America’s food fight
There’s a food fight going on in America, and it’s being waged at the highest levels of government, academia, agribusiness, and the medical establishment.
Last November I wrote an article entitled “Why is our government whiffing on ultra-processed foods?”:
“The nutrition experts tasked with crafting the guidelines—the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee—consisting of 20 academics, rendered their verdict last month: They failed the American public.”
Federal officials drafting the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans said the data were “far too limited to draw conclusions” about the harmful effects of ultra-processed foods.
At that time, the Minneapolis Star Tribune headlined:
I wrote then: “What’s the hold up?! We know UPFs are bad for us. But the ‘experts’ can’t decide. Sounds like a classic case of ‘analysis paralysis’. Ultra-processed foods now comprise 2/3 of calories in children and teen diets. It’s been established that UPF consumption is connected to 32 negative health outcomes.”
Moreover, the proposed DGAs double-down on discredited notions that animal protein and saturated fat should be drastically curtailed. An NBC report hails: “U.S. dietary guidelines should emphasize beans and lentils as protein, new proposal says”. Nutrition overseers continue to prioritize “planetary health” over human nutritional requirements.
I’ll stick to my guns about what I wrote regarding the EAT-Lancet nutrition blueprint in 2019:
“It’s one thing to claim that it’s healthier for humans to eschew most animal protein. But to hitch that proposition—which remains highly contested—to a completely separate and distinct controversial environmental agenda is rhetorically powerful, but inherently unscientific. It’s almost like saying: ‘Even if we’re jumping the gun about the universal health benefits of minimizing animal protein consumption, there’s a planetary emergency that dictates immediate rationing of meat.’ But even if the far-reaching environmental benefits were to pan out—which is debatable—does this justify inflicting an academic’s version of a healthy diet on every man, woman and child on Earth?”
But, thankfully, the flawed U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommendations remain subject to review, and RFK Jr. is the new sheriff at HHS, which oversees the USDA, responsible for finalizing the 2025-2030 goals. Last week USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins signaled a repudiation of last year’s DGA advisory committee work product:
“It is the dawn of a new day. The Trump-Vance Administration supports transformational opportunities to create and implement policies that promote healthy choices, healthy families, and healthy outcomes. Secretary Kennedy and I have a powerful, complementary role in this, and it starts with updating federal dietary guidance. We will make certain the 2025-2030 Guidelines are based on sound science, not political science”
RFK Jr. added: “We are going to make sure the dietary guidelines will reflect the public interest and serve public health, rather than special interests. This is a giant step in making America the healthiest country in the world.”
Given RFK Jr’s vociferous opposition to ultra-processed foods, embrace of wholesome alternatives to refined seed oils, and rejection of anti-meat and anti-full-fat dairy dogma, the next iteration of the DGAs might actually mean something for the health of Americans.
“We’re in the middle of right now, very, very energetically, revising the nutrition guidelines,” Kennedy told reporters. “There’s a 453-page document that looks like it was written by the food processing industry. And we’re going to come up with a document that is simple, that lets people know, with great clarity, what kind of foods their children need to eat, what kind of foods they can eat, and what’s good for them.”
Meanwhile, efforts are underway, by individual states, and by the Federal government, to roll back SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) subsidies for Big Soda. Under current guidelines, sugar-laden drinks and candy are covered for the millions of Americans who shop with SNAP cards. Soda beverages are the biggest single grocery category charged to SNAP.
The beverage industry has launched a determined campaign to block these reforms under the guise of “protecting consumer choice”. They claim it’s Americans’ inalienable right to receive government assistance to purchase addictive sugar water that results in amputations, dialysis, and sky-high medical expenses—while taxpayer-funded health programs spiral toward insolvency.
Recently the American Heart Association embarrassed itself by dispatching a lobbyist to the Texas legislature who aligned with equity advocates to support a bill that would bar restrictions on SNAP purchases of soda and candy. When confronted, however, AHA quickly reversed position, blaming the episode on a “miscommunication”.
Another harmful food category in the crosshairs: Artificial food dyes. Europe already restricts many, and the FDA recently banned Red Dye #3 in acknowledgement of its carcinogenic potential. California has enacted more restrictive bans on artificial food dyes, and other states are poised to follow suit.
Part of the problem with the current system is that it allows GRAS (generally recognized as safe) food additives to proliferate—there are more than 10,000. The FDA hasn’t reviewed these GRAS ingredients in decades. Many are benign, like salt and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Others are sketchy industrial chemicals like emulsifiers, preservatives, fillers, texturizers and flavoring agents which many believe transform ultra-processed foods into irresistible delivery systems for harmful, unnatural additives.
The process by which these substances are introduced has been via industry “self-affirmation”; basically, companies perform rudimentary research to demonstrate their ingredients’ safety, and FDA goes along with their declarations. The result has been a torrent of unsafe chemical additives.
Consumer Reports complained in 2016:
“In all, there are an estimated 1,000 GRAS substances for which safety decisions were made by the food industry without any notice at all to FDA, and thousands more chemicals for which both proof of safety and continued federal oversight are minimal.”
Secretary Kennedy realizes the urgent need for reform and called in March for elimination of the GRAS self-affirmation “loophole”. But therein lies peril for consumers of supplements: hundreds of beneficial ingredients like EGCG, curcumin, and quercetin that benefit from GRAS status would be relegated to regulatory limbo if self-affirmation is scrapped entirely—it’s like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I’m proud to announce that my organization, the Alliance for Natural Health, has taken the lead in proposing a better solution that is gaining traction in the new administration and among natural product shareholders:
“The battle for a cleaner food supply has begun, and Secretary Kennedy is on the front lines. Today we’ve released our strategic weapon—a ground-breaking white paper with a detailed plan to target and eradicate toxins, protect vital nutrients, and enforce unprecedented transparency. This is not a request; it’s a demand for a safer, healthier future for all Americans.”
- Prioritizes the removal of truly harmful ingredients from the market.
- Preserves access to safe, health-promoting ingredients used in supplements, functional foods, and natural products.
- Creates a GRAS Transparency Register, making all GRAS determinations public for review by independent experts, consumer groups, and researchers.
- Introduces a tiered, proportionate risk assessment model rooted in the Paracelsian, rather than the precautionary, principle—i.e., “the dose makes the poison”—so that low-risk ingredients aren’t treated the same as high-risk ones. Some of the most hazardous additives on the US market have been previously approved by the FDA.
- Avoids importing overly precautionary European-style policies that unnecessarily limit consumer access to beneficial nutrients and foods.
It’s high time we recognize that medical care alone won’t halt the spread of metabolic diseases that sicken and kill Americans. Let’s finally get food policy right.