Happy Friday, and welcome to Food Fix. It’s been quite a week. Not sure what you all were predicting, but I told paid subscribers on Tuesday I thought Vice President Kamala Harris was likely to win, largely based on the J. Ann Selzer poll, which has historically been very accurate. I was very wrong, as was that poll! I think I’ll stick to my day job of reporting on food policy and leave the political predictions to the experts (though plenty of them were wrong, too!)
Food Fix in the press: I was quoted last weekend in the style section of The Washington Post for a profile of conservative wellness influencer Alex Clark. The profile by Kara Voght is worth a read if you’re trying to understand the growing “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which is now part of president-elect Donald Trump’s platform.
You know the drill: I love getting feedback from you all. Reply to this email to land in my inbox, or drop me a note: helena@foodfix.co.
Alright, let’s get to it —
Helena
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What food policy looks like in a Trump administration
In the wake of Donald Trump’s big win this week — not just the Electoral College, but also likely the popular vote, the Senate and the House — those who work in the food space, from anti-hunger and consumer advocates to food industry leaders, are now trying to prepare for what’s to come.
It certainly seems logical to look at the first Trump administration for clues about how the second one will go. As I’ve previously noted, President Trump was generally pretty favorable to the food and ag industries. Sure he got us into a trade war, but the government paid out tens of billions in direct aid to farmers to help make up for the damage. The administration’s agenda did not square with this new Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) message that Trump has recently adopted. During the first term, Trump reversed a proposed ban on the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which has been tied to developmental disabilities in children, relaxed school nutrition standards and certainly did not crack down on chemicals or contaminants in the food supply.
Top Trump surrogates now insist that things will be different this time around in part because Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine critic who has historically not been taken seriously in Washington, will have major sway over a number of key public health agencies, including HHS, FDA, CDC, NIH, and USDA. The argument that no really, this time will be different goes like this: Last time, Trump let corporate lobbyists overrun his transition and swamp the thousands of political appointees they needed to name, but he learned his lesson, and he will not make this mistake again.
In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Trump said he would let Kennedy “go wild” on health issues.
Time will tell, of course. Many DC veterans are skeptical, to say the least, that RFK world will be able to withstand a barrage of industry lobbying against the MAHA agenda. It’s also confusing because Project 2025 — which Trump has tried to distance himself from — doesn’t match the MAHA message either. That platform proposes things like relaxing regulations on infant formula, making it easier to bring biotech crops to market and repealing mandatory GMO disclosure on food packages, among other things.
In the meantime, key voices in Trump’s orbit met in Palm Beach, Fla. this week to discuss high-level strategy on health. According to the Wall Street Journal, the meeting included Kennedy, Tucker Carlson, former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and Donald Trump Jr., who is seen as a major ally of the MAHA platform. Don Jr. attended the confab “to ensure the effort to roll out health reforms is not subverted by industry,” per WSJ. “Inside the Trump campaign, Kennedy’s plans are referred to as an ‘Operation Warp Speed for chronic disease.’”
Left and right shakeup: The entire time I’ve been on the food policy beat — 15 years at this point — the conventional wisdom has been as follows: Republicans are more deregulatory and thus friendlier to industry. It doesn’t always hold true, but on nutrition issues it mostly does. I remember when Fox News, certain food industry leaders and Republicans on Capitol Hill lost their minds over former first lady Michelle Obama trying to improve the health profile of school meals, including a push to get fruits and vegetables onto plates while cutting sodium and adding whole grains. It was, at the time, derided as nanny state overreach, even though the meals are taxpayer funded.
Fast forward to today, and RFK Jr. is now saying he would “immediately” get rid of all processed food from the National School Lunch Program — a much more radical change that could cost billions to implement because many schools lack kitchens and the labor force to do scratch cooking (though it could certainly be done if Washington decided it was a priority).
Kennedy has suggested in recent days he could have some sort of White House position, perhaps a health czar type post, with broad remit over health-related agencies that would also avoid the hassle of Senate confirmation.
Conflicts first on tap: For today’s newsletter I was originally thinking I’d go over a couple of the policy priorities Kennedy has laid out and walk through how, hypothetically, they could be accomplished. But as I checked in with sources, it became clear that the transition is not quite thinking about policy mechanics, at least not yet.
I talked to Calley Means, the co-founder of Truemed, who has become an influential advisor at the crux of the Kennedy-Trump alliance, and was at Mar-a-Lago all day Wednesday with the transition team. Means told me that the administration’s first focus is likely to be on ridding the agencies of conflicts of interest. In the first six months, the goal is “getting research accurate, getting conflicts of interest out of the USDA’s nutrition guidelines committee,” Means said.
“We need a definitive report on glyphosate, we need a definitive report on the food colorings,” Means said. “The problem is the food industry owns nutrition science — it’s an orgy of corruption.”
“Getting conflicts out of nutrition science is the first priority,” Means explained. “Policy flows from the science, and the science has been captured. Priority one is reinstating sanity and getting corruption out of the science.”
MAHA world is particularly angry about the forthcoming scientific report from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a copy of which Means told me was leaked to him. “The report says that 38 percent of teens have prediabetes,” Means said. “It’s a disgrace. There’s no statement on processed foods. The Dietary Guidelines committee is a disgrace and an insult to American children. It’s an abomination.” (An update to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is due in 2025, but Means declined to comment on what that policy might look like in a Trump administration. The expert committee advises the government on the latest science, but USDA and HHS jointly write and issue the final guidelines.)
A Big Ag misunderstanding: While much of the Trump-Kennedy agenda has been focused on tackling chronic diseases — and also removing fluoride from municipal water, which alarms public health leaders — RFK Jr. has also rankled agriculture industry groups with his talk of radically reforming U.S. ag policy from the ground up. A long list of farm and agriculture groups sent a letter to Capitol Hill last month urging lawmakers to keep a “science-based” approach to ag policy.
Means told me this week he believes “Big Ag is misunderstanding what a Kennedy and Trump administration will look like.”
“The vision President Trump and Bobby Kennedy are painting is actually opening up the golden age for farming,” Means said. “We have an obesity crisis, and there’s a bill to send $1 trillion a year to a Denmark pharmaceutical company to prescribe Ozempic. What Bobby Kennedy and Trump have said is we need to rejuvenate our agriculture system, support American farmers and elevate them as an important player in our health ecosystem.”
“The plan is to bring farmers to the table,” Means said. “There is nobody in the agriculture system that thinks our current subsidy system is functional, that things are working well. We’re the agricultural power of the world, but 20 percent of our children are malnourished. Our soil is depleted, our food is less nutrient-dense, we’ve obviously lost our way when it comes to dependence on ultra-processed food and the thousands of ingredients that are being phased out of every other country. Everyone agrees behind closed doors that we need to look at the pesticides and herbicides we use on our food.”
“There’s an opportunity to bring stakeholders to the table and determine a new subsidy system,” Means said. “To unleash the American farmer to produce the world’s healthiest, most nutritious, highest quality food into the next 50 years.”
Farm bill reforms: I asked if this meant getting involved in the next farm bill. “Yeah. There’s not one stakeholder in the agriculture system that says anything other than that the farm bill is a dysfunctional dumpster fire.”
“When everyone agrees the current system is a dumpster fire that’s not serving farmers or children or any other stakeholders, there’s an opportunity to come together and work together to forge new agriculture policies that incentivize the thriving of American farmers.”
“Farmers need to be at the center,” he added.
MAHA warnings + Wall Street vibes: While we’re here, MAHA influencers online have been blunt in their warnings to big food companies in the aftermath of the election. “Times up @CocaCola,” wrote conservative wellness activist Alex Clark, on X, where she has more than 100,000 followers. She reposted this and other messages to big companies with the caption: “Sleep tight food and Pharma xoxo” on her Instagram account, which boasts 350,000 followers.
Wall Street doesn’t appear spooked, for whatever it’s worth. Stock prices dipped for a few of the companies that could be subject to increased scrutiny under a MAHA agenda, but it wasn’t dramatic. Coca-Cola was down 2.14 percent, while cereal and snack-maker General Mills Inc. was down 4.22 percent over the last five days. PepsiCo Inc. dropped just 0.76 percent over the same period. WK Kellogg Company, which has been under fire in MAHA world for not removing artificial food dyes from its products, actually saw its stock price go up after the election (the company beat earnings this week).
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What I’m reading
Food companies sell products that are less healthy in poorer countries, says report (Reuters). “The world’s biggest food and beverage companies on average sell products in low-income countries that are less healthy than what they sell in high-income countries, according to a new report. Products sold by companies including Nestle, Pepsico and Unilever were assessed as part of a global index published by the Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI), its first since 2021,” reports Jennifer Rigby. “The non-profit group found that across 30 companies, the products sold in low-income countries scored lower on a star rating system developed in Australia and New Zealand than those sold in high-income countries.”
Undetected bird flu cases prompts call for expanded testing of farm employees (WCNC). “Federal health officials on Thursday called for more testing of employees on farms with bird flu after a new study showed that some dairy workers had signs of infection, even when they didn’t report feeling sick,” reports Jonel Aleccia. “Farmworkers in close contact with infected animals should be tested and offered treatment even if they show no symptoms, said Dr. Nirav Shah, principal director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new guidance comes after blood tests for 115 farmworkers in Michigan and Colorado showed that eight workers — or 7% — had antibodies that indicated previous infection with the virus known as Type A H5N1 influenza.”
Brie cheese sold at Aldi and other stores recalled over listeria risk: Avoid these brands (Today). “Brie and camembert that may potentially be contaminated with listeria are being recalled, the latest in a series of food incidents in the U.S. in recent months,” reports A. Pawlowski. “Savencia Cheese USA is recalling select soft ripened cheeses after routine testing found the processing equipment at the company’s Lena, Illinois, manufacturing facility may have been contaminated with the bacteria. Aldi and Market Basket, a supermarket chain in New England, are among stores that sell the cheeses, but the recalled products only had “limited regional distribution” in the U.S., according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. There are no confirmed reports of anyone getting sick so far, the agency noted.”
People who are desperate to take Ozempic-like drugs are at ‘risk,’ warns FDA (The Focus). “The rush for weight loss drugs like Wegovy and diabetes drugs like Ozempic (which is also used for weight loss) has drained Novo Nordisk’s supplies of each, meaning pharmacies have had to make up the shortfall by combining, mixing, or altering other drugs to meet demand,” writes Bruno Cooke. “US regulations allow this, but the FDA warns that ‘unapproved versions’ of weight loss drugs (and others) can be ‘risky for patients,’ since they don’t undergo the same levels of review. Increased access to the real deal may save thousands of lives, but resorting to copies brings serious health risks. Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company that makes weight-loss injection Wegovy and diabetes drug Ozempic, is aware of 100 hospitalizations and 10 deaths resulting from people taking copies of its popular drugs.”
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