Latest / REAP/SOW / The U.S. has lost 1.2 million immigrants since January. What happens now?

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The U.S. has lost 1.2 million immigrants since January. What happens now? · REAP/SOW

• Theodore Ross: Welcome to Forked: Food Politics in the MAHA Age. I’m Theodore Ross, editor-in-chief of the Food & Environment Reporting Network, and I’m joined by my co-host, Helena Bottemiller Evich from Food Fix. In this episode, we’re having no fun with numbers — 1.2 million fewer immigrants in this country since Donald Trump came to office. We’re also going to talk about CDC cutbacks to FoodNet. You know, the federal system we have to keep an eye on diseases that are spread through food. Is there a MAHA word for E. coli? And finally, what’s the matter with Kansas, where the governor’s refusing to turn over SNAP data to the USDA. Helena, how are you? I hope you are doing well and are ready to talk about some food and politics. Helena: Of course, yeah. Things are good. Theodore: Awesome. So, as always, I want to start off with the good vibe. I mean the double take, excuse me, something in the food system that is so odd or maybe not so great that you do a double take. But before that I want to talk about something else. And I don’t know. I know this is a podcast and most people listen to this podcast, but there are some who watch it on YouTube, and one of the things they may or may not notice is that I always wear a food-themed T-shirt, every time. Helena: I can’t see your T-shirt. What’s your food theme? Theodore: Okay. I’m going to show it right here. My brother brought this back for me. He was in Nepal visiting his daughter, who was on a semester abroad, and it says Yac Donalds. Helena: That’s really fun. Theodore: So I just want to, you know, point that out. For those of you who are out there watching this, that this is what I do for you. I try to keep an attention to the details. It’s not just the subject matter, it’s all the things that go into it. That’s what we do here at Forked. Helena: I love it. Theodore: Great. So, the double take. I’m sort of calling it, you know, FoodNet gets a haircut. And FoodNet is the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what that is and why we’re talking about it? Helena: Yeah, so we basically learned a couple of days ago that due to funding shortfalls, CDC has significantly scaled back this thing that no one has really ever thought about: FoodNet. But basically it’s 10 states and CDC and FDA and all the federal agencies, they work together to actively monitor what foodborne illnesses are occurring across the country. And it also helps us actually get a sense of how many people are getting sick nationally. So we use this to actually extrapolate data. It’s basically like our report card for how well we’re doing, or how well we are not doing, with food safety. And so this is a really important system that basically everyone in the food safety world thinks is needed. We have a couple of other data systems that help track, you know, they’ll match the DNA fingerprints of bacteria across state lines to try to solve outbreaks. These data systems are not controversial. Industry supports them. Public health supports them. And so to see this scaled back — they’re specifically scaling it back from eight pathogens that are actively tracked to two. I mean, literally no one I talk to thinks this is a good idea. They’re, like, this is a bad idea. Theodore: So I have a couple of reactions to this that I want us to walk through. One, I think you should explain this a little bit, what those pathogens are, because, really, this is the Jack in the Box department of federal government, correct? It’s E. coli that got this going, right? Helena: Yeah, so back when Clinton was president — and actually I remember this outbreak vividly, because I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Well, it was national news, but I actually had a classmate almost die when I was in second grade. Yup. Frankie. Theodore: Frankie should not have been eating Jack in the Box. I love fast food, but Jack in the Box is not so good. Helena: It was awful. I remember we were told that Frankie had lost 22 pounds — as a second grader. It was really, really bad. And it was, it was a horrible outbreak. Kids died and were maimed for life. I mean, it was horrible, right? After that disaster is when we got FoodNet. So the federal government was, like, we’ve got to get our act together. We need to have better surveillance. We need to get a better handle on this, and we also need to know when policies are working or not. We need to have data to look at that, and that’s really what FoodNet is for. And so what we’re seeing now is funding cuts. The states are really under pressure. CDC’s not doling out as much money, and so FoodNet is going down from requiring a suite of pathogens that are tracked actively, like campylobacter, which is super common, by the way, cyclospora, which is increasingly common, tied to usually imported produce. Even listeria, which is one we really worry about. We really worry about that one. But they’re going down to just salmonella and basically the most dangerous forms of E. coli. As the mandatory. Some states may still actively track these, but it really shows a disinvestment, and it shows kind of pulling back from this part of the public health system that has been there for decades and that our system has relied on. Theodore: So all right. I want to talk about the bigger picture as it relates to this for a second. But I really, before that, I want to talk about what I think is the most important thing, which is the Rorschach test of the name FoodNet, right? So where you’re coming from in this world, I think, depends on whether or not you see it as either — when I say FoodNet, do you think Skynet or do you think hairnet? Which one is it for you? Helena: Well, when I think of FoodNet, I think I go back to my days — I spent a lot of time as a food safety reporter, right? And so FoodNet, I think of PulseNet, actually. PulseNet is another part of the public health system that matches — it will flag if bacteria match, people get sick, and it’s the same genetic fingerprint. And they’ll start connecting those. And that is another really important system we have. It helps all of our federal disease monitoring systems actually figure out if there’s outbreaks happening. And again, I just want to emphasize how universally accepted it is that we have basic foodborne illness surveillance. It is just not something that’s been debated. You can always improve things. You can maybe make them more efficient, but scaling the stuff back just makes no sense. And I think it’s interesting. No one ever thinks about FoodNet or PulseNet. We shouldn’t have to. It’s just one of those pieces of infrastructure, right, that’s there. Theodore: It’s why we have a government. Helena: It actually bothers me to see FoodNet in the headlines because it just shouldn’t be. I mean, if you talk to any expert, whether they’re Republican, Democrat, industry, public health, they just don’t see this as something we should be weakening. Theodore: So all right. Let’s start to pull back a little bit and sort of try to understand how this all happened. So the reporting on this, as I understand it, came out almost two weeks ago now. I think it was broken at NBC, and it said that they — the CDC, I should say — had quietly scaled back the funding and the mandate for FoodNet. Now a lot of what we talk about, where we get at what’s happening in the HHS and getting at the MAHA movement, it is not about being quietly scaled back. Around the same time, MAHA, I mean, excuse me, HHS, released a new MAHA in Action Tracker. It’s a series of maps showing how well they’ve done. And what I thought was sort of telling here is at around the same time, maybe about the same week that they were cutting the funding for FoodNet, they released, and this is a great press release. It says, “HHS launches MAHA in Action Tracker as public health wins sweep the nation.” I think you can always tell something when a politician is doing something quietly. That means they have a pretty good sense, that they know you’re not going to like it, right? So the juxtaposing those two together, what do you make of that? I mean, are they aware that this is a bad thing and they’re doing it anyway, or they just don’t care about this and so they’re just keeping it quiet? Helena: I would guess that Kennedy himself is not aware of the FoodNet stuff. That’s fairly in the weeds, and MAHA has a real blind spot for foodborne illnesses. So it’s just really not, you know, I think it’s similar to how MAHA always … Theodore: Wait, wait. Why do they have that blind spot? What does that mean? Helena: Well, I think it’s similar to how they view vaccines and how infectious diseases have gotten way too much attention, and we haven’t put enough attention on all these chronic diseases that are tied to food. And you know, I think overall that is maybe a fair criticism. But why not do both, right? Can we really not walk and chew gum at the same time, I think is a question. So I think they don’t see this as a pressing problem, right? But it is a pressing problem when you have an outbreak that is hospitalizing people, potentially killing children, and also tanking consumer confidence in a certain product. This becomes urgent when it is urgent. And so, you know, it’s one of those things that the government really can’t lose focus on. Foodborne and illness is one of those things that we’re still struggling to solve as a country. But I just don’t think it’s a focus of MAHA. This is also a crowd that’s, you know, some of them really like raw milk, which the whole food safety establishment’s pretty clear in communicating that that is a higher- risk food or, you know, a risky food product. It is often blamed on campylobacter and E. coli outbreaks, including one right now in Florida, which, tragically, a mom is now suing the farm because she lost her baby. She was pregnant. I mean, it’s horrible stuff. Theodore: But let’s try to put this, again, into some context. So one of the things I think is always important to understand … Well, let’s think back on a little ancient history, right? And it was, I don’t know, two or three weeks ago now, that the CDC director, Susan Monarez, was fired, first by RFK Jr. and then eventually, and more formally, by the White House itself. After coming out of that, the chief medical officer at CDC resigned, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases — I have asthma, that sounds relevant to me. The director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. That, too, sounds pretty important. And the director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology. They all resigned in protest. There’s always a question, I think, in the Trump administration. We keep coming up to this question where it’s, like, when is this stuff going to be a problem, right? All this bad stuff is happening, all this chaotic stuff is happening. When are we going to feel the effect of this stuff happening? And is the cutting back of FoodNet, is that going to be a place where we’re going to feel the effect? There’s a lot of stuff happening. Helena: Yeah, Iit’s a good question. I don’t think with FoodNet, we really are going to feel the effect. What it’s going to do is weaken the data that allows us to evaluate the system, right? And so that’s much more indirect. But over the long term, it does play an important role. With the chaos at CDC, the way I think about it is, nobody cares about CDC until there’s a crisis or CDC is not working. And we are now in a place where all the past — not all but several of the past — CDC leaders are actively warning that CDC’s being weakened beyond repair, basically. There’s a lot of trust that’s being lost now, particularly on vaccines. I mean, we are in a really, really critical juncture for CDC, and what the infectious disease folks are worried about is that, you know, come the next crisis — because there always is something that CDC’s dealing with, whether it’s Ebola or Zika or, you know, Covid-19, or whatever it is — that’s when things could really go south if you don’t have the infrastructure, the expertise, the leadership. And we saw that. I mean, there’s a lot of criticism of how CDC had major, major missteps during Covid-19, like really significant ones. So it matters, but it’s hard to say right now that oh, all of our lives are affected because of this. It is much more, I think it’s a much more convoluted impact. It’s going to affect us at some point, but right now, I think most people will continue on living their lives and they won’t really — no, they won’t really see an impact to this. Theodore: I want to make one last point about this. Then we should move on. But I mean, even before Monarez was fired, CDC had lost 3,000 people, something like that, according to ProPublica, and about a thousand of those were scientists. And that’s all around the same time that she came into office and was actually confirmed in the Senate. But, you know, with the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, when you look at it, the forward-looking progress, what will we see coming at CDC? If you fire your own Senate-confirmed CDC director one month in her tenure, where are we going to end up? I mean, the Trump administration has only confirmed 125 Senate-level people. So far that compares to, I don’t know, I have this written down here. So his first year he had 200, his first year in office he confirmed 238. Biden had 267, Obama had 383, and Bush Jr., back in the, I guess the good old days of putting people into office who were Senate-confirmed, he had 403. So is this another thing like the farm bill where we’re just not going to have it. We’re not going to have Senate-confirmed people. Helena: We may not at CDC. I mean, one thing that’ll be so interesting to see is if they do put someone else up for that job, there’s going to be even more political fighting in the Senate over that person, right? Because there is so much anger within, really, the public health community, but also I think even some Republicans, about the way Senator Bill Cassidy was sort of the pivotal vote to approve RFK Jr. And almost all of the demands that Kennedy said were basically agreed to at the time have been, um, not kept. And so, you know, there’s some disagreement. Kennedy will say, oh, I didn’t actually agree to those things. I have no idea. But that’s what Cassidy said. And so if you were to come to that juncture again with someone else, just to lead CDC, I think all of that gets brought up again. So I, you know, I don’t know if they will quickly put someone else up. We’ll see. Theodore: Well, we shall see, I guess. Why don’t we move on to our next segment? That is Forks and Knives. Forks and Knives is just the basic status quo, the thing that is happening in the food system that is important and makes a difference and really helps you understand what’s going on. And for this, I thought, well, one of the things that was interesting, you shared this with me earlier today, the new federal data from the census showed that there was a 1.2 million-person drop in immigrant workers since the Trump administration came into power for the second time. And I think, if I remember correctly, looking at the numbers, that’s the first time in many, many years that we’ve seen a net decline in immigrant workers in this country. And this includes both legal and undocumented workers. The reason it’s relevant for us is, hey, guess what? A lot of the food system, something like 45 percent of it, is made up of immigrant workers. So tell me what you make of this, and is this surprising? Helena: Yeah, I think we are really starting to see much more of a distributed impact to the food system. A lot of it’s not really loud, so we’re not seeing a lot of headlines about farm raids right now. There’ve been a couple, but not a ton of drama. I mean, a month or two ago, there was that big one in Ventura that got a lot of press coverage, but really, since then, it’s been a little more quiet. But the fear is so broad among not just undocumented immigrants, but also folks who have legal status but maybe are still really nervous about getting swept up in an ICE raid or are, you know, worried about getting stopped by ICE. I’m in D.C. right now. ICE is very, very present here. They are taking people off the street regularly. These are folks who are, you know, these are agents who are wearing masks, and often the neighbors or the people around are shouting at them, trying to get their badge numbers or their names. I mean, it’s really dramatic. And that is not only scaring folks who work locally — so food delivery drivers, restaurant workers of all types. But it’s just creating this messaging that sends the message nationally to immigrant workers that you are in a precarious position, you could be swept up in this. And that fear does affect how many people show up for work. I mean, of course it does, right? , Theodore: Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. This is something that we report on all the time, you know, at FERN. We have a story that just came out about a week ago about JBS and the Greeley meatpacking plant, the JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado. And how the economy, the food economy over the course of the last 20 years has shifted somewhat dramatically from one that was very heavily dependent on undocumented workers to one that is very much more heavily dependent, in relative terms, on immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Now many of those people here in the country legally, they’re losing the kinds of legal statuses that they had, whether it was, you know, a lot of them were here on temporary protected status that’s being revoked by the Trump administration. And what’s, again, hard to reckon with is, what are these companies going to do? What is the food system going to do? So if you have an economy that was built on undocumented workers and the government cracks down, they then turn to the refugee workers, who they believe will be here longer. If those people are not going to be here — and it’s still no sign that American-born people are going to go back into the meatpacking plants — who’s going to do this stuff? How is the economy going to adjust? Helena: Well, I think it is a really big unanswered question. It’s not really one that this administration engages with in a serious way. I mean, you’ll hear people say, I think Stephen Miller will say, Americans are going to do this job. We are not going to see American citizens mass-migrate back to farm fields and meatpacking plants. That’s just not something, and no one who’s serious in food and ag thinks that, right? There’s no evidence of that. So it is a big question. And I think, you know, when you look at agriculture, there’s always this saying, and the saying is, you either import your food or you import your labor. And that’s how I think about it. When you look at specialty crops and fruits and vegetables, right, that really is the choice in many of these cases. That’s just the choice. And I don’t know that we are fully reckoning with that as a country. That is kind of where we are. And you are seeing reports of fruits and vegetables that are not being harvested because of labor shortages. And this has been something that’s been going on for a long time. We’ve had labor shortages in farm fields for years and years and years, and this only exacerbates the situation to sort of a new critical level. Theodore: I think that’s an interesting point, right? Let’s say you were a believer in Trump’s anti-immigration policies, and you thought that the United States must become self-sufficient again. There needs to be some immigration reform. We can’t have people coming over the border in the ways that we have. If you accept that, and say that we have to do something about it, one of the things you could do is change the temporary worker policies. And there’s been, to my knowledge, no movement by the Trump administration towards expanding H-2A and H-2B visa programs, which are the two main, if I understand it correctly, two main visa programs for ag and meat workers. This is a solution, potentially, but there is nothing happening on this that I know of. Helena: Yeah, I mean, the politics on this are just brutal. I mean, Congress probably should have addressed immigration reform a long, long time ago, right? But every time there’s an attempt, it just implodes on itself because the politics are so intense. And it’s one of those things that everyone acknowledges: The current system isn’t working. It’s not working for the people who are doing this work. It’s not working for businesses who can’t really plan or rely on a, you know, reliable legal workforce. It’s not good for the economy. One of the reasons those census figures were so stark is thinking about the ripple effects on the economy broadly, right? It just doesn’t work, and we’re not really moving forward to a system that works better. We’re just kind of creating fear, and we’re entering the Trumpian sort of vision for this. Without answering the questions of how you then actually operate a food and ag system and what that means. In D.C., we’re actually seeing restaurants shutter temporarily because they… Theodore: They don’t have workers. Helena: Yeah, their workers are afraid. Or maybe even the owners are, like, they don’t want their workers to all come in and be at risk. And then, you know, they don’t want to use their name in the press. They’ll say, oh, we’re shuttering. And they’re, like, don’t put my name in. I don’t want to have — So it’s just a very fearful, very dramatic time. And I don’t know where all this shakes out, but there’s a lot more stress, I think, in the food system than folks realize. Theodore: Well, all right. I mean, I think that Trumpian vision, that’s an important thing to think about because there seems to be, if it’s even possible for there to be, less incentive for the government to undertake comprehensive immigration reform than ever before. Yeah, because you have what the Republicans always wanted when it comes to things like the farm bill. They cut SNAP. They cut all the things that underpin it, and they never touch the subsidies to the farmers. So there is no reason for any Republican that I can understand — maybe you can correct me here — for them to do anything about this. They never managed to do it, Democrats or Republicans, you know, dating back, what, 20 years, 30 years now? They haven’t done anything. But now, somehow, we’re into the negative incentives. It is not going to happen. Helena: I think that’s right. Even when we saw the Trump administration briefly say, oh, we’re not going to go after agriculture as much, or even hospitality. When Trump said that, there was a huge backlash within the MAGA base over that. And then the Trump administration was, like, never mind, we’re going to go after everyone, basically. I mean, that’s basically what happened. Theodore: So how come the food companies are not up in arms? How come the big farmers? Helena: I think they are privately. There is certainly back-channeling going on. But nobody wants to be waving their arms, like, Hey, we’re a company that relies on undocumented labor. You know what I mean? There’s a lot of sensitivity there. And they’re also afraid of the MAGA base. So it’s a really sensitive issue in many ways. Theodore: Not to toot our own horn, but at FERN we have a lot of reporting coming out just on this, and more to come. Helena: I’m glad you guys are focusing on that. Theodore: I think, you know, when you talk about the food system — people mean a lot of different things when they talk about the food system. For you and I, when we talk here, a lot of it has to do with policy that’s sort of D.C.-focused, and that makes perfect sense. That’s the thing that’s happening right now. Especially, you know, look at our tagline: Food Politics in the MAHA Age. We should be talking about it. But one of the things that drives a lot of our coverage is labor, right? That’s where a lot of things are happening. So why don’t we move on to our final segment, which is the good vibes, right? I think it’s an interesting thing here to talk about with good vibes because we want to find some kernel of hope within the sort of somewhat demoralizing discussions that we’re having. And this is the fight between the state of Kansas and the federal government, the USDA, over turning over data on who is getting SNAP in Kansas. And I think the only real kernel of — and I want you to explain this for our listeners in a second — but I think, really,, the main kernel of hope here is that there is in fact a Democratic governor in Kansas who is willing to fight with the federal government. That doesn’t always seem to be the case. So what are we talking about here? Helena: Well, first of all, the politics in Kansas are so interesting, and really, it is a much more purple state than people realize, from what little I know about their political vibes there. So yes, they have a Democratic governor, Laura Kelly. And it’s interesting because she, I don’t believe Kansas is part of, there’s something like 20 states suing the Trump administration over this demand. So basically the Trump administration in the spring demanded that states turn over a really unprecedented level of individual SNAP recipient data. So things like social security numbers, addresses. Just the whole shebang, really. Theodore: Why is that problem? Why is that a problem as a Democrat if you do. Why do you not like that? Helena: This is a problem because, a) these programs are administered at the state level. So the feds do come in and sort of check accuracy, and they have checks on, you know, how well are these programs being run. But they are usually not, they are not handling all that data. And there’s a lot of regulations around how you hold — I mean, this is sensitive, private individual data. The Democratic governors are concerned this will be used for ICE enforcement. They are concerned that this will be used for different law enforcement purposes or just other kind of breaches into folks’ privacy or civil liberties. They’re really angry about this. And there’s actually a court fight over this. Kansas is not part of that court fight, but Kansas, the governor is just straight up refusing to turn over the data, and the USDA just sent a letter basically giving the state 30 days, or they’re going to start taking away millions of dollars from the state and federal funding, which would compromise their SNAP program. Theodore: Apparently it’s about $40 million that they’re threatening to withhold, which, and I just, you know, to go back to the title of this section, which is a good vibe, that ain’t such a good vibe, right? But do you think that there is a, well, I guess two questions. One is, should all the states be doing this? Should they all be fighting this, whether they’re red or otherwise? Should they be resisting giving this information over to the government? Because maybe this is a by-product of the DOGE era. And remember that guy, Elon Musk, he was so interesting. That’s also ancient history, too, right? There was that guy who wanted to get a lot of information from people. And so one, should everybody be fighting for over this, and two, does this have any chance of succeeding? Helena: Yeah, you know, I don’t have a good sense of where the lawsuit will end up, but I think states fighting back over the federal government wanting to take more data on their residents. I mean, I can understand that argument and, you know, you can actually make a conservative states’ rights argument on that as well, that just, these are state-run programs. Yes, it’s federal funding, but I think they can argue that the federal government — and they are arguing — the federal government doesn’t have the authority to ask for this data. But not everyone in Kansas agrees on this. The Kansas Speaker of the House, Dan Hawkins, actually said that Kelly was covering up welfare fraud. That’s his thing. First of all, SNAP is for groceries. It’s not like a cash welfare program. I feel people get that confused sometimes. He said: “It’s been my fear all along that the Kelly coverup would put the entire SNAP program at risk, and now, sadly, those chickens are coming home to roost.” That’s what he said. So I think there’s some political divisions within Kansas about this, which probably isn’t surprising. But in general, states pushing back against the federal government for any type of policy, that’s pretty run-of-the-mill. That’s how this country works, right? This is the system we have. The states are always trying to get their sovereignty and heir rights. And then the federal government’s always trying to sort of do their thing and push back on that. And I think that’s what we’ll see play out in the courts. But I think overall, Democrats are worried that this will scare immigrant families, many of whom are mixed status. The children might be U.S. citizens, maybe the aunt living at home or different adults may have mixed status. One might have a green card, one might be a citizen, one might be undocumented. And then giving that information to the federal government could help them with enforcement. And I think that’s really the concern. And so I’m not sure where the lawsuit will end up, but I can see why states are fighting back. Theodore: So I want to just ask one last thing before we call it a day. I mean, I was looking at the Maha in Action Tracker press release, and it mentions, you know, some of the states … Helena: Basically a campaign website. Theodore: A hundred percent. So there are 12 states so far that have gotten SNAP waiver approvals from the federal government. Helena: Those are for restrictions for sales of, like, sugary drinks. Theodore: I think it’s interesting to just listen to the states. I’m just going to list them. So there’s Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, West Virginia. There’s kind of a theme there. Helena: Did you skip Colorado? Theodore: I did. Helena: Because I know that list. Theodore: That’s the outlier, right? You know, you could call Kansas … Helena: They’re a purple state. Theodore: Purple-ish, right? First of all, I don’t know that I really think that Kansas is a purple state. That was a pretty darn red state. Helena: There’s some split ticket history, right? Theodore: They have a Democratic governor, I agree. So why is Colorado on that list? Helena: Because I think Governor Jared Polis is for some of the MAHA ideas. He has been pretty clear about that. I think he’s actually publicly said, you know, I disagree on vaccines. Although I think he has a kind of nuanced position where he’s not as for vaccine mandates. But he’s very pro, like, convincing people, making the public health case for vaccines. So he’s not with MAHA on vaccines. But he’s made some comments that he does agree with some of the other things, some of the food and ag stuff. And so Colorado’s an interesting state. I’m also hearing rumblings that there’s going to be some other blue states, so we’ll see if those actually come to fruition. But this could be a situation — Theodore: Who’s on the runway? Wait, look, you don’t have to, you’re not naming any names here, right? Helena: I’m not going to name any names, but big blue states may be considering this, so we’ll see if they actually do it. This is such an interesting one, because SNAP restrictions seemed completely infeasible a year ago. It was just not something. Democrats weren’t on board. Republicans weren’t on board. Even though, in the past, Democrats kind of were on board. I mean, the food industry, anti-hunger were in lockstep. They fought this tooth and nail. It just wasn’t going to happen. And now it’s like that ship has sailed. It feels like almost any state could now do this, because the barn doors have been blown wide open. Theodore: So I have to say, the political case for these restrictions is not a bad one, right? Helena: I think it polls well. I think it probably polls really well. Depending on how you word it. Theodore: Another response is that this doesn’t really do anything. It doesn’t work. It’s anti-poverty. Helena: We don’t know. We’ve never studied it. So that’ll be so key as these states roll out, that there’s actual rigorous assessment. If you block sugary drinks from SNAP, what is the replacement? Does it have a measurable impact on sugar consumption? I mean, they have to measure all of this so you know whether or not this public policy intervention did anything. So that will be really key. We need to have good data. We don’t know whether or not it works. The argument has always been that it wouldn’t work, but we’ve never tried. Theodore: Well, I also want to add one thing here, and I got this from Marion Nestle’s newsletter. Helena: Food Politics. It’s excellent. Everyone should read it. Theodore: So she talked about the restrictions in Louisiana, right? They have a SNAP soda ban or soda restriction, but the way they define a quote-unquote soft drink is pretty interesting, because it means that high-fructose corn syrups are a no-no and sugarcane and beets — and sugar is a big product of Louisiana — Helena: I was going to say, what does Louisiana grow? Theodore: They grow some sugarcane, right? So they did not exclude sugarcane. But I guess that sort of makes a MAHA kind of sense because … Helena: I think beet sugar would also be included. Theodore: Are there any sodas made with beet sugar right now? Helena: I don’t really have a good handle on what all the sodas are using, but the vast majority of sugary drinks in this country are still made with corn syrup. Or high-fructose corn syrup, excuse me. So it’s cute, but I think they’re getting a lot of criticism about that particular thing, because it just doesn’t sort of nutritionally make any sense. I don’t know that we’ll see a lot of states do that. The real differences between the states so far are, do they include candy? Do they also include energy drinks? You know, how do they draw the lines? And every state is doing it a little bit differently, and so it’s going to create a lot of logistical questions for the states. Theodore: It’s a hard thing. I don’t like my kids drinking any of those things. Not that I completely stop them from doing it because I am powerless to resist them in certain ways. Helena: How old are your kids? I feel like they’re going to buy what they want. Theodore: Yeah. I mean, 19, 14, and 13. It’s going to be 15 in a couple weeks. I strongly discourage the drinking of those drinks. They’re not allowed in the house. You know, I hate the energy drinks, for whatever reason. That’s what I mean by the political case is not that strong, because I know that there is a belief that nutritionally, it doesn’t make any difference to get rid of the sugary drinks for people who are on SNAP. But I also know that I don’t want my kid drinking that stuff. Helena: Well, I think it’s hard to think about where do you draw the line then? Why not desserts? Why not, you know, ice cream? And so I think in that way, it does get a little bit more complicated. But I think one of Kennedy’s most common lines he always says is, anyone should be able to drink these products or eat these products. It’s America. But the taxpayer shouldn’t be subsidizing them. The taxpayer shouldn’t be buying them. And he says that over and over, I think, because it’s a line that really works. There’s a lot of other things he says where they’re not popular and they are deeply divisive and polarizing. Butt that is one where I think they’re finding real traction. Theodore: Yeah, I mean, agree or disagree, that’s pretty good politics. All right, so why don’t we leave it there? Why don’t we do the thing that we always do at the end of this episode. Why don’t you tell everyone out there about your newsletter, which is pretty darn good, I think, and how they can go find it and read it. Helena: You can go to foodfix.co and sign up for the newsletter. It comes out every Friday. It’s free, and everyone loves reading Food Fix. It’s both wonky and also fun to read. That’s the goal. Theodore: You should pay for it. Don’t do it for free. Pay for it. All right. I’ll throw in one last thing and then I’ll let you go. Yes, this is a podcast. It is available also on YouTube, where you can see our shining faces and my food-related T-shirts. The way to find it on, uh, uh, on YouTube is @FERNNews. Helena, thank you as always. You are a great person to talk to about these subjects and every subject, so I appreciate it. Helena: Happy to be here. We’ll see you again soon. Theodore: All right. Thanks a lot. Helena: Thanks. Theodore: Forked is a production of the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Our executive producers are Theodore Ross and Tom Laskawy. Our sound engineer is Lauryn Newson. Katie Gardner is the producer and video producer for Forked. Our hosts are Helena Bottemiller Evich and me, Theodore Ross. To find out more about FERN and donate to support our independent nonprofit reporting, go to www.thefern.org.