Happy Friday, and welcome to Food Fix. I didn’t have Coca-Cola tizzy on my bingo card for this week, but alas here we are!
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Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
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Is Trump really getting Coca-Cola to switch to sugar? What we know so far.
Amid everything else going on in the world, President Donald Trump took to social media on Wednesday and suggested that all-American Coca-Cola might be switching back to sugar.
“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” Trump wrote. “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”
Within no time, there were headlines claiming that Coca-Cola was wholesale switching away from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is what it uses now, to sugar, which is what it used to use (and still uses in some other countries, as well as special product lines sold in the U.S.).
Metabolic wash: Some key “Make America Healthy Again” influencers cast this as a win for health. And sure, sugar may taste better, and some consumers certainly prefer a simpler ingredient list, but the idea that sugar-sweetened beverages are healthier than HFCS-sweetened ones isn’t supported by evidence.
“They are both equally bad for you,” Robert Lustig, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, told Newsweek. “They both cause mitochondrial dysfunction and chronic metabolic disease.”
Real or fake? I was immediately skeptical about this whole thing: Switching back to sugar would be a major change for one of the most iconic products in the U.S. A change of this magnitude would be carefully thought out and planned, not blurted out by a politician on social media. It all seemed too chaotic. And that’s even before you get into the economics of such a move: Sugar can be twice as expensive as HFCS.
While the press ran with these headlines Wednesday, the assumptions started to come back down to earth by Thursday as more people realized Coca-Cola wasn’t actually confirming that this was really happening. (They weren’t denying it, either.)
“We appreciate President Trump’s enthusiasm for our iconic Coca‑Cola brand,” the company said in a statement. “More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca‑Cola product range will be shared soon.”
Reading between the lines: The more I asked around about this, the more I started to think it may have been a big miscommunication — perhaps a game of telephone that had gone wrong. Some of the smartest food policy insiders I know were starting to chalk it up to “fake news” — a term I loathe but that may well apply here. Based on the conversations I’ve had, it seems much more likely that Coca-Cola is going to offer more products that have sugar vs. HFCS, not that the company is going to completely ditch HFCS. Either way, Coca-Cola seems to be buying itself some time with this coy statement.
Corn refiners displeased: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Corn Refiners Association, which represents the makers of HFCS, issued a fairly blunt statement about the idea.
“Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar doesn’t make sense,” said John Bode, president and CEO of the Corn Refiners Association. “President Trump stands for American manufacturing jobs, American farmers, and reducing the trade deficit. Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar would cost thousands of American food manufacturing jobs, depress farm income, and boost imports of foreign sugar, all with no nutritional benefit.”
Wall Street moves: Whether real or fake, it was enough to move the market. Both Archer-Daniels-Midland and Ingredion (major makers of HFCS) saw shares fall over the news. Raw sugar futures went up. PepsiCo’s CEO, Ramon Laguarta, was asked about the news on CNBC this week. Laguarta said Thursday that 60 percent of the company’s U.S. beverages don’t have corn syrup and instead either have sugar or no sugar.
“Sugar is more expensive in the U.S. than in many parts of the world, so I think there is a conversation with the government probably on how do we make sugar more affordable in the U.S., how do we have a farming strategy probably that reduces the cost of sugar and that will facilitate a lot of the transition for us [and] for the whole industry,” Laguarta said. “We have choices for the consumer, which, at the end, that’s what we as a responsible company need to do in the marketplace.”
Distraction to the max: Of course, plenty of people on the internet were speculating that this was all just a fizzy, sugary distraction because the president is under increasing pressure from his own base to release the Epstein files. I’m certainly not going to get into that whole mess, you can check the memes yourself, but this does seem like it came out of left field.
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What I’m reading
The states are going full RFK Jr. (The Atlantic). “Though RFK Jr. has the power to enact monumental change, much of MAHA’s actual successes at reforming the American diet haven’t come from Washington,” writes Nicholas Florko. “While states pass law after law cracking down on food, Kennedy’s own biggest action to date has been relatively modest: a campaign pressuring food companies to voluntarily remove synthetic food dyes from their products. The states are out-MAHAing the MAHA king, much to his pleasure. Kennedy’s strategy appears to be by design. Banning ingredients requires new regulations, something the Trump administration disdains. In January, Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring that for every new rule enacted, the government would have to shed 10. By regulating food through handshake agreements and relying on states to enact their own policies, Kennedy is getting his way without having to deal with all of the red tape.”
Why MAHA’s push on Coca-Cola and ice cream is ‘nutritionally hilarious’ (STAT). “Getting Coca-Cola to use cane sugar rather than corn syrup and ice cream manufacturers to stop their use of synthetic dyes are the latest achievements trumpeted by the Make America Healthy Again movement as part of its quest to reform the U.S. food supply. But nutrition experts say that despite MAHA’s rhetoric, these kinds of changes won’t move the needle when it comes to Americans’ health,” Sarah Todd writes. “Whether Coca-Cola contains cane sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, said Marion Nestle, one of the country’s foremost nutrition experts, it will still contain virtually the same amount of calories and lots of sugar. Warning labels on ultra-processed foods high in sodium, added sugar, and saturated fat would make a demonstrable impact on Americans’ health, said Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. But so far, the MAHA movement is ‘not going after policy, but making these comments and statements and industry is responding because there’s a whole lot of MAHA followers out there … the reality is, the industry knows it’s meaningless.’”
Is this restaurant the only thing Democrats and Republicans agree on? (New York Times). “If there’s one thing Washington insiders can agree on, it’s that bipartisanship is dead in the nation’s capital. The one exception may be a casual Italian restaurant called Ama,” writes Jane Black. “The House minority leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, has been spotted there on several occasions, as have his fellow Democrats Chellie Pingree, a representative from Maine, and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. From the Republican side, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. Marty Makary, has eaten there. So has President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Casey Means, who lauded Ama as a ‘must try’ restaurant in her ‘Good Energy’ newsletter. Vani Hari, a rising figure in the Make America Healthy Again movement who calls herself the Food Babe, said that on her way into town, she sometimes directs her Uber driver to go to Ama straight from the airport.”
Texas probes M&M maker Mars over use of synthetic food dyes (Reuters). “Texas’ attorney general said on Wednesday he has begun investigating Mars, which makes M&M’s and Skittles candies, for its alleged refusal to remove synthetic food dyes from its products,” reports Jonathan Stempel. “Ken Paxton, the attorney general, said in a statement that he issued a civil investigative demand for documents from Mars, as he examines whether the family-owned company violated consumers’ rights through deceptive trade practices. Paxton said Mars has not fulfilled its 2016 pledge to remove all artificial colors from food products, saying it had removed ‘toxic’ dyes in Europe but not the United States. The McLean, Virginia-based company has said people’s attitudes toward food dyes vary by location, with European consumers preferring that dyes be removed from some foods while other consumers preferring to keep them.”
FDA revoking ‘Standards of Identity’ for more than 50 foods (Food Safety News). “The FDA is revoking or proposing to revoke 52 food standards saying they are obsolete. Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration announced that advances in food science and consumer protections have made the standards unnecessary,” Coral Beach reports. “The FDA began establishing Standards of Identity (SOI) in 1939 and has since put into place more than 250 of the consumer protections. Products including milk, milk chocolate, various breads, peanut butter and ketchup have an SOI. The standards often describe in detail what a food must contain and what is optional and sometimes describe the amount or proportion of ingredients or components. Many SOIs also prescribe a method of production or formulation. The goal of the plan to revoke SOIs is to permit the food industry flexibility of the covered foods, according to the announcement from the FDA. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the changes would benefit consumers. ‘I’m eliminating outdated food regulations that no longer serve the interests of American families,’ Kennedy said.”
A conservative Vt. dairy farmer fears being separated from the migrant workers he considers family (Boston Globe). “As the youngest of 12 siblings, John Morin grew up accustomed to a crowd in the house on his father’s dairy farm. Half a century later, the modest, two-story home on the Vermont side of the Canadian border remains just as bustling. Morin, 56, has no children. But for the past decade, Guatemalan farm worker Wuendy Bernardo, her partner, and their growing family, which now includes seven kids, have lived on the second floor,” writes Paul Heintz. “Over time, the relationship between the self-described conservative farmer and his migrant workers has deepened. Of Vermont’s 14 counties, Orleans was one of two Trump won in 2024. But Morin says there’s a growing, if quiet, discontent among local farmers. ‘I think a lot of people are not happy at all,’ he said. ‘Now we gotta worry about losing our help. We’re just trying to make a living and feed the country.’”
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