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Have we reached peak MAHA or is this just a bad week? · REAP/SOW

• This transcript was exported on 05/13/2026 - view latest version here Theodore Ross: Welcome to Forked. I’m Theodore Ross, editor-in-chief of the Food and Environment Reporting Network, and I’m joined by my co-host, Helena Bottemiller Evich from Food Fix. The MAHA movement has been riding a political roller coaster of late – riding high with the People vs. Poison rally at the Supreme Court, crashing down with Marty Makary’s ouster at FDA. It all makes you wonder – what do you gotta do around this joint to pull off a successful, bipartisan transformative political movement that reinvents how Americans eat? Might be harder than it looks. Helena Bottemiller Evich: How's it going? Theodore: It is going well, never a dull moment in Forked Land, of course. I am so happy to have you back here, so we can talk about all of it. Why don't we jump right in and do the Double Take? Now, when we talk about the Double Take, that's something in the food media, food policy that makes you do a double take because it's surprising. However, usually, that is a metaphorical double-take, but in this case, I have a literal one. I was walking down the street. I live in Brooklyn. I was walking with a cup of coffee in my hand, which I almost dropped when I saw a bus stop in New York City that said, "Don't risk your SNAP benefits if you're considered an able-bodied adult without dependents." Then they put in parentheses, "ABAWD," an ABAWD. Helena: ABAWD. Theodore: ABAWD. [chuckles] ABAWD. "You need to work to meet your requirements for SNAP." There's a public PSA from the New York City or State Human Resources Administration. It makes you realize something that I think a lot of folks out there have forgotten, that as of March 1st, 2026, the new work requirements for SNAP came into play. What do you think? A, forgotten issue, or no? B, what is the impact of all this out there? Helena: Yes, it's a massive impact. It's technically not a new requirement. What Congress did with the Big reconciliation package is made it much more broadly applied. This ABAWD work requirement, or some people call it "the time limit." It's this wonky thing that a lot of people don't think about. ABAWDs are generally speaking people between the ages of 18 to 64 that don't have dependent children. These folks are supposed to be working, or volunteering, or doing some other training 20 hours a week, or they can only get SNAP for 3 months in a 36-month period. It's a time limit unless you can prove that you're working or engaged in these other activities. Now, for a long time, states have had a lot of ability to waive out of these requirements. Anti-hunger advocates would argue that this time limit doesn't make sense anyway. These are really low-income folks. Even if they are working, maybe they're working under the table, and it's hard to prove that they're meeting these hourly requirements. It's a bureaucratic burden that does a lot to drop people off the program. When Congress look to basically reinstate this longstanding work requirement for millions of people, we predicted, the Congressional Budget Office predicted, everyone predicted that this would lead to many, many people losing access to SNAP, and that is what is happening now. Theodore: That is right. I was looking at some research from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and their data is updated as of May 5th. I'm just going to read it. "SNAP participation nationwide fell by more than 3 million people, that's 8%, between the law's July 2025 enactment and January 2026, the latest month of data from the US Department of Agriculture. The declines are especially pronounced in some states." This is amazing to me, "42% in Arizona and 12% in Virginia and Tennessee, even more so when compared to 12 months ago." It almost makes you think, I don't know, and I could be wrong, that the GOP doesn't want people to be on SNAP. Helena: Yes, they don't. Yes, that's correct. Theodore: Oh, I thought this was all about fairness and reform and reinvention. Helena: No, they want SNAP to be a smaller program. I think that's clear. I think where they do not acknowledge it is retail restrictions have anything to do with participation. That's where they are just saying it's all about health. No, I think it's longstanding Republican ideology that ABAWDs, this is the term people use, Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents, ABAWDs in policy speak. There has been a long push. The entire time I have been covering food policy, Republicans have said that they want that time limit or those work requirements enforced, full stop. There have been huge fights about this. They definitely want them enforced. They want those people to not be on SNAP unless they're jumping through the hoops to meet these requirements. That is very clear. There's, I think, a lot of alarm, a lot of alarm in the anti-hunger community, among food bank leaders. Different community-based organization leaders are just super worried about people losing access to SNAP right now, particularly because food is so expensive. Let's not forget. The Trump Administration has stopped measuring food insecurity, so we are not going to have the official federal measure of food insecurity to understand the impact of this. That's just really troubling for a lot of people. Theodore: Let's take it back to maybe some of what I think are the rationales for making changes to SNAP. We talked in previous episodes about restrictions placed on sugary drinks and candies for people on SNAP, junk food essentially on SNAP. You and I, we went back and forth on this about whether or not it is appropriate for the federal government to subsidize people who go and buy unhealthy foods. In a way, you could make the same argument about this regulation. If you are ABAWD, right? Helena: ABAWD. Theodore: ABAWD. [chuckles] ABAWD. Are you sure? How do you know? Helena: An ABAWD. Theodore: Who decides if an ABAWD is an ABAWD or an ABAWD? I don't really know. I'll go with you. I believe you. I trust you, Helena, on how to pronounce these. Helena: These are the PolicyWorks. It wasn't me. They called it ABAWD. Yes. Theodore: This is why we have you here. Okay. If you are, and I'm not going to try it again, if you are able-bodied, should you not be able to work and earn enough money in order to receive these benefits? What's the argument for and against? Is it even really an argument by the way? Helena: No, there is an argument. Theodore: Then we can dress fairness up as an argument, but really, it's about cutting food subsidies to the poor there. Helena: I think Republicans who are the most engaged in this space in a good-faith way would argue that they are trying to encourage people to work, and they want to nudge people, force people off these programs to encourage them to work. I think the problem with that argument is that I have never seen evidence that the SNAP time limit or work requirements actually result in more work because 20 hours a week, if you're a single person and you're getting SNAP, that's $6 a day-ish on average in benefits. SNAP is probably not the reason you're not working. You probably have other things going on. You may lack access to transportation. You may have an undiagnosed disability or mental health disorder. You may be having substance abuse problems. You're not going through the process to get on disability or have all these things diagnosed so that you wouldn't fall under the ABAWD requirement. It increases administrative barriers to SNAP, and we see very clearly that a lot of people drop from SNAP due to these requirements. It is proven to be a good way to reduce the SNAP participation, but it has not proven to be a good way to increase employment, which is, I think, the Republican argument for it. Theodore: Well, that's the good faith argument. That's the good-faith argument. Whether or not that really is a good-faith argument, I don't know. That's subject to debate. Helena: I think there's often individuals who make that argument because it sounds logical. Theodore: Absolutely, it does. Helena: Maybe they haven't looked at the research that just has not proven that out. Theodore: I do that. Helena: In the same way that Medicaid work requirements, I believe, have also not been shown to increase employment because it's usually the case that if someone is not fully employed or employed part-time, there's usually some other reason for that, and it's not because they're getting really meager SNAP benefits. You can't pay your rent on SNAP. It's probably not the barrier to employment. I think that's the argument there. We're also seeing a lot of stress on the states right now because if they don't get their error rates or their mistake rates down for SNAP, they're going to have to be picking up a pretty substantial portion of the administrative cost for SNAP. That's another change that was made under the reconciliation package. We're seeing a lot of states panic. They're probably going to just make it harder. Some of them are just going to make it harder to get on SNAP, full stop. There's going to be a lot of pain and contraction here, and I think we're at the very beginning of it. Theodore: Yes. I wanted to also pick up on another aspect of SNAP. I know you put this in your newsletter, about the stocking, the way participating groceries and stores that accept SNAP food stamps, what they have to put on the shelves in order to qualify. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? I think it's interesting because of its intersection with the MAHA movement because it sounds like making more healthy food available, but really, it may be another one of those questionably good-faith nudges you were talking about. Helena: SNAP stocking requirements, it's something that Congress has tried to increase for a long time. These are really targeted at convenience stores. A convenience store doesn't have to carry that many food items right now to qualify to take EBT. The question is, if you can use your EBT benefits or your SNAP benefits somewhere, shouldn't they be required to have a lot more produce option, whole grains options, proteins options, food, and not just granola bars and chips and the things that you normally find at a convenience store. This is really targeting convenience stores. Your average grocery store far and away exceeds, obviously, the variety requirements for SNAP. Theodore: More and more people are buying their food at convenience stores, dollar stores. Those are real places that people actually buy not-so-real food. Helena: I think a dollar store would also be far and away above. The thing about [chuckles] what the Trump Administration is doing is, yes, they are increasing the variety of staple foods that retailers have to carry for qualifying for SNAP. They're doubling it. This is something that has been fought over in DC for more than a decade. It's a requirement of a farm bill from more than a decade ago. The convenience lobby has fought tooth and nail against a lot of these requirements. There's been regulations and appropriations, writers. There's just been this long, drawn-out, ugly fight over them. To say that this is somehow like a MAHA policy, that's really a stretch. Theodore: I don't think we have to call it a MAHA policy, but it's certainly of interest and in alignment with the things that they want. Helena: Not really, though. It is, and that it does require them to have more variety, but there's no nutrition requirements. It's not like there's all of a sudden salt, sugar, and fat limits for these things. If you're required to carry tomatoes, a can of tomatoes counts. You know what I mean? It's not that all of a sudden, we're requiring no processed food or anything like that. It sounds, I think, more aligned with MAHA than it may be is in practice, but it is true that this is increasing the variety of staple foods. This is something I think a lot of advocates in the health space have seen as a sensible idea. There's also now concern that this could lead to more convenience stores or small-format stores dropping out of SNAP, and that this could limit access to SNAP. If done the wrong way, or if done in a very aggressive way, or if done in a way where there's not time for the convenience stores to comply, or there's not assistance for them to comply, or whatever, it could just end up limiting access. Especially in rural areas, where sometimes this might be the only retail option for miles and miles. There's a lot of concern about that. We'll see what happens. I think the anti-hunger groups were really concerned when the final rule came out that this would end up limiting access to SNAP. Theodore: I think it really comes back to that whole point of which you were making about good faith. I don't think these kinds of changes, I know they've been debated in DC for a long time now, but they are happening now. When it is happening now with this administration, in this time period, in the context of all the other things that they're doing to SNAP, it's very hard for me to accept that that's being done in good faith. Helena: The Obama Administration [chuckles] also tried to do this. It can be done in a way that makes sense. We'll have to see. Theodore: All right. Why don't we move on from your belief in good faith and my disbelief in good faith? Helena: It's not about my belief. I think to say that it's just going to for sure result in less access. I'm not going to say that. I don't have the evidence for that. We'll have to see what happens. Theodore: That is a form of good faith. You are taking them at face value that they are doing this in good faith. You are in a position of greater information on it than I am, so you have reasons to have your opinion, but I don't know that I'm ready to accept that from the Trump Administration as easily, I guess. Right? Helena: They were mandated to put this rule out. [chuckles] Theodore: Right. Okay. Let's move on. Helena: Yes. Theodore: The next segment of our show, as always, is Forks and Knives, which is whatever we think or the news thinks is the most important thing happening in food policy today. From my perspective, I think we should talk about whether we have reached a form of peak MAHA. The Supreme Court rally, The People vs. Poison Rally was a high point, but that's a little bit in the past, or, in DC terms, "40 million years ago." There's plenty that's going on that's not so good, including a MAHA hero at the FDA, who is now maybe resigned, seems like he's resigned, could be resigned, but is still working. What the heck is going on with Marty Makary? Helena: Marty Makary has been on the ropes. There's been some reporting that the White House maybe wasn't super happy with him for a while. As of Friday, The Wall Street Journal was like, "Basically, Trump has signed off on a plan to fire him." As of Friday, that was, I don't know. What? Four or five days ago, as of our recording this. All weekend, it was like, "Is he getting fired? Is he not?" Theodore: Well, here's what Trump had to say in The Wall Street Journal article about it. "I know nothing about it." [chuckles] Here we are four or five days later, and Makary is gone. Helena: Well, yes. Politico, just as we were hopping on to record, Politico reported that, actually, Marty Makary is resigning, which we'll see. I don't know. He's also still doing events and things and carrying on. The Politico story said that Makary is resigning and that Kyle Diamantas is going to be acting, which is really interesting. Kyle Diamantas, for listeners who are not familiar with him, he leads FDA's Human Foods Program. He is widely seen as a competent leader, former food lawyer, I guess always a food lawyer. That's interesting. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen there. I think Makary getting pushed out, if that is what has happened here, which it looks like it is, is a very bad sign for MAHA and that Makary was a very big supporter of MAHA. However, Kyle Diamantas, as acting, is also a big supporter of MAHA. I think who they choose to replace Marty Makary is going to mean a lot. It's going to signal a lot the direction things are going. You mentioned a high point for MAHA, the Supreme Court rally, and then I would argue the big vote they had on the House floor, where they took down Bayer very decidedly in a 280 to 142 roll call vote. That was huge. They got a third of Republicans to vote with all Democrats to strip that really controversial pesticide preemption language out of the bill. MAHA was riding high. They were running around, going basically, like, "Come at us. We are unstoppable." They were really riding high. Then, very shortly after that, Casey Means got pulled as surgeon general pick because she is unable to get through the Senate. Now they have a new surgeon general pick. In the newsletter last week, I called it the "MAHA Roller Coaster" because it was like they were up and then they were down. Then, now, they're having a rough time again because it's not just the Marty Makary thing, but also the president on Monday was like, "Maybe junk food is fine." [chuckles] I haven't seen the video yet, or if there is video where you can see Kennedy's face while the president is saying this. This is his exact quote. This was said tongue-in-cheek. It was said in jest. Theodore: Trump certainly likes junk food. Helena: Oh, he does. He does. Theodore: That does not seem to be a question about that. Helena: His comment, I think, was said in jest, but still, just such a sensitive time for MAHA. This is what he said. This was at a rollout for moms.gov, which is the new hub for mom stuff, which we could get into. "Maybe junk food is good, and the other food is no good," [chuckles] Trump said. "I know people that eat the best food. They go to a restaurant. They have celery, and I'll have my steak and everything else. I know many, many people that all they do is watch their weight. They're this, that, and then they kick the bucket. Here we are. I feel great." Encore. It's not exactly on message. [chuckles] Theodore: You have to give Trump his due. We are all going to die. Eventually, that will happen to the best of us, steak eaters or not. Helena: For sure. For sure. "But maybe junk food is good," is so wildly off the message from MAHA. They literally had a Super Bowl ad saying, "We were being poisoned." [chuckles] Theodore: Yes, that is correct. Helena: It's not a message. At the same time, Kennedy over at HHS was touting. He's like, "Take back our health tour in Ohio." They're not on the same page. Even jokingly, it's just a really sensitive time. I do get the sense from talking to folks within MAHA that they, I don't know, "feel like they're on shaky ground" is the right way to put it, but I think they're waiting to see. Are they losing ground in the administration? What's going to happen? It's very tumultuous right now. Theodore: I think what they're looking at is the reality of whether or not they're going to get something for the deal that they made to be a supporter of the administration, to be someone that the administration could point to, saying, "See? They support us. They helped put us in office." Now, and this is not very unusual for people who've done political or other kinds of business with Donald Trump, it doesn't always work out the way you planned. I want to go back and talk a little bit more about Makary. You were talking about it would be important to see who his replacement is, and of course, that's true, but I want to wrap our brains a little bit around how he got pushed out and why. One quote from that Wall Street Journal article that I thought was indicative because it just shows you that you can be in the GOP universe and living in a very different factual pattern galaxy, or whatever you want to call it, than other people. It's from a blast from the past, a guy whose name I hadn't heard for a long time. Shout out to Dan Savage, Rick Santorum. "I supported his nomination before he spoke truth during COVID." Rare disease advocate and former US Senator Rick Santorum said on social media. Then here's the part that maybe you could help me [chuckles] understand. "He immediately fired the best leaders at the FDA." Okay. That's an interesting thing for a Republican to say. "Replaced them with anti-Trump leftists." Leftistists. "Who hollowed out the FDA, harmed patients, stifled innovation, and drove biotech to China, and then lied about it." Did that happen? Did he do that? Helena: I honestly don't follow the drug side at all. No idea. I think the commissioner has made a lot of enemies within the rare diseases community, particularly for not approving certain drugs that they find promising. There's been a lot of reporting on that. The whole government got dogged, I think, at least on the FDA food side. They were somewhat less damaged. I'm not as familiar with the drug side. They've had a lot of turnover in terms of their leadership, but I don't know what he's talking about with the biotech and the lying or anything like that. Theodore: For the leftist, what is the likelihood- Helena: I have no idea. Theodore: -that he brought leftists into the FDA to mess around with rare disease drugs? I think that's unlikely. I don't know. Helena: I guess if you consider scientists leftist, it's possible. I don't know. Theodore: It is possible. Helena: I don't know [chuckles] what he's talking about. It's not just that issue. Also, there was reporting in The Wall Street Journal that Makary might get fired because he wasn't approving flavored vapes. Theodore: Flavored vapes. Not fast enough. Helena: Fruit-flavored vapes. The commissioner, it's been widely reported, was very concerned that kids were going to get more addicted or that kids would be more enticed to try vaping with fruit flavors. I think the health advocates would be like, "Yes. They make sense to be concerned about that." Then he got reprimanded by Trump, and then a few days later, FDA approved fruit-flavored vapes. That's a really bad look. Theodore: Why would Trump be particularly pro-vape, I wonder? What does that signify? Helena: I don't know how much of it is donors or how much of it is political that young MAGA voters like to vape. I'm not sure. I don't really follow that issue, but it seems like I think he made some promises about making vaping great again or something. I think there's some saga there. I got my hands full with the foodstuff. Honestly, I don't know what's going on in the vape world, but to see FDA change course like that, to go from being really cautious on fruit-flavored vapes to then approving some because of a president saying, essentially, "You're not acting fast enough," is really alarming. FDA is supposed to be [chuckles] this independent agency. It's not that we've never seen presidential meddling like we have, but it was a scandal when it happened then, and this is scandalous. It's not a good look. Theodore: Not really a scandal. Not really a scandal. The flow of information along these lines across the government and across the administration is so wide open that you can't even really keep track of the so-called scandals. It's hard to really say that this is a scandal. Helena: Yes. This doesn't even break through. I do think it damages trust in the FDA. It's not good. Theodore: Yes. That certainly would do some damage to the FDA. One of the things we've talked about is this shift by the administration away from talking about vaccines now, because people don't like that. They do like the food part of the MAHA movement. They don't like the vaccine part of it. There was that article in The New York Times, which I'm sure you saw, which says that "RFK Jr., the head of HHS and the leader of the MAHA movement, is, as we speak, looking for the silver autism bullet in the vaccine world. It all continues even though nobody's talking about it anymore." The scandals keep happening. We just don't know about them. That's the thing. Helena: I thought that was a good story. I don't know. Clearly, they've been told to back off that politically because it's not popular. Theodore: Not from a policy perspective, they haven't been told to back off? Helena: Yes. I think what they were talking about there was not so much policy, but they're trying to fund, or they're trying to do some biostatistical analysis or something. It's a big study, and there's a lot of concern that the study won't be independent. I think that's the concern. Theodore: I think that is a fair concern. Helena: It's a good story. Everyone should go read it. I believe it was Sheryl Gay Stolberg. Theodore: And another reporter. I can't remember who the co-byline was. Helena: Oh, sorry. Theodore: Sorry, other person. We apologize for you. Helena: I know. Theodore: If The Times can take their bylines off the homepage, that means we don't have to remember it, I think, is the problem. All right. We started out this conversation saying, "Well, maybe MAHA had peaked a little bit." I think that's nice to say, but I don't know if that's really true, certainly not coming from this. It just is they're running into reality. This is what it means to try to do the kinds of things that they want to do about food in a completely anti-regulatory government run by Donald Trump, or you really think they're cooked? This is it? Helena: I think they're running into just the ideological constraints that have always been there [chuckles] with Republicans. Then, also, the political reality that there's a lot of vested interests that are fighting back really hard. They are lost on the House floor, but now they're trying to get it in the Senate Farm Bill. The fight isn't over for that issue, as one example. Actually, I thought it was interesting there was Alex Clark is a conservative, a key voice within MAHA conservative wellness influencers. She's with Turning Point USA. She was so mad about the Marty Makary news. She was blaming pharma and mainstream media and some anti-MAHA ghouls hidden somewhere in the White House, who are conspiring together to turn the public and put pressure on the president. There's a lot of concern within MAHA that, basically, big pharma and all these other moneyed interests in DC are outgunning them behind the scenes. I think that's the concern. She wrote, "The truth is Marty is pharma's biggest nightmare. Conservatives should not fall for mainstream media lies." Okay. Those are lies coming from inside the House. Theodore: Also, it wasn't the mainstream media that pushed Makary to resign. Helena: Oh, no. No. Theodore: It was Donald Trump, or some of the reporting- Helena: Well, we'll see. I don’t know. [chuckles] Theodore: -suggested it might have been RFK Jr., right? Helena: Yes. The Politico story said it was Kennedy. I don't know. I really don't. Theodore: All right. We will leave it at that, I think, with the MAHA movement in flux. I think that's the best way to put it. I think flux is, in this case, a form of reality, but who knows? We will see. Our final segment, and I don't know if you prepared anything for this, because it's sometimes hard for us to come up with it, is the Good Vibe. That is something that is happening in our universe that we feel like we can take a point of hope out of. Helena, you got anything? Helena: No, I forgot. Theodore: This is like a progressive public education. We're getting rid of all homework. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to show up prepared. Helena: My kindergartner has homework almost every night, by the way. Theodore: Oh, really? Helena: Yes. Theodore: Wait until they get into middle school. They get rid of all of it. Helena: Are you serious? [chuckles] Theodore: Not totally serious, but yes. My kids go to a pretty-- well, one's in high school, the other one is in college, but the youngest, who's still in middle school, she goes to a relatively progressive charter school that's housed within a public school here in New York, and there ain't much homework. That's for sure. Helena: Interesting. Theodore: I do have a good vibe. I will say that it is not one of our typical Good Vibe. It is more under the heading of me bragging. Okay? [chuckles] The preeminent journalism award in the food industry every year is the James Beard Media Awards. Helena: The Oscars of food world. Theodore: The Oscars of the food world. I don't know if that really meets up to that standard, but it's pretty darn good. Helena: Oh, I think it is true. Yes. Theodore: All right. Fair enough. In that, those awards, they were announced earlier last week, which is a couple of weeks ago now when this comes out. However, FERN, the organization that I run, if you've heard me say this on the podcast before, Forked is a production of the Food and Environment Reporting Network. We were nominated for seven James Beard Media Awards, including the entirety of the Audio Reporting category. All three of the finalists in that award were FERN co-productions, not Forked, not yet, but we're going to see what happens next year. What that means is that we know that we won the Audio Reporting category, and I personally take a good vibe out of that, and I hope that all of you who are listening to the podcast also do that and maybe go check out some of the stuff that we do. It's on our website at www.thefern.org. We are not here just for our questionably good looks. It is also for our reporting. That's what I've got. Helena: Definitely go check it out. Theodore: All right. Helena, you too should brag about your newsletter, Food Fix. Why don't you tell the folks out there all about it? Helena: Yes, if you are not on the list, what are you even doing? Go to foodfix.co and put your email in. You can get it for free every Friday. It's really good, and everyone loves it. Theodore: They do, and it is. All right. Helena, thank you so much. This is always a good conversation, and this was no different than any other good conversation I've had with you. I look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks. Helena: All right. See you soon. Theodore: Forked is a production of the Food and Environment Reporting Network. Our executive producers are me, Theodore Ross, and Tom Laskawy. Our sound engineer is Lauryn Newson. Our producer and video producer is Amanda Vicari. 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. Forked Ep 23 Rough Audio.mp3 (Completed: 05/13/2026) Transcript by GoTranscript.com