By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

The WIC (Women, Infants, Children) Program was developed to protect the health of low-income pregnant and post-partum people, infants, and children up to age 5. The program provides participants with vouchers that are used to purchase specific foods that are identified as being nutritious. WIC served about 6.2 million participants each month in fiscal year 2021, including almost half of all infants born in the United States. WIC is administered by the USDA, which recently announced proposed changes to the WIC food package. According to USDA’s website, “the changes will increase the current level of assistance while providing WIC state agencies with more flexibility to tailor the packages to accommodate personal and cultural food preferences and special dietary needs and increase variety and choice for WIC participants, making the program more appealing for current and potential participants.”

The goals of the proposed changes include providing “accommodations for people with… cultural and personal preferences (including, but not limited to, vegan and vegetarian diets”). It is gratifying to see this acknowledgement of vegan diets since this is something that The Vegetarian Resource Group has been promoting for many years when we submitted comments to the USDA related to WIC.

The proposed changes include

• Permanently increasing the fruit and vegetable benefit so that the dollar amount of vouchers to purchase fruits and vegetables increases 3-4 fold.
• Promoting the use of whole fruits over fruit juice..
• Expanding whole grain options to include foods like quinoa, millet, kamut, wheat berries, cornmeal, teff, buckwheat, and whole-wheat pita, English muffins, bagels, and naan.
• Providing more non-dairy substitution options such as soy-based yogurts and cheeses. These products would have to provide a specified amount of calcium and protein and, for yogurt, vitamin D. The USDA is considering including other types of plant milk in addition to soy milk if nutrient content meets requirements.
• Requiring canned beans to be offered in addition to dried.
• Requiring states to allow peanut butter and legumes to substitute for eggs. Allowing states the option of substituting tofu for eggs. The current WIC regulations do not allow substitutions for eggs.

The Vegetarian Resource Group will submit comments on the proposed changes to the WIC food package. The entire text of the proposed changes can be found here along with a link allowing you to submit your comments about the proposed changes. Comments are due by February 21, 2023.

To read more about the WIC program see:

WIC Programs Offer Foods For Vegans

WIC Farmers Market Program

Revisions to the WIC Food Package Make Sense (2014)