Fighting our toxic food environment: what can I do?

Making the healthiest choice the easiest choice 

We are living in the era of diet and nutrition hype. Top up your protein!  Don’t spike your glucose!  Take these supplements! The advice is both omnipresent and inescapable. A Kaiser Family Foundation Poll of US adults found 72 percent reported seeing weight loss, diet, or nutrition content on social media over the last month, making it among the most popular content categories. Even people who didn’t seek out the diet advice and don’t have social media said they were exposed.

And yet, what we’ve learned spending decades researching nutrition and diet-related diseases is that this industry of wellness products and individual diet protocols amounts to a great big distraction. Eating well is not that complicated, and it’s not a problem of individual choices and will. It’s a collective action problem. If junk food inundates people everywhere, even the best nutrition advice is going to be impossible to follow. If healthy food is the most expensive and laborious to prepare, eating well becomes a privilege few can afford.

Instead of more individual diet advice, we need to use our power to tackle the systemic and structural drivers of the toxic food environments around us. We need to fight to make healthy food the default.

Since we published our books, one of the most common questions we’ve received is: ‘Ok, but what can I do to help?’

We’ve learned a lot from discussions and responses to that question, in different settings. Drawing on this and the literature on activism and action in the food and health space, here are six key things individuals can do. (We promise, they don’t involve protein or supplements.)

1. Vote for a better food environment 

As citizens in democracies, we have the power to vote in the governments we believe will act in the public interest. Elected officials have a range of policy and regulatory tools they can use to make food environments healthier for all. We detail them in our books, but briefly they include:

1. Using government budgets to procure healthy foods (and limit ultra-processed foods) for institutions such as schools, government agencies, hospitals and clinics.
2. Regulating advertising, labelling, marketing and the commercial promotion of unhealthy ultra-processed foods — including infant foods — using enforceable mandatory standards.
3. Deploying economic tools to push people away from unhealthy foods (e.g. taxing harmful products, reforming agricultural subsidies) and toward healthier options (e.g. earmarking tax dividends to subsidize healthy diets for low-income families, supporting businesses that offer convenient and healthy ready meals in marginalized communities).
4. Ridding advisory bodies, food regulatory bodies and dietary guideline committees of conflicts of interest, and cleaning up industry lobbying practices (via public registers, disclosure and bans on the ‘revolving door’ from food industry into public office).

Look out for representatives or parliamentarians who make these issues part of their platform, and support or vote for them. But don’t stop there. Hold them accountable once they’re in power. Write to them to ask what they’re doing on regulating food environments, especially to protect young children from harmful products.

2. Advocate for healthy food at work, school, and in our communities

At a more personal level, the food environments at the places we spend a lot of time outside the home — like our offices, schools, or community spaces — shape what and how much we eat every day, even below the level of conscious awareness. If you find you or your kids are being nudged in unhealthy directions by the lunches at school, or bottomless snacks at work, push for change. Form a coalition with other colleagues or parents who want to improve the food environment. Document the status quo, and how it’s harming collective health. Use that evidence to demand change. Convene a regular workplace committee meeting to discuss how your school or employer responds to your concerns. (For inspiration, Chefs in Schools is one group that’s organizing on the education front.)

There are other measures you can take to affect change locally. These include joining public campaigns, signing petitions to demand local governmental action, or using local media to get the word out.

You also have a right to protest. This can be digital (online, social media) or, physical (like marches, or protests outside industry HQs and government offices). ‘Democracy’ after all derives from the Greek for ‘people power’.  (For more inspiration, Stuart provides examples of ‘food fighters’ who’ve had success in his book.)

The media part is easier than ever. You can reach out to your local, national or global media outlet of choice, or develop your own newsletter or social media campaign.

3. Build social movements or join civil society organizations

Savvy social movements can help raise awareness and affect change. One of our favorites is Bite Back, the UK’s leading youth-led activist movement on food and health. Their campaign started with a film about how marketing influences young people’s food choices below the level of conscious awareness. Eight adolescents were shown ads for unhealthy ‘triple dipped chicken’ and later asked to choose from a menu of 50 items. All picked the triple dipped chicken. (Julia and Kevin detail the group’s work in their book.)

In the last few years, the campaign has done more than just raise awareness. Its petitions and advocacy have helped expand the number of schools offering healthy free school meals, and restrict junk food advertising to kids in the UK.

There are other inspiring movements and campaigns working on improving food environments around the world. In America, you can check out the  Center for Science in the Public Interest, EWG, Food Tank, Food and Water Watch, and Plant Powered Meals in Schools. Leading organizations in the UK include Action on Sugar,  Children’s Food Campaign, Food Foundation, the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, First Steps Nutrition Trust, the Right to Food Commission and Sustainable Food Places, and the Obesity Health Alliance. Globally, there’s the Slow Food movement, IPES-Food, the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact and the Global Health Advocacy Incubator.

You can join or support these or other civil society organizations. Many provide resources, expertise and platforms for citizen action. They also do a great job of raising public awareness about the way our food system operates, exposing problems, lobbying politicians and proposing alternative solutions, including drafting legislation, policies and standards.

Closer to home, you can start or join local food groups and volunteer on community schemes and social innovations, including local food partnerships that share ideas and resources across a national network.

4. Invest for health 

Use your skills, energy, time and money to invest in a healthier world. Do you work for an organization that’s positive, negative (or neutral) with its impact on food and health?

What can you do, in your workplace, to push for change?  How can your employer help create a healthier food environment for all?

Ask about your pension fund: what’s it invested in? Speak to your colleagues or workplace committee and challenge investment decisions. If your funds are invested in a Black Rock, Vanguard, State Street ‘ESG fund,’ dig deeper and ask which companies sit within the fund  (recent research has shown that many such funds invest in harmful ultra-processed food corporations). Outside work, you have agency in where you invest your personal savings.

Shareholder activism and advocacy are gaining traction. NGOs purchase shares to acquire voting rights, which they use to challenge big food transnationals. These can shift their portfolios towards healthier products. ShareAction in the UK has been attending company AGMs and coordinating shareholders for several years, most notably with Nestlé. In 2023, it persuaded Tesco to report on the percentage of its profits that derive from healthy foods; Unilever soon followed suit.

Vote with your wallet by buying foods that reflect the kind of food system you want to live in. This can involve boycotting unhealthy and unsustainable or unethical foods, while ‘buycotting,’ or switching to, better products and brands.

5. Sue Big Food 

Of everything on this list, we think the litigation lever is the one that has the potential to have the most impact on our food environment. Again and again in the history of public health, protections and regulations don’t arrive with just a damning pile of research evidence. They arrived following litigation.

More specifically, smart lawyers sue companies on behalf of individual plaintiffs who allege they’ve been harmed by products. Those lawsuits pile up, and often through legal discovery, even when the plaintiffs lose, secrets revealed change public opinion and embolden governments to act in the interest of public health. This happened with asbestos, cigarettes, and opioids. And as Julia recently detailed in the New York Times, such lawsuits have begun to pile up in the US against ultra-processed food companies. But we’ll need a lot more of them to really affect change and it’ll take time. We’ll also need cities and state governments to start to sue, too — something San Francisco took the lead on last December.  You can get involved in this legal effort by launching a suit, as a lawyer, a plaintiff, or a city or state.

The lawsuits could also gain strength from proposed regulatory actions. The former US Food and Drug Administration commissioner David Kessler — who was a leading anti-smoking crusader — proposed a way to regulate ultra-processed foods using existing agency rules.  Kessler filed a petition with the FDA to ask the agency to reconsider whether a broad category of refined carbohydrates used in many ultra-processed foods should still be considered safe according to FDA regulation. The petition has gained traction among US health leadership, but that hasn’t translated to any action yet.

6. Run the research, support the science, and build awareness

As we’ve seen with public health menaces of the past, we need a solid body of evidence to make the case that inaction on food environments is no longer an option. It took decades to build that case when it came to smoking, as well as lots of litigation. Right now, we have an overwhelming body of evidence on the links between diet and health, but we need more on how various factors in a food environment exert different levels of influence on peoples’ food choices. Nutrition research now is dominated by studies that focus on the impact of individuals foods or diets, and much of that evidence is observational, not causal. We need more high-quality, randomized control trials on the impacts of food environments.

This research needs to be free from conflicts of interest. It’s not enough to disclose a conflict. Industry-funded research is likely to generate a significant and systematic bias so conflicts need to be avoided.

One group that’s trying to address these problems in nutrition research is UPF.RAN (Ultra-Processed Food Research Action Network), a global network of researchers committed to advancing knowledge and action on ultra-processed foods. They’re focused on sharing documents and resources, grounded in scientific evidence and translating that evidence for policymakers, advocates, journalists, and educators.

Beyond the science and evidence, we need to get the message about toxic food environments out, and support those who do. Investigative and independent media are key players here. These groups include Lighthouse Reports which, along with others, highlighted the shocking degree of corporate litigation against governments who had introduced pro-health regulation. BMJ Investigations, meanwhile, exposed the rampant conflicts of interest within the UK’s foremost nutrition advisory body (Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition). In the US,

US Right to Know and Open Secrets have been using Freedom of Information legislation in their pursuit of truth and transparency in public health.

We can strengthen our own awareness and knowledge by enrolling in online or physical courses, discussion groups, summer schools, and webinars, or just listening to podcasts and lectures. (Stuart was recently involved in the launch of a new series of short courses, run by the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, for example). There’s no need to start from scratch. Many of the NGOs mentioned above provide technical support and training and they’ve developed adaptable toolkits.

In sum, these are the six actions we think go a long way towards tapping into the latent power we hold, as individuals and collectively.  But what do you think? Let us know what you find most compelling and if there’s anything — or group— we’ve missed.

The post Promoting a health food system: A manifesto from Stuart Gillespie and Julia Belluz appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

    

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Eating grapes daily could unlock powerful skin protection

New research suggests grapes may help “rewire” your skin’s defenses against sun damage at the genetic level.

Scientists discovered that eating grapes can actually change how your skin behaves at the genetic level. After just two weeks of daily grape consumption, volunteers showed signs of improved skin protection and reduced oxidative stress from UV exposure. Researchers say the effects appear widespread, even though every person’s genes responded a little differently.

The Study: Asim Dave, Sumi Piya, Dana-Lynn T. Koomoa, Ingo Lange, Jaewoo Choi, Richard B. van Breemen, John M. Pezzuto. Inter- and Intraindividual Variation of Gene Expression in Human Skin Following Grape Consumption and/or Exposure to Ultraviolet Irradiation. ACS Nutrition Science, 2026; DOI: 10.1021/acsnutrsci.6c00003

The funder: “Funding for the study was provided by the California Table Grape Commission.”

Comment: Participants consumed three servings of grapes a day.  The investigators did not compare the effects of grapes to any other fruit but concluded grapes are a superfood.  I’m greatly in favor of eating grapes along with lots of other fruits and vegetables.  Are grapes a superfood?  Only if all other fruits and vegetables are too.  Each has its own useful combination of nutrients and nutritional factors.

The moral: Eat a wide variety of plant foods.

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• Time to muck out the mushroom market: Leading mushroom supplement experts will take the stage at the Active Nutrition Summit (ANS) to spotlight the dangers of poor-quality extracts and reveal novel methods for ensuring a transparent and fruitful future for the industry…. Read more
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• Cordyceps ‘boom’ on the horizon as novel food status of S. hepiali clarified: The European Commission has confirmed that Samsoniella hepiali, commonly marketed as cordyceps, is not novel and can be used in dietary supplements, marking a major milestone for the mushroom industry…. Read more
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I love eating mushrooms, but not for medicinal reasons, and especially not for mushroom supplements.  Whatever.

The post Weekend reading: Mushrooms appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

    

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Indeed they are.

The 2025-2030 dietary guidelines are a mess and pretty much unusable.  Perhaps coincidentally, the Texas legislature told nutritionists to write guidelines for Texans.

The result:

They set the guidelines on three pillars:

• Foods without a lot of processing are best for your body.
• How you prepare food matters.
• There are many ways to eat healthy.

They were produced by the Texas Nutrition Advisory Committee.

The Texas Legislature added Health and Safety Code, Chapter 119B, to establish the Texas Nutrition Advisory Committee (TNAC) in 2025. Statute tasks TNAC with:

• Examining the impact of nutrition on human health and the connection between ultra-processed foods and the prevalence of chronic diseases;
• Providing an independent review of scientific studies analyzing the effects of ultra-processed foods on human health;
• Providing education on the effects of ultra-processed foods on human health; and
• Developing and maintaining dietary and nutritional guidelines.

I don’t know any of the members of the Advisory Committee but high marks to them.  They did all this in a thoughtful, systematic way and produced guidelines well substantiated by current scientific evidence.

Take a look at the link to the committee.  That page provides loads of useful information about the process as well as links to educational materials.

Go Texas!

The post Texas’ dietary guidelines. “Eat real food, y’all!” appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

    

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I keep repeating: the food industry is in trouble.

People are eating less.

Eating less is bad for business.

Why are food sales down?

• RFK Jr says the food industry is poisoning America
• Concerns about ultra-processed foods are reducing sales of the most profitable products.
• GLP-1 drugs encourage users to eat less.
• Inflation is raising the cost of food.

Here is one example of what’s happening to food companies:

• Walmart same-store sales slowdown could portend trouble for packaged food brands:  Walmart’s results offer a window into an increasingly value-conscious consumer, with implications for food prices, brand strategy and retail competition well beyond its store… Read more

Cuts to SNAP also affect the grocery industry.

• Grocery volume declines deepen as SNAP cuts reshape shopper behavior:  As tighter SNAP eligibility reduces food-assistance participation, shoppers are shifting toward staples, value brands and lower-priced retailers, which is putting new pressure on grocery sales… Read more

But the biggest factor is the GLP-1 drugs.

GLP-1 drugs put $73B in global food value at risk, report finds: PepsiCo’s Lay’s is the most exposed food brand, with Doritos, Hershey’s, Cheetos, Kellogg’s and Reese’s also vulnerable, Brand Finance determined.

For Food Companies, Shifts From GLP-1 Use Are Hard to Digest: People on medications for weight loss are buying less food, shrinking their portion sizes and purchasing smaller clothes. Businesses are trying to adjust.

But the drugs slow digestion, leading people to eat fewer calories a day. They are often instructed by physicians to consume more protein to protect muscles and more fiber to offset gastrointestinal issues that can sometimes result.

So consumers aren’t just eating less when on the medications, they’re eating differently, moving away from breads and pastas and toward more meats and vegetables.

The food industry is scrambling to keep up:

Big Food’s Big Reset: Why the industry’s changing faster than ever:  From C-suite shake-ups to targeted acquisitions, Big Food is rethinking how to win in a rapidly changing market… Read more

Already, sales of alcohol, chips, ice cream and sodas have taken a hit from consumers on the medications…Analysts at J.P. Morgan predict that as GLP-1 treatments proliferate spending on food and beverage industry revenues could fall by as much as $55 billion by 2030. Food companies, facing declining sales, are racing to develop products they hope will appeal to those customers.

As researchers Luc L. Hagenaars and Laura A. Schmidt write in Science, (Un)intended consequences of mass-prescribing GLP-1s

The food industry has a long-demonstrated capacity to turn health concerns into market opportunities, while deflecting attention from its role in the obesity epidemic. The Ozempic era could therefore have the unintended consequence of consolidating the food industry’s market power, while perpetuating price inflation and unhealthy food environments.

Stay tuned on this one.

The post Is the food industry really in trouble? appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

    

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I wrote about this here on August 14, 2025.

David Kessler, a physician, lawyer, and former FDA Commissioner, has done a great service for the Make America Healthy Again movement.  He has written a letter to RFK Jr presenting a Citizen’s Petition to the FDA: “Petition to Limit the Exposure of Refined Carbohydrates used in Industrial Processing in order to Prevent Obesity, Diabetes, and Cardiovascular Disease in Children and Adults.”

The FDA has 180 days to respond to citizens’ petitions.  It did not come close to meeting this deadline.

But now The Washington Post says that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr tried to meet it.  He wrote a letter in response in March but he White House held it up and it has never been sent.  The Post based its account on a leaked copy of the letter.

I also acquired a leaked copy. Here it is.

The letter is undated, and I do not know whether this is the latest version or the one obtained by the Post.

Whatever it is, it’s impressive.  It’s thoughtful, well written, compelling, and referenced in detail.

The draft I received came with two highlighted statements.

The first contains RFK Jr’s statement of intention:

I will be calling on companies to provide any safety information they have to HHS on the health impacts of refined starches and sweeteners to allow FDA to evaluate the GRAS status of the refined starches and sweeteners listed in your petition.

The second states his endorsement of Kessler’s petition.

I believe your petition points toward an historic opportunity to significantly improve the quality of our food supply and thus the health of our citizens.

FDA’s statute and regulations require that GRAS status be based on the ingredient’s intended use. We want to see any information that proves these ingredients at the quantities they are being added to the food supply should still be generally considered safe. Today, HHS will begin seeking any detailed safety studies food companies may have conducted for proving the safety of the refined starches and refined sugars they are adding into the food supply.

The letter states Secretary Kennedy’s further intentions: “during my time as Secretary, I intend to work across the Administration to oversee a process that will include at least the following actions:”

• Fully Implementing the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
• Engaging Congress, the States, the Food Industry, and the Public in a Strategy to Address the Concerns Raised by Ultra-Processed Foods.
• Ongoing and Systematic Reassessment of Ingredients and Additives of Concern.
• Added Sugar Reduction Strategy.
• Labeling to Better Inform Consumers.
• Facilitate Research and Technical Assistance to Industry.

This signals that RFK Jr is serious about reducing ultra-processed foods and added sugars.  Of sugars, the letter says:

I have directed FDA to develop an added sugar reduction strategy that will encourage food manufacturers, retailers, and restaurants to reduce added sugars in their products and provide greater transparency to consumers on added sugar content. On January 23, 2026, FDA’s Human Foods Program released its 2026 priority deliverables, which include specifics on this strategy. I have directed FDA to develop an added sugar reduction strategy that will encourage food manufacturers, retailers, and restaurants to reduce added sugars in their products and provide greater transparency to consumers on added sugar content.

On January 23, 2026, FDA’s Human Foods Program released its 2026 priority deliverables, which includes this statement about sugar reduction.

The strategy will focus on encouraging the food industry to lower added sugar in processed and prepared foods, proposing a nutrient content claim for added sugars (defining “low added sugar”), exploring targeted consumer education initiatives in collaboration with other federal agencies, investigating ingredient labeling and menu labeling requirements, exploring potential strategies for labeling of sugar alternatives that do not increase blood glucose, and assessing the use of low or no-calorie and non-nutritive alternative sweeteners.

Comments

The letter does not sound like it was written by RFK, Jr.  I wonder who wrote it.

The letter is hard hitting; it threatens the food industry with major federal efforts to reduce consumption of ultra-processed foods and sugars.

I can understand why it’s been held up.  It means the government is taking on the food industry, as promised by RFK Jr (“the food industry is poisoning America”).

Will he take on the food industry?  Does he want to do that?  Will the White House let him?

So far, the MAHA agenda has been mostly talk and no action.  I don’t see this being any different, but let’s wait and see.

The post RFK Jr letter to David Kessler’s citizen’s petition leaked appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

    

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His summary: Eating almonds improved how people rated their sleep, but most objective sleep measures did not change…Almonds are nutritious, but this is not proof they treat insomnia.

The study: Desai SR, Pinto L, Halbe A, Vaidya RA, Udipi SA and Kalita S (2026) Effects of almond consumption on sleep quality in adults: a randomized controlled trial. Front. Nutr. 13:1892442. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2026.1892442

Method: 175 adults with sleep problems were randomized to eat almonds or another snack for 5 months.

Results: Those eating almonds reported improvements in sleep quality and melatonin levels were higher.  But no significant treatment effects were observed for most parameters and there were no significant differences observed for other biochemical or anthropometric outcomes.  The almond eaters felt that they slept better.

Conclusion: “Almond consumption was associated with improvements in subjective sleep efficiency and sleep continuity in adults with poor sleep quality. These findings suggest that almonds may enhance perceived sleep quality, with slight objective improvements among responders.”

Funding: The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This clinical trial was supported by Almonds Board of California.

Comment: This study is a classic instance of industry-influenced interpretation bias.  It’s hard for me to understand why anyone would think 50 almonds a day (350 calories!) would help anyone sleep and they didn’t.  But the conclusions put a positive spin on the results.

As placebos go, I’ll take almonds any day.  I like them.  But sleep?

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When my children, Rebecca and Charles Nestle, visited last week, we took a walk on the High Line in Manhattan, spotted this water fountain at 23rd Street, and I took this picture.

Here’s what the sign says:

Ximena Garrido-Lecca
The Golden Crop, July 2026 – June 2027

The High Line press release explains:

Ximena Garrido-Lecca uses sculpture and installation to highlight the complex relationship between Indigenous knowledge, colonial history, and modern technological and industrial systems.

For the High Line, Garrido-Lecca presents The Golden Crop, a nine-foot corn cob water fountain, made of bronze. Corn holds a central position in pre-Columbian mythology and was considered the origin of humanity by the Aztecs and Maya.

It also is one of the most important crops in the global economy, and is often genetically modified to tolerate pesticides like glyphosate. Glyphosate has sparked debates for its effects on human health and the environment, such as river contamination.

Garrido-Lecca dyed the water that trickles down the corn and between the kernels to have a neon yellow hue, a reference to the toxic chemical and its effects on runoff water sources, particularly those that communities use for drinking, fishing, and recreation. The artist also highlights the way industrial farming and GMO corn have impacted the existence and strength of native varieties, risking the erosion of cultural heritage associated with these crops, ultimately, challenging the viewer to reconsider the social, health, and environmental costs of our interconnected modern world.

Indeed.  It seemed appropriate to post this at foodpolitics.com.

The post Weekend viewing: food politics art on the High Line appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

     

Beef and pork are notable exceptions to these laws. And that may help to explain why President Trump signed a proclamation last month that will allow the duty-free importation of about 660 million pounds of inexpensive beef.

If American consumers knew where that beef was coming from, they might not want to eat it.

As he explains, this beef is  trimmings, possibly stored frozen for years, intended to be added to ground beef to adjust the fat content.

He lists the food safety scandals around such trimmings.

• China rejected two shipping containers of beef from Uruguay after finding residue of an anti-parasitic drug in the meat.
• China rejected beef from Argentina reportedly because it tested positive for a banned antibiotic that can cause serious blood disorders.
• Brazilian federal police raided nearly 200 meatpacking plants after allegations that government inspectors and politicians were being bribed to allow the sale of contaminated beef.

As for why President Trump allowed this, against the wishes of the US beef industry:

“Regime Change,” the recent book by the Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, contains an interesting clue: a White House meeting last November between President Trump and Joesley Batista, whose family controls JBS…Mr. Batista gained the White House meeting last November, Ms. Haberman and Mr. Swan wrote, because of his friendship with Melania Trump. In addition, a JBS subsidiary had donated $5 million to Mr. Trump’s second inauguration, the largest gift from any individual or corporation.

Eric Schlosser discusses this and other such matters on Democracy Now.

Comment

We need country of origin labeling for beef, for sure.  We have it for produce.  Congress made beef exempt.  Bring it back.

Food safety lawyer Bill Marler wants more USDA inspection and more transparency, as he says in 660 Million Pounds of Trimmings — The Part of Eric Schlosser’s Op-Ed I Would Underline.  His advice to hamburger eaters:

The one thing that makes a hamburger safe is 160°F, measured with a thermometer. Buy from your butcher if you want to know where your beef came from. Then cook it to 160 anyway.

And then, of course, there’s what’s happening to beef prices.  You might feel better about this if you knew the beef was raised here and was safe.

The post Where is country-of-origin labeling for beef when we need it? appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

    

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I.  This post from Senator Elizabeth Warren on X.

II.  The New York Times: How Kennedy did on children’s health reforms

Everything seems to be a mixed bag:

• Dietary guidelines advising eat real food and restrict highly processed foods, but also advising more meat, fat, and saturated fat.
• State restrictions of sodas and other sugary foods on SNAP, but other requirements that have dropped enrollments.
• An FDA proposal to close the GRAS loophole, but cuts to personnel will make oversight impossible.
• Removal of artificial dyes from food products, but this is voluntary.
• Defining ultra-processed foods, but this is held up and its fate is uncertain.
• Promises to put real food in schools, but no rules have as yet been issued nor is more money being appropriated.

III.  “MAHA Moms Built a Movement. MAGA Bros Have Taken It Over,”

With the midterm elections approaching and MAHA voters increasingly dissatisfied with Trump, it’s worth asking: How exactly did a cause powered by women turn into one run by men? And will the women who built the MAHA movement ever revolt?

IV.  KFF  Health News:  Trump and Kennedy’s Health Industry Deals Haven’t Been Enforced and Are at Risk of Vanishing

Like the focus on artificial dyes, however, many of the administration’s highest-profile health initiatives rely on voluntary agreements. The goals, such as lower drug prices and nutrition classes for doctors, have widespread appeal, cutting across party lines and economic divisions.  But the administration-industry deals lack the enforcement teeth of more traditional federal regulation. Their details are vague, and minimal oversight makes it hard to monitor progress. In some cases, the administration has claimed victories that have yet to materialize.

Comment

I had some cautious hope that this particular piece of this administration’s plans might actually get somewhere.  At the beginning, RFK Jr sounded like he really did want to improve American diets and Make America Healthy Again.  Apparently, he was unable to stand up to food industry pressures, as is most evident by his failure to get glyphosate out of the food supply.

His one resounding success?  Destroying confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccinations, despite tons of evidence that their benefits hugely outweigh risks.

In a word, disappointing.

The post How is MAHA doing so far? Not so great. appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

    

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