Latest / REAP/SOW / What happens if RFK Jr.’s radical reinvention of the food system…isn’t so radical?
Transcript
- 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 talking about whether the MAHA Commission’s leaked strategy report is a gift to Big Ag, a former FDA chief’s challenge to RFK Jr. on ultraprocessed foods, and finally, MAGA vs. MAHA. Helena, welcome back to Forked. How are you? Helena: I’m doing well. How are you? Theodore: I’m good. Why don’t we jump in and start talking about some food and politics. What do you say? Helena: I keep trying to take time off, and the news just keeps finding me. Theodore: That’s a tough problem to have. Helena: Oh yeah. Let’s do it. Theodore: All right, so for those of you who listen to Forked, you know that we like to start off with something called the double take. And that’s something that happens in the news that’s so unusual, oftentimes not so great, that you, you know, do a double take. Now this one’s a little bit different for me because this is a thing that happened in the news, and it got covered and talked about and, well, that’s it. It kind of went away. I call this the “youY know where it is, but you don’t know where it’s at principle,” and it’s really what, it’s related to this letter and citizen’s petition released by David Kessler a couple of weeks ago. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about who David Kessler is? I’m sure you’re more familiar with him than I am. Helena: Yeah, so David Kessler served as FDA commissioner during both the H.W. Bush and the Clinton administration, and he is best known for taking on Big Tobacco, really getting FDA to shore up its response to Big Tobacco. And at the time, everyone said it was crazy, they were never going to be able to impose more regulations on tobacco. And he really changed the way this country handles tobacco. So now he’s taking on the food industry. And David Kessler actually sent a citizen’s petition to FDA, seeking to essentially ban processed, refined carbohydrates. And so that is a term we may need to actually define, because you’re, like, wait, what does that mean? This would knock out 80 percent probably of ultraprocessed foods, and it’s specifically refined carbohydrates used in industrial processing that includes refined sweeteners, refined flour and starches that are subjected to food extrusion technology, which means they’re further processed. And then also sucrose, refined starches, other things. Okay. So the definition is more like, okay, a lot of things that are in processed food. But the important thing he is trying to do here is to say these are no longer generally recognized as safe, which is this thing that keeps coming up called the GRAS loophole. That’s what a lot of people call it. And GRAS is this way that a lot of substances get on the market or stay on the market without pre-market approval from FDA. And what he’s essentially arguing in this very long legal document is that these substances that are very common in ultraprocessed foods are not generally recognized as safe, and they don’t meet the definition. Because we have lots of evidence of harm, and that is a wildly threatening take to ultraprocessed food. I think that’s the simplest way to think about it. Theodore: So let’s just back up here for a second because there’s a lot to unpack there, right? So first, let’s go back and talk about Kessler himself and what it means to have him speaking to the media in this way and speaking to the country this way, and the Trump administration. So, yes. You mentioned he ran the … Helena: Former FDA commissioner, yeah. Theodore: Ran the FDA under Bush and Clinton. So he’s a prominent figure. But he has been out of government for a long time. Why does it matter that David Kessler has an opinion about ultraprocessed foods? Helena: Well, I think being a former FDA commissioner gives you a lot of heft in this situation. Any former FDA commissioner asking FDA to do anything is something that carries a level of seriousness that is different from a random citizen. Anyone can petition FDA — it’s called a citizen’s petition — but to have a former FDA commissioner do that carries a lot of weight. It’s also interesting because Kessler has been thinking about these issues of food and what to do about the public health implications of food for a long time. He’s written three books. I think that I’m going to blank on what the most recent one is called — Drugs, Dopamine … Sorry. You can look at it. But it just came out. And he has really struggled with this. As a regulator, as a public health leader, what should FDA do about food? He’s been thinking about this for a very, very long time. I talked to him about this petition and he basically said, it took me, you know, writing three books to really finally figure out what I think should be done, essentially. So there’s a lot of legal rigor here. There is a lot of thoughtfulness and also, I think, seriousness because of who it’s coming from. That said, it is so threatening to the landscape of food that it’s hard to see FDA jumping at this. But essentially Kessler is handing the Trump administration: Here is a way you could go after ultraprocessed foods, which RFK constantly says are poisoning us. Kessler’s essentially saying, here is a legal way to attack these foods. Theodore: Well, I want to talk about that. Let’s talk about that way, because that’s the interpretation, right? That if you were to read the media reaction to this, it’s that he was backing RFK and his — and this is from the Times — he’s backing RFK in his war on ultraprocessed foods. And I — I mean, I believe that, it’s the New York Times. They must be right, huh? But I had a little bit of a different reaction. I read the letter that he wrote that accompanies the petition. I want to just read a little bit of it. And it says: You have made ultraprocessed foods a central focus of your health agenda, and argued that the increased intake of ultraprocessed foods is a primary culprit — and that’s in scare quotes — behind an epidemic of chronic disease in the United States, right? I could read more, but I just want to pause there. I read that as sneering, right? He was pushing the buttons of RFK in a way. I’ll stop talking in a second. You can tell me if I’m wrong, but to me he’s kind of throwing down the gauntlet to RFK Jr., to FDA, to MAHA, to Fox News, to Laura Loomer, whatever: Do something about this problem. I don’t think he is backing anything, frankly. Helena: Well, I don’t think he’s sneering. I think he’s really serious, and I think this petition in a lot of ways takes RFK at his word, right? Like: You have said these things… Theodore: Really? You think he’s taking him at his word? I think this is the subtly undermining thing happening here. Helena: I think he’s saying you have said these things, and if you are serious about them, here is a way to use the regulatory system. Theodore: But I’ll say this. When I’m mad at my kids, you know, and they have not come home when they said they have, or when they said they are going to … Helena: Do they do that? Theodore: Well, you know, they’re older now. My son is 19, ou know, my daughters 14 and 12. When they haven’t done the things that they’re supposed to do, like take out the garbage, I say, you have told me that you will take out the garbage, and yet you have not. But here is a path forward in the future for you to take out the garbage, and it revolves you taking out the garbage, right? That is how that reads to me. Helena: He’s definitely calling a bluff, like, it’s put up or shut up, right? Here is a way to seriously bring down the hammer on ultraprocessed foods, which I think the two of them would agree, that both Kessler and Kennedy would agree are causing some level of metabolic harm. They are contributing to growing rates of chronic disease, particularly among children. They are seeming to agree on that. Now giving them a way, saying, here is a way to really go after these. It puts the ball in FDA’s court. Theodore: Well, let’s talk about that. Okay, so the petition itself is 66 pages long. I did not read all 66 pages. I got the highlights. Helena: It’s dense. Yep. Theodore: You know what I did? I read the Food Fix newsletter, and I learned all about it. Helena: There you go. There you go. Theodore: But it does seem to me, and you read that quote earlier, that what he is calling on the administration to do is not possible. And it just isn’t, right? These things cannot happen. Helena: Why do you think it’s not possible? Theodore: Because they’re too big, right? The things that they’re talking about. Again, it’s a little complex. Maybe I’m not understanding right? Helena: No, no, no. Theodore: I think he’s saying basically everything, you know, every kind of ultraprocessed food, everything that uses corn in an industrial way, everything that uses syrup, all these things are going to just be, you know, clear the decks. I just don’t see how that’s going to happen. Helena: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I agree. It’s not feasible in just, like, switching, flipping a switch. What I think Kessler would argue is that it’s not necessarily that all these foods have to go away, it’s that then they would have to go through what’s called a food additive petition and they would actually have to seek FDA approval. They’d have to say, Hey, look, here’s the evidence of that. Theodore: The proof’s in the GRAS. Yeah, I get it. Helena: Here’s the evidence we have that this combination of, you know, that this ultraprocessed or this processed, refined carbohydrate is safe. And that is putting the onus back on the food industry to say, we have the evidence that x is safe. And that’s a different thing. So maybe many of these things could be used, but they have not met, in his argument, the bar. So it’s a super-interesting legal argument. The Obama administration actually did ban trans fat using the same mechanism. They said, you know, basically partially hydrogenated oils are no longer generally recognized as safe because there was so much evidence of cardiovascular harm. Theodore: And that was an historic thing, that was historic. Helena: A huge deal. Theodore: But also much, much, much narrower. Helena: And also the food industry had, in many ways, moved away from trans fats because of all of the evidence against them. And so, yes, this would be much, much bigger. It’s one of those things where it’s almost impossible to see it happening, but it raises a lot of really important legal questions. Even this document existing pokes some holes in the idea of “generally recognized as safe.” Generally recognized kind of carries with it that there is a consensus, and having a major figure like this essentially lay out a document saying there isn’t a consensus is, in and of itself, questioning whether or not something is generally recognized. Theodore: I think in that respect, we are kind of in our own weird way in alignment a little bit that this is not necessarily a document that presents a path forward — as he says in the document, that it is a path forward — but that it is a challenge. Helena: Yeah. I think it’s a challenge. It is certainly asking the administration to go big and to do big things, and, you know, it’s an interesting moment, because I think they do have a lot more political capital to do big things. YBut the food industry, you know, is pushing back really hard. This is such a radical idea that it’s almost like they can’t comprehend it when they read this. That is how big it is. I’m not saying it’s not radical, but we’ll see. I didn’t expect this to happen. This came out of left field for a lot of people. Theodore: One of the things about citizen’s petitions, they are a formal process, and the government has 180 days to respond to it. And we will see what we will see. So with that, I want to move on to our next segment. Helena: There’s no way FDA’s going to substantively respond to it that quickly, but we’ll see. Theodore: They have 180 days. Well, you never know. The next section of our episode is the Forks and Knives episode, and that’s just sort of the status quo, the main thing that’s happening in the food and politics world. And I think it’s actually somewhat illustrative, when you look at what Kessler is talking about, to then talk about what I think you should do for Forks and Knives, which is the leaked MAHA strategy document, which lays out the plan for what RFK Jr. and the government are actually going to do about all these things. And it is not a radical reorganization of the food system in the way that David Kessler is envisioning it. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about this document? Helena: Yeah, I mean, first of all, we should say, this is not the formal, we have not had the formal rollout. This is a leaked version, and so it could change, and the White House is essentially saying it may change. So with all of those caveats, the leaked strategy does not bring down a big regulatory hammer across really any of these industries. I think my biggest takeaway from reading through it is just how much particularly the agriculture industry gets off. So there was a lot of pressure from MAHA to regulate certain things, and one of those things that they really have a lot of concerns about are pesticides, particularly glyphosate and atrazine. And this document not only does not propose more regulation, it essentially proposes ways to make the public more confident in the current regulatory system we have. Theodore: It barely mentions pesticides at all. Helena: Barely mentions it. So when I look at this, I’m, like, agriculture really effectively lobbied here. They completely changed, I think, the direction that a lot of the MAHA advocates hoped this would go, right? It is, I think, a little bit more complicated for the food side. So even though it doesn’t have anything like what Kessler proposed, coming at the processed food industry really hard, there are certain things in here that the food industry really does hate. So they have front-of-pack labeling in here, advancing some version of that. They still have, you know, the dietary guidelines, which are supposed to, or they’re expected to, tell us to all to reduce consumption of ultraprocessed foods. They back GRAS reform, which is essentially closing the loophole we talked about earlier, where basically FDA would have a much more active role in how food chemicals get to market. And so there are certainly things in here the food industry really hates. But overall, when you zoom out, in no way does this document match, I think, the rhetoric of MAHA. Theodore: Not at all. , Helena: The rhetoric of MAHA is we’re being poisoned and the government or society and everything needs to change. That is not in any way with this. I mean, he doesn’t talk about farm subsidies. There’s nothing systemic. There’s nothing in here that I think would match, especially the MAHA on the campaign trail we saw. Theodore: Not at all. I mean, it is the opposite of that. It is a lot of talk and not a lot of policy, and not a lot of action at all. I mean, I think the thing … Helena: A lot of research, a lot of task forces, a lot of evaluations of things that are important, like evaluating microplastics. Yes. But if your administration maybe only has three years, I think the argument is you don’t really have time to do all this evaluation. And if you look at what Kennedy and his allies were saying coming in, they were talking about action. They wanted to take action. They wanted to reverse chronic disease within two years. To do some of the things they were talking about, you cannot have a task force. Theodore: A task force. Plus $3.50 cents will get you half a cup of coffee in Manhattan these days. That’s about it. That’s all. It’s good for the, you know, yes, we have to have task force, but we also, we also have to be cognizant of what that actually means, which is nothing, right? I think you’re right in your assessment of it. But I think what I would really try to understand is why. You know on previous episodes of the show we’ve talked about how come Democrats didn’t do this here thing in the past. How come they couldn’t get this done? So is the question, well, it’s actually kind of hard to govern, right? Or they’re full of it? Or something else? What is the reason for this milk-toast strategy report, which, yes, is not final. Helena: Well, I mean, it could kind of be all of the above. I think, you know, it comes down to what we’ve talked about so much, which is the contradiction that is central to the concerns about the food system. And then your unwillingness to — for regulation to be a dirty word. That tension is just maybe impossible to work out, right? If you’re talking about the food system poisoning us, and then you’re saying, okay, well what we need to do is study it more or have a task force to look at something, I mean, that just doesn’t match up. But the word “deregulation” appears more in this document because that is the ideology of this administration overall, right? And so it’s just, how do you square those two things? I think that’s where it comes down to. I think there are probably people within the administration who would want to do bigger things, but do they have permission to actually seek those things in this ideological framework? You know? Theodore: I mean, I agree with you. Look, I’m more skeptical of government, I guess in general than maybe you are. I don’t want to speak for you, but this does not surprise me. This is sort of the nature of what we have seen so far with RFK Jr. in his role at HHS. He has done a lot of meaningful things, right, that haven’t been done in the past. But in a lot of ways, he has oftentimes relied on putting the bull in bully pulpit. That’s about it, right? Go ahead. Helena: Well, I mean, I think some of the most important things they’re doing in terms of impact, like where you see changes happening, are using the bully pulpit, right? To have the FDA commissioner come on and say, ultraprocessed foods are not good for you, to have the HHS secretary say, we’re being poisoned, that’s using the bully pulpit, right? But that’s not using the actual policy mechanisms they have at their disposal. Theodore: This is why I get back to Kessler, though. When I think back on Kessler and the language that he used, he is reacting against the bully pulpit idea of government. He is looking at these things and saying, all right, you said it. Now do it. Helena: Yeah, I think that’s true. Yeah. So … Theodore: Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Helena: There has been so much criticism to this leak strategy. I think we should talk about that for a second. MAHA advocates are disappointed. They are furious that they have backed away from any action at all on pesticides. Furious, right? They’re basically saying, we elected you to do something about many issues, and pesticides was one of them. Theodore: And yet again, I find myself in agreement with them. They’re right. We should do something about pesticides. I don’t know necessarily that I have the answer for what it should be, and neither do I know that I want the MAHA folks to be in charge of making that do-something happen. But yeah, something ought to happen. Helena: You know, there’s also — well, EPA, is not under RFK, right? I’ve always said EPA is the least MAHA of all the agencies. You know, if you look at what they’re doing at EPA, they’re trying to speed approvals for pesticides. Theodore: What do you mean the EPA is the least MAHA? Helena: In that Lee Zeldin coming in, he was not seen as someone who was going to carry forward the MAHA agenda, right? There’s always been some tension there. But I think to see this strategy, this leaked strategy, not at least pay lip service to the things that MAHA wants on pesticides — which is, generally speaking, a crackdown — was really stark. And almost every statement I’ve seen come out — I think actually every statement I’ve seen come out — reacting to the leaked MAHA strategy has been extremely negative, calling it, you know, offensive to basically a slap in the face to MAHA voters. I mean the language being used here is really, really critical. And we’ll see. I mean, they could potentially change some of this before they formally release it. That would be super interesting if they did. Theodore: But it’s unlikely, right? I mean, this is a pretty harsh comparison, but the Roe v. Wade decision leaked before it came out, and when it finally came out, it was largely the same. Helena: We still don’t know how it got leaked. Theodore: Right. But it probably leaked on purpose, right? Helena: I was actually in the Politico newsroom when that story was being worked on. And one of my memories is walking past Josh Gerstein, who was one of the reporters on that story, and I was, Hey, Josh, what are you working on? He just, like, ran away from me. Anyway, sidenote. Wow, that was a really big scoop. Theodore: That was a big scoop. You know, the other thing, when you talk about the reception of this strategy document, it gets at a certain source of tension within the Trump administration that I think also came into view recently, which I think is — and again, maybe it’s a little cynical — worthy of a good vibes discussion, right? And that is the MAHA versus MAGA blowup recently, with Laura Loomer calling RFK Jr. disloyal, suggesting that he wants to run for president, which he denied. And maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. But I want you to talk about the bigger picture here, which is, what is the nature of the disagreement between what people are using — they’re using these terms MAHA versus MAGA. What does that mean? Who’s disagreeing with who about what? Helena: Well, I think in general, the MAHA-MAGA marriage is a little fraught, right? And it gets at so much of what we’ve been talking about with this contradiction, I think. MAHA got woven into the MAGA base, or the Trump base, specifically in the lead-up to the November election with the sole goal of building that coalition so that Trump could win. And there are a lot of people who think RFK did help Trump win. Theodore: I think there’s no doubt about that. Helena: Well, yeah, I’m just not an elections nerd. So, you know, I haven’t myself looked at the data, but a lot of people believe that. And Laura Loomer, I think, actually said — I think it was maybe during a podcast with Politico. She said something like, you know, I don’t think I’m going to get RFK fired, right? There is a certain alliance there that is, I think, fairly strong, maybe because of that very key role that RFK Jr. played in the election. Theodore: By the way, do we need to identify Laura Loomer? Should we just call her a gadfly? What’s the right terminology here? Helena: Far right media person or, I don’t know, provocateur. Theodore: I mean, some people call her a MAGA luminary. Helena: Some people call her a conspiracy theorist. I mean, there’s so much there, but I would say that Laura Loomer has gotten several people fired. She affects the actual White House policy in many ways. And so she’s this very bizarre outside voice that a lot of people do pay attention to, because she does have real influence within the White House. So here we are. I mean, she was a guest on Politico’s podcast, so she is a person with influence. She made a comment that I’m not going to get RFK fired, but she’s going after his deputy chief of staff, Stefanie Spear. Theodore: All right, so let’s talk about that because I think it’s really interesting, right? So this all sort of stems from an attack that she made online to, yes, Stefanie Spear, a name that most people may not be too familiar with. She is the top aide to RFK Jr. and she was his press secretary in his run for the presidency. Now what I find interesting about it, I’d like you to talk about it a little bit. You know, we talk about this divide between MAHA and MAGA, which sort of very broadly would split along lines of, you know, food, food safety, nutrition, and health on the MAHA side and the MAGA side maybe being the anti-vax, But Stefanie Spear, she is pretty squarely in the anti-vax world, right? She got her start with RFK Jr. by working for the Children’s Health Defense, which is a pretty anti-vax organization, right? Helena: So yeah, I think definitely the MAHA umbrella very much includes the health freedom, the anti-vaccine. It also includes raw milk and fluoride. There’s a lot of stuff in there, right? The food and nutrition stuff and the food policy stuff that we focus more on in this podcast is the most popular among all the MAHA issues. And so it’s a big tent. I think Stefanie Spear is very much a MAHA person, and there is some tension between MAGA and MAHA in that some of the MAHA people are not traditional Trump. They’re not longtime loyal Trump people. Theodore: Spear was a Democrat. She was a Democrat. Helena: Well, RFK Jr. ran as a Democrat before he ran as an independent. Theodore: Oh yeah, who knew? Helena: He is a Kennedy. So there’s just a lot of mistrust over, like, you were not originally on this team. You are not a Trump original. So the MAHA people kind of come into the MAGA tent, and, it’s not always, I think, a seamless or comfortable alliance. That’s the way I think about it anyway. It’s not even so much over policy. I think it’s sometimes over the loyalty. Theodore: Let’s talk about that for a second because, you know, one of the things that’s a phenomenon of the Trump age, I believe, is this sort of comforting notion that we on the center or on the left or wherever the heck you may be that is not a Trump supporter, we always think that they’re going to get ’em, right? This is the thing that’s going to bring the whole thing down, right? And this is yet another one of these things: MAHA vs. MAGA. What will the meaning be for Trump? Will it really impact him? And I’m curious if you think that this is an actual divide that will have meaningful consequences for the Trump administration and what policy we see. Or is this just yet another of these Democratic fantasies that Trump is going somewhere. Helena: Well, I don’t think it affects the Trump administration really at all, although certainly they pay attention to reaction on X and whatever. So while I am sure that administration officials are looking at this extremely negative reaction to the MAHA strategy and they’re noticing that, I don’t know if they’ll change the approach. But that is a noticeable thing. But what I think is more interesting is, what about the midterms? You now have MAHA leaders saying, if Republicans don’t really get in line on this MAHA stuff, our votes are up for grabs in the midterms. And so do you see a MAHA-like voting bloc that’s more fluid on party line? Theodore: That it swings back to the Democrats? Maybe. I doubt that, but yeah, maybe. Helena: They’re saying, if Republicans don’t get line. I mean, you’ve even had Alex Clark, who’s very close with Turning Points, and Charlie Kirk — the very big MAGA youth organizing kind of apparatus. She had an all-caps tweet or a post on X the other day that was just, this is not what we asked for. I mean, really threatening. Kind of like voters are up for grabs if Republicans don’t … Theodore: I will say I haven’t used X. I haven’t used X in years, even back before, when it was Twitter. Helena: You’re saving yourself from a lot of really — the algorithm’s horrifying. But the all-caps stuff, you can really get your point across. Theodore: That’s what I was going to say. Helena: Really get there with an all-caps. Theodore: Yeah, I do miss a good old all-caps tweet. It’s just like a cold glass of water in the morning, you know? All right, so I think we’ve covered a lot today. I want to stop there just because I want to take in all this stuff. I’m still thinking about David Kessler and what he was trying to do. It’s that youth, it’s that youth. You have said this. You’ve got to go talk to my kids. They will tell you what that means. Helena: If anyone listening to this wants to print it out and read — you can even just read the letter — but read the 66 pages, I think you’ll come away with, like, oh, okay. I mean, this is like lobbing a bomb in a way. Theodore: It’s a pretty angry second person. So Helena, before we go, I want to do what I always do on each episode. I want to stop by telling everybody that they should sign up for your fantastic newsletter, but only if you can tell them how to do it. Helena: Yeah, so you can go to foodfix.co. Get your email on the list. We have a newsletter every Friday except for, you know, I was trying to be on break, kind of. There’s just too much news. But yeah, get on the list. Theodore: Folks, you should pay for it, too. Don’t just do the free thing. Free thing is no good. You got to pay, all right? And yeah, so — I’m sorry, Helena, you were going to say something? Helena: No, I was just going to say, you got to get on the list and then you’ll see how good it is, and then you’ll eventually pay. That’s how I get you. Theodore: Yes. Helena is a true believer in the marketing funnel. I’m with her. So thank you again, Helena. It’s always fun talking to you and hearing what is happening out there in the world of food and politics. And I will see you again in two weeks. Helena: All right. Talk to you soon. Theodore: Thanks very much. 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 or to donate to support our independent nonprofit reporting, go to www.thefern.org.