BATON ROUGE - Under new rules for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program SNAP, the program will no longer pay for "non-nutritional" foods.

Tobacco, alcohol and hot prepared foods were already restricted. Starting Wednesday, candy, soft drinks and energy drinks will be restricted for more than 390,000 households in Louisiana who receive government assistance to buy groceries.

Yazen Mizyed manages the Save More market in Baton Rouge and said many customers learned about the changes when they came into his store.

"A lot of people don't know exactly what they can and can't buy," Mizyed said.

Customer Kendrick Knight said he used to receive SNAP benefits and doesn't mind the change, but he's not sure other people will support it. He said people should use their own money to buy what he referred to as non-essential items.

"If I'm giving you something, those restrictions come in with it," Knight said. "You can't be mad at them."

In Port Allen, Anthony Nguyen got up early to start boiling seafood. His family started Courville's Seafood more than thirty years ago. Wednesday marked the start of the busy season for seafood. On weekends, live and boiled crawfish fly out of the door.

A loophole benefits Louisiana residents, allowing SNAP recipients who typically can only buy raw seafood to purchase cooked crawfish, but there is a catch.

"You can't buy it fresh-cooked," Nguyen said.

Under the SNAP rule, Nguyen said he can only sell cooked seafood if it has been chilled.

He says customers in his store are aware of the change. Nguyen has posted signs around his store alerting people about the changes.