gulp at the Conservative Political Action Conference to protest a proposed large soda ban in New York City.
A long hot day
It’s enough to make you wonder if any prominent sipper of sweet tea in South Carolina might steal that page from Palin’s playbook and make a fuss about all this. Could happen, I suppose. Sweet tea is in our veins.
Yet Gov. McMaster willingly added sweet tea to the list of items he wants to stop 560,000 South Carolinians from using taxpayer dollars to buy, deciding that he knows best what 1 in 10 South Carolinians should be able to drink on or after a long, hot day here.
A similar effort by then-Gov. Nikki Haley in 2013 went nowhere, but it compelled the state Senate Finance Committee, pushed on by State. Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Columbia, to insert a clause in the state budget that would have barred Haley’s office and the governor’s mansion from buying junk food with public money as well, for any sort of family dining, employee treats or entertaining.
That’s the thing about regulations. Politicians sometimes bite off more than they can chew.
If adults can’t be trusted to choose what we eat and drink, what else can’t we be trusted with? What else won’t be trusted with next? Noodle that around next time you’re sitting on your porch on a long hot day, preferably with an ice cold sweet tea.
Matthew T. Hall is McClatchy’s South Carolina opinion editor. Email him at mhall@thestate.com.
This story was originally published September 8, 2025 at 5:00 AM.