Happy Friday, and welcome to Food Fix. It’s been a particularly heavy week in America. Violence is never the answer — may we all work to create a world with far less of it.
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Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
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Alarming MAHA rhetoric collides with the Washington machine
The Trump administration this week released its long-awaited MAHA strategy report. You may recall back in May, the MAHA Commission issued its assessment, which essentially laid out America’s chronic disease problem, with a particular focus on children. The report this week was meant to be the follow up — laying out the government’s roadmap for how to fix it.
Washington has now had a couple of days to digest this 20-page strategy, and the consensus from health experts so far is basically: Yeah, this isn’t going to work. The MAHA Commission lays out some 128 recommendations, including things like maybe pursuing front-of-pack food labeling and potentially looking at guidelines to limit kids food marketing, but they are high level, vague and largely lack regulatory teeth.
As I wrote earlier this week, my inbox was full of agricultural groups issuing positive statements praising the administration for listening to industry — with some caveats — while health and consumer-focused groups were shredding the strategy as essentially corporate capitulation.
Pesticide drama: The thing that’s gotten the most attention is how much the Trump administration folded on the MAHA wish for a genuine crackdown on pesticides. (This latest report recommends no such thing, in fact it urges an effort to assure the American people that our current regulatory system is just fine, thank you very much.)
The pesticide U-turn is certainly worthy of coverage — it’s an important political and policy story — but what struck me this week, as I tried to zoom out a bit from the news, is the enormous gap between the nutrition rhetoric coming from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the “Make America Healthy Again” movement versus what is laid out in this strategy.
Sugar, sugar: Take sugar, for example. Back in April, Kennedy didn’t hold back during a press conference at HHS headquarters in Washington: “Sugar is poison. And Americans need to know that,” he said. “It is poisoning us. It’s giving us a diabetes crisis.”
It’s the same message we hear from other key MAHA leaders, too. Sugar is one of the movement’s top concerns. It was flagged as a clear problem in the MAHA assessment that came out in May:
“Found in 75 percent of packaged foods, the average American consumes 17 teaspoons of added sugars daily, which amounts to 60 pounds annually,” the report said. “This substantial intake, particularly of high fructose corn syrup and other added sugars, may play a significant role in childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Alarmingly, 63 percent of the U.S. population aged 2 and older derives more than 10 percent of their daily calories from added sugars.”
Despite all of this, sugar is barely mentioned in the MAHA strategy.
The word appears exactly once, in the context of the administration’s plans to revamp the dietary guidelines and launch an education campaign: “The campaign will expand upon a [dietary guidelines] that prioritizes whole foods including protein foods, fruits, and vegetables, minimizes highly processed foods and added sugar, and brings awareness to strategies to improve health,” reads the strategy.
That’s it. That’s the only mention (high fructose corn syrup, another MAHA target, isn’t mentioned at all). And not to split hairs here, but the dietary guidelines already recommend that Americans minimize consumption of added sugars. (If the government put big money behind a campaign to urge Americans to consume less sugar, now that would be big!)
Big Seed Oil FTW? Seed oils are another stark example. Kennedy and other MAHA leaders have said repeatedly that seed oils (think canola, soy, sunflower oils) are poisoning us. They’ve lavished praise on Steak ‘n Shake for switching to beef tallow for their fries. Many nutrition experts continue to argue this all makes no sense, and oilseed growers have launched a counterattack. In any case, the MAHA strategy doesn’t say a word about seed oils.
Not only does the MAHA strategy not mention seed oils, but the National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) issued a statement praising the commission this week.
“We appreciate the transparency shown by the administration during this process and value their ongoing engagement with NOPA and other agricultural stakeholders,” said Devin Mogler, president and CEO of NOPA. “While this report represents a step in the right direction, NOPA will remain vigilant in addressing policies and public statements that stoke fear based on misinformation rather than sound science.”
The American Soybean Association, which had been highly critical of the MAHA assessment back in May, issued a statement expressing “cautious optimism” about the strategy.
Avoiding controversial issues like sugar and seed oils comes after the administration held more than 100 meetings with industry groups because they made a huge stink about not being consulted ahead of the MAHA assessment back in May. In other words, MAHA slammed into the reality of Washington, where industry groups exist precisely to push back on stuff like this.
Word from HHS: I asked HHS about the broader criticism over the lack of teeth in the MAHA strategy — and also about sugar and seed oils in particular.
“The MAHA Strategy is a comprehensive plan with more than 120 initiatives designed to reverse the failed policies that have fueled America’s childhood chronic disease epidemic,” an HHS spokesperson said in an email. “It represents the most ambitious reform agenda in modern history—realigning our food and health systems, transforming education, and unleashing science to safeguard America’s children and families.”
The spox added: “HHS is committed to serving the American people, not special interests, by delivering radical transparency and upholding gold-standard science.”
What’s next: I don’t see the MAHA movement backing off issues like sugar and seed oils just because the MAHA Commission dropped them like a hot potato. How does Kennedy continue to walk this line? Will he keep using the bully pulpit to raise alarms, or bend his rhetoric to be more business friendly (especially amid growing calls for his resignation)? I don’t know, but right now the rhetoric and the strategy don’t match.
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What I’m reading
California poised to ban ultra-processed foods of concern in schools as AB 1264 advances (Food Safety Magazine). “The California Senate has approved Assembly Bill (AB) 1264, which aims to define ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and ban UPFs of concern from being offered in schools. The revised bill has been returned to the California Assembly for approval, which passed the original version with strong bipartisan support in June. AB 1264 would then go to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk to be signed into law. AB 1264 was originally introduced in March 2025 by California Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, who also championed two precedent-setting, now-enacted additives bans, the California Food Safety Act and California School Food Safety Act. Since the passage of the California Food Safety Act in 2023, a wave of state-level food additives regulations have been introduced or passed (most recently, in Louisiana), and the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ (MAHA) movement has piggybacked on this momentum.”
Following the murder of Charlie Kirk, is engaging in civil disagreement worth it? (Why Should I Trust You?). This podcast is always well done, but this special episode by Brinda Adhikari and Tom Johnson following the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk is particularly timely: “We wanted to bring together some friends of the show, people we engage with frequently on the pod, to discuss what happened to Charlie, and to get into how we as a society can disagree better, whether getting to yes or even trying to bring ourselves into the same room together these days is worth it. The answer is: yes. We must. Now more than ever.”
It’s not you. It’s the food. (New York Times). “Over the past couple of decades, the two of us have explored a central mystery about human health,” write Julia Belluz and Kevin Hall. “For Kevin, a former National Institutes of Health nutrition scientist, the question was why no particular diet seemed to have a meaningful impact on body fat. For Julia, a journalist, it was personal: Why had she, like so many others, struggled with body weight? We had both assumed the mystery of obesity would be solved through a better understanding of individual biology and each person finding the right diet for him or her. If you are interested in health and wellness, your social media feed is probably flooded with such advice — influencers spouting tips on protocols and products that promise to optimize your individual health. After we wrote a book on what shapes eating behavior, we now know that these individual wellness fixes are a trillion-dollar distraction from addressing the root cause of America’s chronic disease crisis: our toxic food environment.”
Mission Barns launches cultivated pork in world-first dinner (green queen). “Californian startup Mission Barns sold its cultivated pork for the first time at a dinner in San Francisco, with dishes featuring its meatballs and bacon,” reports Anay Mridul. “On Tuesday evening in San Francisco’s Sunset District, a small group of diners gathered for the first sale of cultivated pork anywhere in the world. Food tech firm Mission Barns held the exclusive dinner at Fiorella, weeks after securing approval from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its cultivated pork fat. The event was the first of three pop-up dinners, convening six industry leaders and one sweepstakes winner.”
MAHA promised healthier kids. But school lunches may deliver less. (Capital & Main). “Make America Healthy Again arrived with big promises for kids: an end to chronic disease, a focus on nutrition and healthier school meals,” writes Stacie Stukin. “For school food professionals and public health advocates, it seemed like an unexpected win that could benefit the millions of children who rely on federal school meals. But those hopes are colliding with reality. Despite MAHA’s rhetoric, the Trump administration has cut programs supporting children’s health and school nutrition. As the school year begins, nutrition experts warn that the administration’s policies contradict the stated MAHA agenda. Ending the farm-to-school food programs undermines local economies and limits access to local produce, dairy and meat. President Donald Trump’s signature ‘Big Beautiful’ legislation also includes deep cuts to SNAP and Medicaid benefits, depriving children access to medical care and food stamp benefits. When those reductions take effect in 2027, they will also limit access to healthy food at school: Eligibility for discounted meals is tied to SNAP participation.”
What’s new in school lunchrooms: Less sugar, more from scratch (New York Times). “School cafeterias in America serve 45 million meals a day. If they were a restaurant chain, it would be the largest in the country,” reports Kim Severson. “The new school year brings some tighter nutritional standards, and limits food purchased from other countries, like bananas, to 10 percent of what’s served. Menus are under new scrutiny from the “Make America Healthy Again” arm of the Trump administration. Dozens of states are working to eliminate artificial food dyes and other additives. School nutrition directors are bracing for the impact of federal budget cuts and updated federal dietary guidelines, which could be issued this month, and set the direction of school food for the next five years. And then there is the biggest challenge of all: how to satisfy the fast-changing tastes of a generation of food-savvy children. Here’s a look at what’s new in the lunch line.”
Food-makers are phasing out artificial dyes. The problem: Americans love the color (NPR). “Cupcake icing and sports drinks — in all their crayon-like colors — are the final frontiers for Nick Scheidler‘s team. Scheidler leads product development at Walmart’s Sam’s Club, which in 2022 committed to — by the end of this year — remove dozens of ingredients from its store brand called Member’s Mark,” reports Alina Selyukh. “That includes high-fructose corn syrup, some preservatives and artificial dyes. The latter proved the trickiest. ‘We’re not going to send muted colors out into the market, right?’ says Scheidler. They’re spending millions to keep shoppers from noticing the switch to natural dyes, striving for vibrancy and saturation to match the old look, bright and vivid. Over time, between natural instincts and nurture by marketing, data shows that people do eat with their eyes first — and colors change how we evaluate taste before ever taking a bite or a sip. Is this investment of time and money — to make natural colors look less so — worth it?”
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