Happy Friday, and welcome to Food Fix. Have any of you watched Zach Galifianakis’ new show about gardening? It looks delightful. I need to get on it.
Podcasts galore: Listen up, podcast people! We’ve got some new episodes for your queue:
This week on American Dish, I talked to Rocco Renaldi, secretary general of the International Food and Beverage Alliance, about the ultra-processed foods debate.
Over at Forked, Theodore Ross and I have a bonus episode with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). We talked about everything from MAHA politics to the future of the farm bill.
I also joined The Resetter Podcast with Mindy Pelz to talk about the state of food policy in the U.S. more broadly.
Don’t miss out: The best way to make sure you don’t miss a beat in food policy is to upgrade to a paid subscription and get Food Fix in your inbox twice per week. Almost everyone who upgrades finds it valuable.
As always, I welcome your feedback. Send me your thoughts by replying to this email, or drop me a line: helena@foodfix.co.
Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
***
FDA ‘reset’ raises fresh food policy concerns
The MAHA roller coaster continued this week: FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned on Tuesday after several days of uncertainty about whether he was about to get fired (he was).
The Wall Street Journal’s Liz Essley Whyte, who first scooped Makary was about to get fired, and Josh Dawsey published a tick-tock of what led to Makary’s ouster. It’s worth a read: At one point, tobacco executives met (over cheeseburgers) with President Donald Trump at his Jupiter, Fla., golf course to complain about FDA’s lack of approval for flavored vapes. Makary had reportedly been an obstacle to the approvals over concerns about fruit flavors enticing children to take up vaping. Even though the FDA ultimately did Trump’s bidding and approved the vapes in question – woof – it wasn’t enough to save Makary. Plenty of interests were deeply unhappy with him, from pharma leaders to rare disease advocates to anti-abortion activists, to name a few.
“In the end, Dr. Marty Makary had just about run out of allies,” Whyte and Dawsey wrote.
The one faction I saw loudly defend Makary this week were Make America Healthy Again advocates. It ultimately didn’t make a difference, but it was interesting. MAHA advocates have been big fans of Makary. He had far more interest in food than most FDA commissioners, he was against food dyes, cared about infant formula, and he even threw shade at seed oils once in a while.
Acting MAHA: While MAHA defended Makary to the end, key voices in the movement also cheered the fact that Kyle Diamantas, deputy commissioner for human foods at FDA, was chosen to serve as acting commissioner until a new leader can be confirmed. Diamantas is also on team MAHA. Before holding his current post at FDA, Diamantas was a lawyer at Jones Day and known to be hunting buddies with Donald Trump Jr. The hunting connection has sparked plenty of mockery, but Diamantas is respected by a broad array of stakeholders, from industry to consumer groups, and has earned a reputation of being no-drama amid a sea of chaos.
The F in FDA: The drama surrounding the FDA commissioner this week sparked a lot of hot takes about what’s next for the agency.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who is chairman of the Senate HELP Committee, is not pleased that the Trump administration is letting a “food guy” lead the FDA, which oversees 80 percent of the U.S. food supply.
In the Washington Examiner this week, Cassidy called Diamantas “a food guy, good guy, no complaints.” But he said he’s concerned that Diamantas, who is a lawyer, not a physician (FDA commissioners are usually doctors), doesn’t have the expertise to handle “the bulk of their business” at the agency.
“I don’t mean to disrespect him, but if you look at the Food and Drug Administration, the relative importance of both parts of that, having an experience in health care and the approval of drugs is far more important than the food,” Cassidy said, per that report.
Quiet part out loud: Cassidy’s unusually blunt assessment of the competing priorities at FDA gets at a long-running tension between the medical side of FDA, which regulates drugs, medical devices, etc., and just about everything else the agency oversees. There’s been a long-running joke in Washington that the F in FDA is silent – FDA commissioners have even been known to slip up and call it the “Federal Drug Administration.” But the FDA oversees something like one fifth of all consumer spending – it’s not just drugs, it’s also food, cosmetics, tobacco, veterinary medicine, pet food, and even microwaves.
While we’re here: Cassidy, a physician, pays little attention to the foods side of FDA. I can’t think of a single hearing he’s held on food issues as chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over the agency. Congress in general pays little attention to the foods side of FDA until there’s a disaster like the infant formula crisis. Medical issues have long taken up all the oxygen.
(Speaking of Cassidy, he’s facing a very tough primary election this weekend and could very well lose his seat in the Senate to Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) who is endorsed by Trump and backed by MAHA groups.)
Reset button: Plenty of commentators this week noted that it won’t be easy to find a new FDA commissioner. Not only is this a huge job (maybe too big for one person at this point), but whoever comes in will have to contend with the same toxic political dynamics that Makary faced. The vape incident is its own humiliating warning shot.
Over at the Washington Post, the editorial board argued that Makary’s resignation offers FDA a chance for a “desperately needed reset.” The editorial was heavily focused on gripes about drug regulation, but it did manage to mention food policy.
The Post’s editorial argued that Diamantas “could push for more heavy regulation of food, another pillar of the MAHA movement. [HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] remains determined to ban a long list of chemicals and dyes while adding new labeling requirements. The backlash to Makary is a warning for the next director to tread carefully when telling Americans what they can eat.”
This is a baffling take.
FDA has not issued a single new food regulation during this administration. FDA has not banned a single food chemical during this administration. (Yes, the agency has asked the food industry to remove synthetic food dyes, and many companies have pledged to do so – TBD). FDA has not banned a single food product during this administration.
Perhaps this is a reminder that the rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration is giving the broad impression (even among editorial board members who should know better) that there’s been a lot of action on food policy. Rhetoric and regulation are not the same.
What’s next: The Trump administration is now searching for a new FDA commissioner. None of the names I’ve seen circulating have much of a record on food issues, but that would be par for the course.
***
What I’m reading
Why did Bill Cassidy do it? (The Atlantic). “Last month, as we shuffled through the U.S. Senate subway, a subterranean corridor connecting lawmakers’ offices to the Capitol, [Bill Cassidy] from Louisiana was fielding rapid-fire questions from reporters about two of his favorite topics: drug pricing and college sports. But I asked him about his least favorite: Did he regret confirming Kennedy as health secretary?” writes Nicholas Florko. “I was eager to know because, in spite of that decision, Cassidy may be looking at the end of his political career. This weekend, after 11 years in the Senate, he is headed into a Republican primary election with polls trending out of his favor. … But Cassidy refuses to acknowledge that he made a mistake by confirming Kennedy. In the Senate subway that day, he sidestepped. ‘I’m a doctor. You make a decision, you move on,’ he told me. In Louisiana, being anti-Kennedy means being anti-Trump. And the problem for Cassidy is that many of his constituents already see him as both.”
Protein powder shortage threatens America’s biggest food craze (Food Dive). “Consumers can’t seem to get enough of protein. But a looming shortage means companies may not be able to get enough, either,” Sarah Zimmerman reports. “Once considered a cheap byproduct of the cheese manufacturing process, whey protein concentrate is one of the most in-demand ingredients as food and beverage manufacturers look to capitalize on surging demand for protein-fortified products. The unprecedented demand is creating shortages, with some suppliers sold out for the remainder of the year, according to the USDA. Unsurprisingly, the dearth of supply is leading to higher prices. Standard whey powder prices have increased by more than 50% since January, according to DCA Market Intelligence. … The popular nutrient has infiltrated nearly every aisle of the grocery store, with protein finding its way into Pop-Tarts, Kraft Mac & Cheese and Doritos. As food companies struggle with slowing sales, adding protein has become a popular way to reignite growth and command price premiums.”
Can MAHA change the way medical schools teach nutrition? (Civil Eats). “There has long been bipartisan agreement that medical schools should incorporate more nutrition research, and it has been a longstanding goal of the Make America Healthy Again movement,” writes Rebekah Alvey. “But the idea has gained renewed attention as Kennedy, during more recent appearances on Capitol Hill, has highlighted the medical school agreements as key to addressing chronic health conditions. Kennedy recently told lawmakers that the number of schools that have signed on to the agreement has increased in the month since the March announcement. He said the administration is also working with states to pass legislation mandating that medical schools offer more nutrition studies. Already, a portion of the schools that signed onto the agreement say they are offering more nutrition curriculum than the administration is seeking. While some of the schools are looking to expand the number of required hours, others are planning to modernize the existing curriculum.”
‘Sermonizing’ Easter email prompts USDA employees to sue agency (Government Executive). “A group of Agriculture Department workers and the National Federation of Federal Employees union on Wednesday filed a lawsuit over an email to the agency’s workforce celebrating the Easter holiday sent by Secretary Brooke Rollins,” reports Sean Michael Newhouse. “Specifically, the plaintiffs objected to language in the communication that assumes the recipient is Christian such as: ‘Today we celebrate the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind.’ ‘We work for the federal government, not a church. I just want to go to work and make my country better – I shouldn’t have to suffer through sermons and other religious messages forced upon me by the head of a federal agency,’ said plaintiff Ethan Roberts, an atheist and Agricultural Research Service employee based out of Illinois, in a press release statement. … The lawsuit asks the courts to bar department officials from ‘continuing to send or otherwise communicate proselytizing Christian messages to USDA employees,’ arguing that Rollins violated the First Amendment.”
6 takeaways from STAT’s investigation into the U.S. alcohol epidemic (STAT). “To most Americans, alcohol is an innocuous part of everyday life, so commonplace as to go unnoticed. But the nation’s everyday drug is also the culprit behind its most enduring and overlooked drug crisis,” Isabella Cueto and Lev Facher report. “Drinking, and especially heavy use, is driving an epidemic of injuries, illnesses, and deaths in the United States. Despite recent declines in drinking, alcohol remains the nation’s deadliest drug – more deadly than opioids, fentanyl, methamphetamines, or heroin. Alcohol kills 178,000 Americans each year and sickens countless more. Yet the public, corporations, lawmakers, and federal officials mostly act as though the problem doesn’t exist. This widespread denial pervades even the Trump administration, which, more than any administration in recent memory, is attuned to the burden of addiction. The Deadliest Drug, a new investigative series by STAT, reveals the nation is failing in key areas.”
The MAHA movement is coming to school cafeterias. Here’s what that means for kids (NPR). “Nichole Taylor, supervisor of food and nutrition services at the Great Valley School District in Malvern, Pennsylvania … has been working to refresh the suburban Philadelphia district’s meal program since she took over a year and a half ago, trying to balance a desire to cook more fresh food from scratch with budget constraints and a lack of skilled labor,” Joe Hernandez writes. “But now, districts like Taylor’s and others across the U.S. are waiting to see whether it will become even more expensive to prepare a meal. That’s because in January, the Trump administration overhauled the national dietary guidelines. Announced by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., they follow the Make America Healthy Again blueprint, urging Americans to avoid highly processed foods and prioritize ‘high-quality, nutrient-dense’ protein at every meal. … Yet many districts rely on processed, premade foods to feed their students, and protein is already the most expensive ingredient on the cafeteria plate, school nutrition experts say.”
This Company Was an American Success Story. Until MAHA Influencers Sank It. (The Free Press). “All it took was two Facebook posts to turn an online mob against Apeel Sciences and its booming business of keeping food fresh longer,” reports Laurie Cohen. “On that day, at exactly 10:21 a.m. ET, two Facebook posts falsely claimed that Apeel’s product ‘can’t be washed off’ and warned viewers not to ‘eat anything with the Apeel sticker on it.’ The posts linked to the ingredients of a floor cleaner also called Apeel but made by a UK company. Within hours, the posts ricocheted across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram, Rumble, and Reddit. The posts ignored the fact that the [FDA] and the European Food Safety Authority had separately evaluated Apeel, and found no safety concerns. Or that most of the produce sold in stores is coated with a thin layer of wax. This was an online mob, wielding disinformation and threats. And no one could stop it.”
***
Why you should upgrade to a paid Food Fix subscription
Become a paid subscriber to unlock access to two newsletters each week, packed with insight, analysis and exclusive reporting on what’s happening in food, in Washington and beyond. You’ll also get full access to the Food Fix archive – a great way to get smart on all things food policy.
Expense it: Most paid subscribers expense their subscriptions through work. It’s worth asking!
Discounts: We also offer discounts for government, academia and students. See our subscription options. Individuals who participate in SNAP or other federal nutrition programs qualify for a free Food Fix subscription – just email info@foodfix.co.
Get the Friday newsletter: If someone forwarded you this email, sign yourself up for the free Friday edition of Food Fix. You can also follow Food Fix on X, Bluesky and LinkedIn.
See you next week!
