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by Helena Bottemiller Evich
From Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” to Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, America is in the midst of a food and nutrition policy awakening. Why are diet-related disease rates so high in the U.S.? What are the potential solutions? What does the science say? Award-winning journalist Helena Bottemiller Evich cuts through the noise to help us understand what’s really happening with our food system and our plates.
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- 1 weeks ago1h 8m
Media roundtable: Covering MAHA with Tal Kopan, Deena Shanker, and Lisa Held
This episode is something a little different: a roundtable with three journalists who've been deep in this moment in food policy, talking frankly about what they're seeing as MAHA's promises meet the reality of governing in Washington.Tal Kopan, deputy Washington bureau chief for The Boston Globe, has been reporting on the politics and also the money behind MAHA. Deena Shanker covers food for Bloomberg Businessweek and recently wrote about MAHA's school lunch ambitions colliding with funding cuts. Lisa Held is a senior reporter at Civil Eats, where she runs the Food Policy Tracker and just finished a four-part investigative series on what USDA cuts have meant for small farms and local food systems.We go behind the scenes on what it’s like to cover MAHA in this moment — and what comes next.Highlights:– How food dyes became the issue that pulled MAHA into the mainstream– The political and financial infrastructure being built behind MAHA, and what it suggests about Kennedy's long-term ambitions– Why MAHA's vision for school meals is running headlong into the administration's own budget cuts– What USDA's cuts to local food programs mean for small farms, and why those cuts are seen as anti-MAHA– The tension between MAHA as a federal policy driver versus MAHA as a growing grassroots movement at the state level– What reporters are watching next: Iowa's governor's race, Vani Hari's next political move, and whether MAHA survives its own contradictionsWhere to find our guests:Tal Kopan's reporting at The Boston Globe | @TalKopan on X | @TalKopan on BlueskyDeena Shanker's reporting at Bloomberg | @deenashanker.bsky.social on Bluesky | LinkedInLisa Held's reporting at Civil Eats | @lisaelaineh on X | Civil Eats Food Policy Tracker | @lisaelaineh on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Meet Tony Lyons, the man building RFK Jr.'s MAHA empire — Tal Kopan, The Boston GlobeGroup that supports RFK Jr. wants to change media messages on public health — Tal Kopan, The Boston GlobeMAHA's Hopes for Healthier School Lunches Collide With Trump's Spending Cuts — Deena Shanker, BloombergLosing Ground: How Trump Is Setting Back Local Food and Small Farms — Lisa Held, Civil EatsThis USDA Program Transformed Food Systems. It's Gone. — Lisa Held, Civil EatsUSDA Cuts Dismantled a Program Helping Local Food Economies — Lisa Held, Civil EatsTrump's USDA Revamped the Climate-Smart Program in a Blow to Many Small Farms — Lisa Held, Civil EatsMAHA candidate beats Trump's pick in Iowa R
- 3 weeks ago1h 0m
Meet the billionaire trying to clean up the food supply: Todd Wagner.
Todd Wagner, a tech billionaire and Hollywood mogul best known for co-founding Broadcast.com with Mark Cuban, isn’t particularly well known in food world — but he’s increasingly having a big impact.Wagner first got interested in American food policy after noticing his migraines would all but disappear when he traveled to Europe. He did some research and realized that the U.S. was letting thousands of food additives onto the market without regulatory oversight. In 2023, Wagner and film producer Lori McCreary launched FoodFight USA, a non-partisan non-profit aimed at cleaning up the U.S. food supply. Since then, Wagner and his team have played an integral role in passing historic state food additive bans and are also pressing Washington to revamp food additive oversight nationwide. In this conversation, Wagner shares some behind-the-scenes details from meeting with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.He sees the fight against ultra-processed foods as similar to the fight against Big Tobacco: long, messy, and ultimately winnable.Highlights:– The inside story of urging Governor Newsom to sign the California Food Safety Act– What GRAS actually is, why Wagner calls it the linchpin of America's food crisis, and why no other country has an equivalent– The fight over New York's GRAS disclosure bill and what it would actually require of food companies– Why Wagner thinks the Big Tobacco playbook maps almost perfectly onto ultra-processed foods– Using AI to triage tens of thousands of food chemicals for post-market safety review– Front-of-pack labeling, the black octagon, and why warning labels matter even if they can't fix everything– The "real cost" of a can of Coke: subsidies, SNAP, downstream healthcare, and margin-stacking against smaller, healthier brandsWhere to find Todd Wagner:Food Fight USAFood Fight USA on InstagramFood Fight USA on XMentioned in this episode:California Food Safety ActNew York Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure ActYuka food scanning appUltra-Processed People by Chris van TullekenEnron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (documentary)Stay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.coCheck out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.
- May 13, 202645 min
What Big Food wants in the ultra-processed foods debate, with Rocco Renaldi
The debate about ultra-processed foods is loud in America right now, but zoom out, and it's everywhere. Governments around the world are trying to figure out what to do about diet-related disease, and the food and beverage industry is under pressure at every turn.Rocco Renaldi is secretary general of the International Food and Beverage Alliance, the group that brings together some of the world's biggest multinational food companies — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Mondelēz — for coordinated action on nutrition and public health. He's also an executive at Edelman and is based in Brussels, which gives him a vantage point on these debates that we don’t hear as much stateside.Highlights:– Why the industry sees the UPF debate as a threat to the work already done on product reformulation– What the science does and doesn't tell us about processing as a health risk– Whether a workable, science-based UPF definition is even possible, and who's likely to define it first– How voluntary commitments like global trans fat elimination and salt reduction are going– What MAHA and RFK Jr.'s rhetoric look like from Brussels– GLP-1 drugs as a market force versus warning labels as a policy toolWhere to find Rocco Renaldi:International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA)Mentioned in this episode:NOVA food classification system — the processing-based framework at the center of the UPF debateWhat we still don't know about ultra-processed foods with Julia Belluz & Kevin Hall — my earlier conversation with the NIH researcher who studied ultra-processed foods in controlled settingsCalifornia's work on UPF definitions in school meals — the state's ongoing effort to restrict the most harmful ultra-processed foods from school food programsStay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.coCheck out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.
- Apr 29, 202657 min
Nora LaTorre on why school lunch is the biggest lever for children's health
Schools are the largest restaurant chain in America, bigger than Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's combined. Nearly 100,000 locations, 30 million kids, and roughly 7 billion meals a year. Right now, the lion’s share of the calories served through this system are ultra-processed at a time when there’s growing concern about chronic diseases among children.Nora LaTorre is the CEO of Eat Real, a nonprofit that's transforming school meals scale — certifying school districts against doctor-developed standards and helping food service leaders pivot to fresher, more local, more scratch-cooked food. Since 2019, the organization has grown from one district in one state to more than a million kids across 21 states. This expansion has put LaTorre and her organization at the center of an active debate about what the future of school meals should look like in the U.S.Highlights:– How Eat Real's certification model works and what the two-year journey looks like for school districts– Why better food means more kids eat school lunch (which means more revenue)– The story behind California's AB 1264, which passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support– LaTorre’s take on how federal preemption is a serious threat to food policy progress– What the MAHA moment means for school food– What parents can do to support change at their local school– The infrastructure gap: transforming school food nationally could require tens of billions in kitchen investmentWhere to find Nora LaTorre:Eat RealParent resources at eatreal.org/parentsFollow Nora on Instagram (@nourishedwithnora) and LinkedInMentioned in this episode:AB 1264 — California's school food billStay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.coCheck out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.
- Apr 15, 202648 min
The food industry's MAHA moment with Melissa Hockstad
HHS Secretary Kennedy says the food industry is poisoning us. The White House shares AI videos of him body slamming a Twinkie. And somehow, the trade group representing the companies making those ultra-processed foods — and thousands of other products Americans buy every day — has to figure out how to respond.The Consumer Brands Association represents the CPG industry, not just food and beverage, but household products and personal care too. It's the largest manufacturing sector in the U.S. by employment — 22.3 million workers, contributing $2.3 trillion to the GDP. And right now, it's contending with one of the most hostile political environments it's ever faced.Melissa Hockstad, the president and CEO of CBA, is at the center of navigating all of this. She's talking about constructive engagement, transparency, and the long game as major food companies try to stay out of the political wrestling ring, at least publicly.Highlights:– How CBA is approaching the Trump administration's anti-Big Food rhetoric, and where they see room for common ground– The Facts Up Front and SmartLabel programs, and why the industry sees transparency on its own terms as a selling point–How MAHA laws in Texas, West Virginia, and beyond have the industry turning to the courts and to Congress– Why CBA thinks "ultra-processed foods" is too complex to define, and what that means for policy– Front-of-pack labeling: where the Biden-era proposed rule stands now and what to expect from FDA under the Trump administration– The affordability argument is not landing the way the industry hoped at the state levelWhere to find Melissa Hockstad:Follow Melissa Hockstad on LinkedInMentioned in this episode:Consumer Brands AssociationFacts Up FrontSmartLabelStay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.coCheck out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.
- Apr 1, 202646 min
Why infant formula is not a niche issue with Mallory Whitmore, The Formula Mom
Infant formula isn't some niche parenting topic. It's a public health issue, a food security issue, and in many ways an infrastructure issue.The 2022 infant formula crisis was one of the most alarming food system failures in recent memory. Shelves were suddenly empty. Parents were driving across state lines to find cans of formula. The Department of Defense was flying it in on military planes. And most of us — including me — realized we knew almost nothing about how infant formula actually works, where it comes from, or how consolidated the industry really is.Mallory Whitmore, known online as @theformulamom, has spent the last five years building the resource she couldn't find when she needed it most. As an infant feeding technician and now the education lead at Bobbie, a U.S. formula company, she's become one of the most influential voices on formula in the country. With more than 200,000 Instagram followers and a new book, Bottle Service, Mallory aims to give parents guilt-free, evidence-based guidance they're rarely getting anywhere else. Most parents use formula at some point before their babies turn one — it’s high time we stop treating formula as a niche topic.Highlights:– What Mallory learned (and all the info she couldn't find) when breastfeeding didn't work for her first daughter– What it was like to be in the middle of the 2022 Abbott recall, the crisis that exposed just how fragile the U.S. formula supply chain really is– The shame and stigma around formula feeding, and why "breast is best" messaging isn't landing the way it's intended– What parents should actually look for in a formula– Lactose, corn syrup solids, and other misunderstood ingredients– Why some parents believe European formulas are superior, what's actually different, and the real risks of importing your own– Operation Stork Speed: the FDA's first serious look at updating infant formula nutrition standards in decades, and whether the panel's expert guidance will actually translate into policyWhere to find Mallory Whitmore:Follow Mallory Whitmore on InstagramCheck out her book Bottle ServiceMentioned in this episode:Operation Stork SpeedStay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.coCheck out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.
- Mar 18, 202650 min
What we still don't know about ultra-processed foods with Julia Belluz & Kevin Hall
The American diet has become dominated by ultra-processed foods, but it’s taken a while for scientists to even begin to understand what this really means for our health.One of the researchers at the cutting edge of our nascent understanding is Kevin Hall. A physicist by training, Hall spent 21 years at NIH becoming the country's foremost nutrition scientist before resigning from the agency in 2025.Julia Belluz is an award-winning health journalist and contributing opinion writer at the New York Times who has done some of the best reporting on nutrition and obesity anywhere.Together, they wrote Food Intelligence — an Economist Book of the Year. It's one of the most honest and nuanced books about food and nutrition I've read in a long time, and this conversation reflects that.Highlights:– Kevin's landmark 2019 NIH clinical trial: how it was designed, what it found, and why it was so controversial– Why nutrition science is so underfunded — and how that created a vacuum filled by industry, influencers, and ideology – The MAHA paradox: a movement with the right rhetoric (sometimes) but lacking serious investment in the science to back it up – What the continuous glucose monitor and biohacking craze gets wrong – How food environments (not willpower) drive what we eat, and what changing them would actually require – Kevin's firsthand account of being censored as a government scientist and why he ultimately left NIH after 21 years – What systemic change could actually look like: SNAP reform, marketing restrictions, and making healthy food genuinely competitiveWhere to find Kevin Hall & Julia Belluz:Check out their book Food IntelligenceKevin Hall’s websiteFollow him on InstagramJulia Belluz’s websiteFollow her on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Kevin Hall's 2019 ultra-processed foods clinical trial — Cell MetabolismHow Washington Keeps America Sick and Fat — Helena's 2019 Politico investigation on nutrition research underfundingKevin Hall's departure from NIH — CNNStay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.coCheck out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.
- Mar 6, 202638 min
FDA's food agenda, one year in with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary
The FDA is nearly a year into its MAHA era. The rhetoric has been bold — food dyes, ultra-processed foods, infant formula, GRAS reform. But what's actually happened? And what might still be coming? Helena got down to brass tacks with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary during a fireside chat on stage at the National Food Policy Conference in Washington, D.C.Commissioner Makary came into this role as a surgical oncologist and researcher who spent decades at Johns Hopkins — and who had already written extensively about food and nutrition before taking the job (unusual for an FDA commissioner).In this conversation, they cover a lot of ground: the plan to phase out synthetic food dyes, the coming definition for ultra-processed foods, the overhaul of infant formula standards, GRAS reform, and what front-of-pack labeling might actually look like under this administration.Highlights:– Makary sees the food side of FDA as one of the biggest opportunities of his tenure; he thinks it's been under-appreciated for years– The plan to phase out petroleum-based synthetic food dyes– FDA's coming definition for ultra-processed foods, expected by April or May, and how it might factor into labeling– Rethinking front-of-pack labeling: why this administration isn't planning to just move forward with the Biden-era proposal– Overhauling the infant formula monograph for the first time in decades– GRAS reform: where the proposed rule stands and what Makary says about FDA's authority to close the loophole– How AI is being used to speed up scientific reviews and help target inspectionsWhere to find Commissioner Makary:Dr. Makary’s website@DrMakaryFDA on XMentioned in this episode:Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health by Marty MakaryStay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.coCheck out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.
About American Dish
From Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” to Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, America is in the midst of a food and nutrition policy awakening. Why are diet-related disease rates so high in the U.S.? What are the potential solutions? What does the science say? Award-winning journalist Helena Bottemiller Evich cuts through the noise to help us understand what’s really happening with our food system and our plates.
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