The 'F' in FDA Is Silent" — The State of Food Policy with Helena Bottemiller-Evich

Before we get into today's episode, I need to tell you about something I literally have never done before. So I do a lot of events. I speak on a lot of stages and I absolutely love it. It's actually one of my favorite things to do because I love interacting with the audience and seeing the ahas in people's face when they fall in love with their bodies again. But there is something fundamentally different about an event that I'm doing this June and I want you to hear it directly from me. It's my event. There's the first thing. I've created it. And it's called the Live Like a Girl Retreat. And I'm not going to be on stage behind a podium delivering a keynote and then disappearing. I want to get to know you. I want to hear what your concerns are. I want to be there to help you. So I'm going to be sitting with you at dinner by the fire in the breakout rooms for a full three days. It is June 11th through June 13th, and it is at 1440 Multiversity in Santa Cruz, California in these beautiful redwoods. And I'm going to be present with you in a way I simply cannot be anywhere else. It is a small group of people. We are going to have real conversations. We are going to have real connection. I will be doing a book signing, pictures if that's your thing and we will be connecting and making sure that you are moving in the right direction with your health. So you can go to drmindypels.com backslash events and there are rooms available. They are limited. This is a small event. I want to make sure that you are there if that feels right and that we start healing together. Okay, that's what I got for you. let's get into today's episode. On this episode of the Resetter podcast, I am bringing you Helena Botmiller-Evich. And if you're not familiar with her, you're going to fall in love with her, I promise you, because she's doing incredible work in the world when it comes to helping us all understand food policy. So here's a little bit of a background on her. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Food Fix. She previously led coverage of food and agriculture at Politico for nearly a decade, winning numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious George Polk Award for a series on climate change and two James Beard Awards for features on nutrition and science. And we've been following her, my husband and I, for many years to help inform ourselves on the food system here in America. And so we're at a really pivotal moment when it comes to ultra processed foods. And there is a lot of conflicting information out there about the food system, what is actually being accomplished in this current administration, as far as overturning or changing the food system, or even making the food system worse. And so I wanted to bring Helena to talk to us all about what do we need to know about the food we eat. So I promise you, this is a very entertaining discussion. It is we are not taking a political stance. This is looking at both sides of the policy argument when it comes to food. We address everything from the chemicals that are in our foods to glyphosate laws and what we need to know about that to was the food pyramid helpful for us on an individual level. And I really wanted to have this conversation because so much of what I do is educate you all on eating good food. And one of the hardest things that I find is how do I explain to you the vast amount of harmful chemicals that are poured into our food system that are causing chronic disease and what is actually being accomplished at a policy level. So it's a little bit of a steer away from do this so you can feel healthier. This is a very pivotal episode that I really felt like it was important for us all to understand what chemicals are being put into our food, what the chemical policies are changing currently. and most importantly, what can we do in a world where there are massive cancer-causing chemicals, there are massive amounts of chemicals that are causing weight gain and chronic disease, what can we do on an individual level to protect ourselves, our family, and keep ourselves healthy in this moment? So it's a complex discussion. It's an important discussion. And for those of you that really want to understand what you're eating, what is in your foods, and what we all can do to create a world where food is safe. This is the episode for you. Enjoy. So here's the million dollar question. This is a loaded one. Oh, great. Yeah, ready? What do we need to know in 2026 about our food system? Where are we right now with regulation, with the food quality? What do we need to know today? I think right now, the moment that we're in, so I mean, I've been covering food policy here in Washington for more than 15 years. So I've seen a lot of the arc of the last like decade plus of the conversation around food policy. And frankly, a lot of that has been driven by critics, reformers, people who want us to have a different food system, right? They argue our food system is unsustainable, that we need to be thinking more about human health, the environment. Together, when we are talking about food and ag production, often we don't think about it that way. We have run our food system in a very – I think we have gotten the food that we have asked the food system to give us, which is cheap. A lot of calories. We have more than enough calories in the U.S. we have kind of gotten the expected result. But we have really high rates of chronic disease. And the thing I've seen change the most in the last like year and a half is just how many more people, consumers in the US are interested in these issues. So I think the interest has been bubbling for a while. Like we've seen, obviously, we saw Michelle Obama talking about food at a very high level. We've had the critiques from, you know, Michael Pollan and Marian Nestle and Eric Schlosser. We've, we've, we've had this like bubbling up of interest in conversation and critique. And it, I think we've hit a new level of awareness and conversation in the last 18 months. And now the question is what, if anything is actually going to change. And that's really where I focus my reporting is let's separate, you know, the rhetoric from the action. And I think that's, what's hard right now. That's what's hard to like parse out. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I, when I was in clinical practice around, I was in practice for over 30 years. I literally would take my patients to the grocery store and I would show them like, this is the organic aisle. This is non GMO. Can we, you know, I teach them what that was. I would look at the label. I'd be like, here's what you need to know about the label. And I was just shocked at how many people didn't even know how to read a label. And this was, you know, 15 years ago that I was making these trips to the grocery store with my patients. And it was like a wake up moment for them. Like, and the most common question I got, and this is the one I'm going to ask you is, when we go to read a label, there's a bunch of words in there that we don't understand. Why is that allowed? And is there anything we can do to become more educated, to know what those chemicals are? And should we just avoid food with labels altogether? So I think we're in a moment where consumers are absolutely asking more of those questions when they go to the grocery store. Like even if they don't have someone like you, you know, walking them through the process, they might be using an app. There's so many apps now that you can scan. I know there's one that's really popular in France that's catching on more in the U.S. called, I think it's called Yucca. And RFK Jr. says he uses this app when he shops, not to like endorse the app, but it's one that's out there and really is being used more widely because a lot of consumers will see, you know, a name they don't understand or they don't recognize. And, you know, it might be a vitamin. It might be something they're not actually concerned about consuming. Or it might be a chemical that hasn't had a lot of FDA scrutiny and there are concerns about it. You know, maybe health advocates have raised concerns about it and they do want to avoid it. And so some of these tech tools are helping consumers like sift through like, what am I actually concerned about? What am I okay with? And kind of getting that more of that literacy and awareness. And I think it's really hard. Like we get so much information. We are bombarded with information on social media. Uh, you know, we see all the headlines about ultra processed foods, even deciding what is an ultra processed food and what isn't is hard. It's hard for me. I'm a reporter covering these issues and it is not always clear to me like where the line is. And so I have a lot of, um, empathy for consumers because it's, you know, I think we are at this point now where we understand that what we eat is so important. Uh, and the, what we eat as a country is linked to our really high rates of chronic disease. But then how you take action is a lot of the time it's up to the individual consumers. And I think consumers are left in this very confusing soup of information. So the awareness is there. And I think sometimes what's hard is sifting through the noise, figuring out how you're going to take action for yourself. And then I really focus on policy and we see all this consumer interest and excitement. And what's less clear is whether or not we're going to see federal policies to follow that and to start to change some of the food environment that we are in. And maybe the Trump administration is actually looking at doing front of pack labeling, which might help consumers identify whether or not they want to eat a food from the front of PAC. This is actually something the Biden administration had proposed initially. Those are the kinds of things that I'm really watching to see, do we actually get policy change from this moment? Because I think consumers are calling for some level of change. We just saw a poll that MAHA itself, a lot of the ideas within MAHA or Make America Healthy Again, if you haven't been following this acronym, is pretty popular. like regardless of party. And so that's new. That's like a new thing that we're seeing this sort of, you know, independents, Republicans, Democrats are in favor of some of these ideas. I think the food stuff is much more popular than some of the other issues within Maha. But we, you know, we see consumers really lit up about this. And I think once a voter consumer starts to have some awareness, I don't see how you put that back in the bottle. That's well said. So I don't know what's next, but I feel like the awareness is likely to continue. So it'll be interesting to see where it goes. I think one of the things that I, when I would actually go through labels, and again, this was 10, 15 years ago. It's a whole new world now. The biggest thing I got from people was how can they put these cancer-causing chemicals in our food? And you have been known, perhaps your most famous quote is the, and I think I'm quoting you right. If I'm not quoting you right, you tell me. But you have been given credit for the F is silent in the FDA. And I've even gone on, and I don't know if it was in reading your articles, I think it's really crazy that we have food and drug in the same administration. That seems like a conflict of interest. so you know can you just address for the person who might be listening to this and going wait aren't they isn't the FDA protecting me and making sure that all the ingredients in food is safe for me what does that consumer need to know yeah I think you're referring to a big investigation I did when I was at Politico back in 2022 and if anyone wants to read it you can google I think it's like FDA food failure and it'll be the first thing that comes up you can read it. It's long and has a lot of chapters on different topics. And that story was really meant to show consumers kind of the state of FDA as it regulates food. And the overall theme was that it takes decades to pull things from the market that are concerning. The FDA lacks, I think, a culture of leaning in and sort of being protective of consumers. Many times it lacks resources. I don't think we've ever resourced the food side of FDA commensurate with the job we expect that agency to be doing. So the FDA is overseeing 80% of the food supply, which depending on how you're measuring it, it's probably like a $2 trillion industry includes hundreds of thousands of food facilities across the globe. And they have a pretty small staff that is in charge of that. So I think there's cultural problems, there's structural ones. And then just the way that FDA oversees food is so different than the way drugs are overseen. So the way drugs are overseen, you have to prove using quite a bit of data that a drug is effective and safe. Now, of course, we've seen situations where they got it wrong and things are pulled later. I'm not saying it's like a foolproof system, but there's a pretty high bar. It takes years, a lot of R&D to get a drug to market. The food side is very different. It's much more hands-off. Most food chemicals make it to market under a system known as generally recognized as safe or GRAS, which technically a food company doesn't even have to tell FDA if they've determined that a food is generally recognized as safe. It was sort of meant as this common sense policy that has sort of become, activists like to call it, the loophole that ate the rule. So now most food chemicals get to market this way. So FDA is not actually approving these food chemicals. They're often not told. many of the big players that are more responsible they do notify FDA and say hey you know can you look at the science and FDA will say oh we have no questions but even that is not an approval right it's not like a pre-market approval I mean usually when you explain this to people they're like that can't be right exactly I mean it's yeah I've studied grass for a long time because I've wanted to figure out what was in that category and like like I don't know a lot of flavorings Yeah. Natural flavorings. I used to tell my patients, like, that means nothing. Like, natural flavorings. Who knows what's in that, yeah. Who knows what's there? But they, you know, the generally recognized as safe, you know, it's like, every chemical is innocent until proven guilty with the Food Administration. Have we changed that at all? Do you see any sign that that might be, there might be creating a different structure there? So this has been a major issue for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He talked a lot about grass before he merged with President Trump to create this new Maha alliance. It's really like Maha and MAGA kind of married up in this very complicated marriage. but he this is one issue yeah so one way of putting it we could get into like the marital spats that are being had right now but um kennedy has talked about grass a lot and this is one place where fda is moving a regulation so they have fda has submitted some inside baseball fda has submitted a regulation to the white house for review that seeks to close the so grass So we don know exactly what they going to do but think maybe it would include mandatory notification of grass determinations just so FDA has more oversight. FDA does not currently have a list of all the substances that are on the market in the food supply because they don't have to be notified. And so if you created that requirement, then that would give FDA more of a window into what is actually on the market. So that's one thing they could do. We don't know when that's going to be proposed. There's still like a long – rulemaking takes a long time, even when an administration wants to move something forward. And the food industry is at the White House right now arguing that more oversight of grass would hamper innovation. They're even kind of threatening that FDA might be overstepping its authority, which is something that makes FDA very nervous. They don't want to get sued. They don't get their hands tied. So we are in a moment where it looks like the administration is going to move forward on this. But we are I saw Kennedy recently say that he had closed the grass loophole. That is not true. They have not closed the grass loophole. They are taking some steps forward toward potentially closing the grass loophole. And, you know, consumer advocates, folks on the left have supported doing this for a long time. So it is one of those issues where there is, I think, a fair amount of bipartisan support. It's not particularly controversial, although it is very controversial within the food industry. And how much is the resistance to create some barriers around these chemicals? How much is that profit driven that the administration doesn't want to have any more corporate restrictions because these companies that are making these chemicals and using these chemicals? I want to make sure I'm not jumping to conclusions, but it feels like there is a big food culture that is invested in profits more than health. Well, I think they're definitely making the argument. The food companies are making the argument that this would be costly, that this would make it harder to get products to market, which is probably true. It would create more barriers to getting to market. Right now we have a situation where other countries, if there's an innovation like sell cultivated meat or some sort of really high tech thing, they'll bring it to the US because it's easier to get on the market than it is elsewhere. And so, you know, it takes less time. And I think you can argue that there are some reasons why that would be good. You can get really great things to market. But like, I think the bottom line here is that the current system cannot be defended with consumers. Consumers are not okay with how the system is working. And we are now seeing this sort of bipartisan agreement that something needs to change. Um, one thing I've noticed is that Kennedy and the Maha movement, I think, well, particularly the Trump administration, they are actually showing a lot of willingness to call out big food to like bash the big food companies. What I'm not seeing is, um, their willingness to call out more of the agriculture side. And I think that speaks a little bit to how, um, much more powerful the agriculture groups are on Capitol Hill compared to the food industry. The food industry in a way is much more splintered because there's a lot of food companies that aren't sure how to respond to the Maha moment we're in. There's ones that are more maybe forward thinking and are like, okay, let's reformulate. Let's lean in. Maybe let's make some changes. They might disagree with the idea that you should just fight on everything. And so when you have disagreement within an industry about how to move forward, their lobby is actually weakened. And so I think we're seeing this kind of split between the way the Trump administration's talking about the food industry and the way they're talking about the agriculture folks. It's very interesting. One of the interesting things I thought about the Maha movement is the awareness it brought, like just the fact that we had to make America. Yeah. And I think everybody needs to step out of their political belief system and just acknowledge that that was really great that we could create this awareness. And at the same time, there was so much talk about food dyes, and that became the center focus. How far have they actually gotten on the food dye issue? And are they the first movement to do that? Or was that I know Michelle Obama was very passionate about food, the food system. Is there an enhancement of what she had already started at all going on? So, yeah, this is a really good question. I think there's so much confusion about what this administration has and hasn't done right on food. Yeah. So they talk about food dyes as if they have rid them from the food supply. I think it's understandable that consumers get the perception that they've been banned, but that is not the case. The administration has said to the food industry, we want these out. So we want you to phase them out. They basically said, you know, phase them out. They've asked them to phase them out. And somewhere around half of the food companies, or maybe if you measured it by volume, have agreed to phase them out. So half of them have not. We have not been able to get an answer of like what's going to happen if food companies either committed to get them out and don't because we've actually seen this happen before. Food companies have committed to getting them out and then didn't or went back on it. And so we're not sure what the forcing mechanism is. West Virginia had actually banned the major synthetic food dyes, which really set a deadline for the food industry because you're not going to not sell M&Ms in West Virginia. Like you can't make special M&Ms just for West Virginia. But that's tied up in court right now. And so we don't know where that's going to head. I would say the administration has put a lot of pressure on food companies to get these dyes out. States are also putting pressure. A lot of states are looking at things like banning synthetic food dyes out of school meals. And that puts pressure on manufacturers to then just reformulate out of them. And the Trump administration has also approved more alternatives. So food colorings that are made from other ingredients that are not synthetic. And so we are moving in that direction. But by no means has this administration banned them. And I think still for the next, like for the foreseeable future, we're still going to have those brightly colored things on the market that, you know, my six year old loves. He wants the bright, the brighter the color, the more my kid wants it. So, yeah, it's so funny. My son, who's now 23, when he played Little League, when he was about eight or nine, you know, I go to after the game and his tongue would be completely blue because they had given him something. After a while, I was like, you can't do this sport anymore. And he's like, why? And I'm like, it turns your tongue blue. We can't be doing this sport. We ended up going over to soccer where they don't give, you know, toxic treats at the end. Yeah, I mean, I think the food dies definitely. I mean, this is where it's intriguing because Maha got some of these concepts right and they really brought forward a powerful awareness. But what you just said is really important because we are declaring victory before the victory has even happened. And from my understanding, what do we know from the Obama administration? Wasn't Michelle Obama also doing some work behind the scenes on this? Yeah, so Michelle Obama, I covered that era extensively. Michelle Obama was not focused on food diets specifically, but under the Obama administration, she put a major focus on nutrition, particularly children's nutrition. So she had the Let's Move campaign, which was focused on tackling childhood obesity. And that included actually a lot of policy changes. I think the biggest one was overhauling the nutrition standards in the school meals program. So like more whole grains, more fruits and vegetables, limits on sodium. Like these are changes that were made during that era. And, you know, at the time, Republicans really hated those changes. Like there were huge fights, like huge political fights over these. I covered all of it. I mean, it was super dramatic. Like, I mean, you would things you wouldn't think you could even fight over. They were fighting over. Like, should they be required to have a half a cup of fruits and vegetables on the plate? Or is that somehow the nanny state? And it's like, well, the federal government's paying for the meals. So it's kind of hard to argue nanny state on like having nutrition standards. But we heard it all. I mean, it was this really, really intense time. The Obama administration also did a lot of other things that I think people forget. Like they banned trans fat. Industrial trans fats were actually blamed for tens of thousands of cardiovascular events and premature death every year. And so I remember the food industry coming to me and being like, sprinkles are going to be banned. Like we're not going to have sprinkles anymore. Like we can't function without trans fat. And like lo and behold, they figured it out. They found a way. They found a way. What did they replace it with, though? I think I was going to ask you this question because it was partially hydrogenated oils, right? And they said we decided it causes cardiovascular disease. And then the thing that really got me on this is when they made that discovery, I think it was, you know, better than me. It was a long time ago. It was decades ago. Yeah. And they were like, it needs to be out by 2025 or something like that, which was 20 years from the time they discovered it was causing cardiovascular deaths. The guy who worked on that was a man named Fred Kummerow. And he had been asking FDA to ban it for forever. Like he petitioned them. I mean, he, I think either had almost died or had died by the time they finally did it. He for sure had died before the implementation period. So that's how long it took. It took a really long time. And it was controversial. The Obama administration also, I remember then First Lady Michelle Obama being at the White House and they unveiled a new nutrition facts panel. People forget that we didn't have an added sugars label like mandated on the, you know, you're talking about the nutrition facts panel. We didn't have added sugars as a line item on that. I remember this. Yes. The Obama administration. And again, the food industry fought tooth and nail against it, arguing that it was costly. You know, they were going to change all the labels. And the Obama administration really pushed back on that. And they were like, we'll give you years to do it. Like you need to update the labels. And, you know, I don't know about you, but like I do look at added sugars. Like it's helpful to have that. And we didn't have that before. That was a controversial change. There were several things like that where the Obama administration pushed forward on some policy areas. And what's interesting is they didn't have Maha. They didn't actually have this like huge movement. I actually talked to Sam Cass about this recently. He was the leader of Let's Move during the Obama administration. He really ran a lot of the First Lady's efforts, and he was also the chef to the First Family, so had this very unique vantage point. He wrote a book, didn't he? Yeah, he just wrote a book. It's called, what's it called? The Last Supper. It's called The Last Supper. And he writes about how hard it was to fight the food industry. The food industry has a lot of political power. But I do think out of those fights, we saw a bit of a weakened food industry, the big lobbying group that everyone would recognize as big food, like all the major brands were in it. actually like kind of splintered during that time because food companies couldn't agree on like how to respond to a lot of these fights. Some of them were like, yeah, it's fine. We'll do added sugars. You know, some of them were like fight to the death. Right. So, uh, we're, they did, they did a lot of, uh, they moved forward on a lot of policies. And I think now looking back, a lot of the Obama people like Sam Cass is like, they're so mad at this moment, this Maha moment, because they're like, there's all of this grassroots energy and they believe the administration's not going to do anything with it. Not going to do anything real. They're like, sure. Like the argument they make, sure, get rid of food dyes. We're not going to defend food dyes. We don't care about them. But they're like, that's, you know, the line you always hear is, um, Fruit Loops without synthetic food dyes are still Fruit Loops. And so have you really changed? They're Cheerios. Aren't they Cheerios without the fruit dyes? I think they still have some more sugar in them than Cheerios. Cheerios have a little bit of sugar. But, you know, their argument is that you're not fundamentally changing much. Not that they're like, sure, great, keep the food dyes, right? But they're kind of, I think, raising concern that maybe focusing on that won't get us where we need to go, which I think everyone agrees is lower rates of chronic disease. Right, right. That's where we want to go. And we are in a rough spot right now. Yeah, which which how do you how do you put that next to the laws that are being overturned on glyphosate? because I can tell you in my practice, I started to see when people were first coming into me, there would have one symptom, you know, two would be unusual. And then I started to see people coming, especially with hormonal symptoms, where they would come in with four, five different chronic symptoms. And when I mapped it, I literally mapped it to when glyphosate was introduced into our food system. And so I started educating patients on organic, we got to, you know, not do the glyphosate crops are the are the worst, this is what they're doing. And when the Maha movement was gaining traction in its allegiance with Trump, I kept saying to my friends who were very pro-Maha, are you looking at Trump's environmental policies, because we need to square all of this together. And I found it surprising that so much of the Maha movement was shocked about a month ago when they saw the protection the administration had given to Bayer for any injury caused by glyphosate. What do we need to know about that? So I think glyphosate is, I mean, it's a supercharged debate right now, like no question. Um, what the administration has done so far is sided with Bayer at the Supreme Court. So Bayer right now is trying to, they're facing thousands of cancer lawsuits, right? They have paid out billions of dollars. Um, these are primarily lawsuits, um, from environmental like work exposure. So, um, non-Hodgkin lymphoma in like a farmer or farm worker, that's generally what these cases are. My understanding is it's largely not from consumption, but they are facing a torrent of lawsuits and they are now arguing in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court is actually going to hear this case April 27th, that they shouldn't be facing these lawsuits. Most of them are under this wonky thing called failure to warn because they're saying the EPA has approved this and there's no cancer risk. The EPA has determined that glyphosate's not likely to be a carcinogen, so they shouldn't be held responsible. It's basically like, should the federal rule preempt all state rules or state laws? And that's what Bayer is seeking to do at the Supreme Court. And the Trump administration is backing Bayer in this case. So that was the first thing that, I mean Maha I think the insiders were the most angry about I don know that your random you know mom your random Maha mom who like going about her life who taking kids to soccer She's probably not following the ins and outs of the Supreme Court, which like, she shouldn't, right? Because that's, there's like a lot going on in the world. But once that happened, a lot of the Maha advocates were really angry. And then after that, we saw the White House issue an executive order to promote the more domestic production of glyphosate. And they are arguing that it's a national security concern. We can't be so reliant on imports that basically like the foundation of our food system is at risk. Essentially, we need to onshore more of this. And as part of that, they had this language in there that was something, there's some debate about like what this language actually meant, but it sort of sent a signal that if under the Defense Production Act, which is a wartime provision, you know, if a company were to be complying with that, that they would have some liability shield. It wasn't a full-blown liability shield, which is more what Bayer is seeking from Congress and potentially from the Supreme Court, if they rule that EPA rules all, it will block these lawsuits. And it's not just glyphosate issue. We're talking about thousands of chemicals that if EPA has ruled on their safety, it would block one of the main pathways that people have to to sue over these chemicals. And so that's why you're seeing a lot of advocacy groups teaming up with Maha, even when they might disagree with a lot of this other stuff, because there's a lot of anger about the idea that you would be giving essentially liability protection to these big chemical companies beyond just glyphosate. And so there's this really intense debate happening. And that's why a lot of the Maha activists were so angry when they saw this executive order, because they felt like it was a slap in the face. Because Trump ran on cracking down on, he called them toxins in the food supply and in the environment. And a lot of what this administration has done has been deregulatory. They have weakened rules on mercury pollution, which is how mercury, which is a heavy metal, gets into our seafood and other things that we eat. And so just as one example, there is this really big rift, this really big tension within Maha over, I think, this grassroots desire to have the government cracking down on some of these things. And then the actual reality, which is that this administration, particularly at EPA, has been pretty industry friendly. And they're kind of openly. So, I mean, they say, you know, they brag about the level of deregulation that they have been seeking. And so we are in a very tense moment. Yes, we are. Maha advocates are rallying in front of the Supreme Court on April 27th. And so there's going to be, I think, a bunch of Maha moms and others here in Washington. Yeah, they're real, real mad. Where do you think RFK Jr. sits on this? Because when I saw the protection for Bayer, I watched several of my colleagues that are big Maha advocates, and I was like, just waiting. Okay, what's RFK Jr. going to say? And personally, I was shocked that he seemed to side with the administration that we can't take glyphosate out, or we're not going to have enough food. What do we think? Do you think that was a political statement to save his face? And what is the truth behind that? Because I have had several colleagues that are repeating that statement, and that's how they're justifying this moment. um rfk jr has been open that he disagreed with this that he's i think he said something like he wasn't happy about it to put it mildly he did go on joe rogan like a couple of weeks after this happened and explained a little bit more of his stance but but you you summed it up in in a way there he has defended the move as basically saying this is a national security issue we can't be so reliant on other countries for the ingredients for glyphosate. So he backed up kind of the premise of the EO executive order. That's what we call them here in DC. But he also said he believes glyphosate causes cancer. And to be very clear, this is not the EPA's position. EPA has repeatedly said that, you know, or concluded that glyphosate is not likely to be a carcinogen. Other regulatory bodies, including EFSA, have concluded the same, but there are some, like there's a panel, IARC, within the World Health Organization that is ruled glyphosate is probably a carcinogen. And so I'm not a toxicology expert, but there is like a debate here. There's a debate about environmental exposure. I think we've seen less science on the, you know, everyone gets very concerned about residues in food. I've seen less science there to raise concerns about that. But I get it that, you know, a ubiquitous herbicide in the environment is going to make consumers go, really? I mean, is this, you know, is this okay? Do we trust EPA? I mean, I think that's kind of fundamentally what this comes down to is a lot of people don't trust EPA anymore. And And that's the moment we find ourselves in. But Kennedy has said he actually was part of the legal team that first sued Monsanto. So Bayer owns, Bayer bought Monsanto, so they have glyphosate now. But Kennedy actually sued Monsanto back in the day and was part of the legal team that won the first big jury verdict against Monsanto over a groundskeeper who had gotten non-Hodgkin lymphoma after using Roundup in his job. I think Roundup has since taken glyphosate out, but glyphosate is very much part of the food system that we have. I don't know that we have a, we don't have an easy alternative to glyphosate. Interesting. That's a good point. There are other herbicides. Almost all of them that I know of are more toxic. They have more concerns about the potential environmental or human health issues. And so it is a real challenge. I think when I'm watching this debate unfold within Maha, I think there's a couple of big questions that come up. The first is, you know, Kennedy has said as part of his defense is that we need to transition away. And he says things like everyone agrees we need to transition away from glyphosate. I don't see evidence of that within the agriculture space, like within the agriculture industry. I think probably some individual farmers are like, yeah, I would love to have an alternative. I would love to have some other tools in the toolbox. But I don't see agriculture making the argument writ large that they want to transition away or that they need to transition away. But Maha wants the food system to transition away. And so it's another situation where I think the wants of the grassroots are not really lining up with like the policy of the administration. And so, you know, I think Kennedy's been in a really tough spot on this one. He I didn't expect that he would be like against it because. President Trump is his boss. Right. I was. That's why I was like bated breath. Everyone. What's he going to do now? Everyone was watching. They were like, because it was like watching this very dramatic fight unfold on, on largely on social media. And like some of the key Maha advocates like Zen Honeycutt or Kelly Ryerson were like out there basically arguing that this was straight up betrayal. They were like, I think Zen Honeycutt actually said online, like, I feel physically ill. They were so mad. They were so mad. They felt betrayed. And so I don't know where this is heading because we're in kind of a fundamental, they're in a fundamental disagreement, I think, about how to move forward. And the fact of the matter is this administration is still on the side of Bayer at the Supreme Court. Yeah. There is a similar liability provision in the farm bill that is moving forward in the House. So this idea, again, about blocking failure to warn lawsuits, that is also active in Congress, too. So and Maha is pushing back. I mean, Maha advocates have had a lot of success at the state level. They have fought. Yeah, there's been some state laws to try to basically give, you know, liability protection. And there's been some instances where where Maha moms got on the phone and they were like they killed it. So, I mean, it hasn't worked in every state, but watching that has been pretty interesting. I don't think we've seen that recently. Yeah, they seem the thing that I find intriguing about the whole Maha movement is they seem to have this sense that they're acting independently of the Trump administration. Yeah, I think there is something to that. I've never seen anything like this in terms of, you know, there's a lot of anger, for example, at EPA, like deregulating, you know, mercury, PFAS, like pick your pick your issue. Pick your chemical. And so they're really angry about that, but they don't blame Kennedy because they're like, well, Kennedy doesn't oversee EPA. And it's true. He doesn't. But I've never seen that dynamic unfold where like you have a movement who very much helped elect Trump. Maha was helpful to Trump in 2024. for. And then to not, um, or to, to, I guess to, to be able to compartmentalize some of those actions is, is interesting. I've never seen that happen. Um, and they, I think a lot of them, I think the reason this hasn't been a full blown divorce between Maha and the Trump administration, I think is because they hold out a lot of hope that Kennedy will do some of the things that they, they want at HHS. So we'll have to see, but I think it's a big, big test for Maha. Yeah. And I think it'll be interesting. I mean, again, a lot of these people are in my space, my colleagues, friends, people I love. I've been in discussions with them and I care passionately about the environment. And so I was trying to figure out how the Maha movement and the environmental policies of Trump were going to fit together. They're not, I would say they're not like the environmental groups. Like if you look at EWG or consumer reports or these other groups, they're, they're not defending like a lot of these moves. And the other thing I should say on the, on the ag front, Kennedy has, has talked about the potential for there being like, basically like tech solutions coming to the summit. So glyphosate's used to combat weeds. It's a weed killer. We use the term herbicide. And there's these cool technologies coming down the pike where farmers can basically put this like big attachment on their agricultural equipment and it will like zap the individual weeds. It will like see the weeds and zap the weeds. Yeah. Instead of using, yeah, instead of using an herbicide and like, it sounds super cool and futuristic and it is, but I think he's been very open. He's like, these cost a million dollars. It's not the near-term solution if you're talking about reducing the use of herbicides generally, but those things are starting to get kicked around now as maybe in the future we can move away because of some of these technologies. So that's one thing that's interesting to watch. I mean, at a million dollars, I mean, farmers are under a lot of stress right now. Commodity prices our commodity prices are not keeping up with the cost of inputs. I mean, we're now in a war with Iran and like fuel prices are up. I mean, they are under stress, right? So no one's like, oh, you know what I need to do? Spend a million dollars on a new piece of equipment that's going to help me move away from glyphosate. But maybe we will see that down the road. I don't know. So I think it's wishful thinking to think that is around the corner, though. Yeah. How helpful was the new food pyramid? And what was the politics behind that? Oh, man. What was the politics behind that? I think Kennedy has said publicly a few times that blood was shed over every single recommendation in the dietary guidelines. This stuff is really political. There's so much fighting. That is crazy. Over all of it. Over all of it. I mean, okay. The dietary guidelines overall, overall are not as different. They are not revolutionary compared to what we had, right? Like still some of the fundamentals are there, fruits and vegetables, whole grains. Um, you know, they even kept the saturated fat limit, which a lot of people were surprised by because they really like to talk about how they believe the scientific community has wrongly pointed at sat fat as something you need to reduce. And it's a whole other topic for another day. There's a lot of fighting about that. So even the 10%, try to keep 10% of your calories, saturated fat to be no more than 10% of your calories. They even kept that, which was wild. The places where the dietary guidelines are really different is they explicitly tell consumers to avoid highly processed foods. This is a first. The dietary guidelines have never mentioned that specific type of food. Now, you'll notice I said highly processed, not ultra processed. They use the term highly processed in part because we don't have a definition fully for what is an ultra processed food and FDA and USDA are working on this right now, which I think a lot of health advocates think could be helpful if they get it right, which is hard to do. But I think there's some folks that are hopeful that that could be helpful. So avoiding ultra processed foods was a huge change. The way that the pyramid was slipped upside down, I think was a very clever way of saying we don't trust the institutions we've had, right? It's a way of flip, literally flipping over. Um, you know, of course the wonk in me is like, we technically haven't had a food pyramid for more than 15 years because we've had this. I mean, do you even know what my plate is? Most people don't. They did a very bad job. They did a very bad job marketing. My plate was horrible too. I mean, I mean, but it was at least I tried to make it actionable. In my plate is half fruits and vegetables and then a quarter of its grain and a quarter of its meat. And then it has like milk, like, uh, that was the floating up. Yes. Yes. A lot of folks, a lot of folks were like, what about water? But don't, don't try. I mean, the, the, The dairy lobby is strong as well. So, wow. So the way that the pyramid, the upside down triangle we now have really visually calls out, you know, there's that ribeye right there, the whole milk, like it's very meat and dairy focused. I think it's the actual visual that is so different. the dietary guidelines themselves, like the underpinnings are not quite as different as, um as people may think So that maybe sounds wonky to people but I think it is kind of important It not like we wholesale rewrote nutrition guidelines Like a lot of the same things are true Like you know, there's still, you know, legumes and there's still like some beans in there and some fruits and vegetables are still called out as something you should eat. Seafood. A lot of the things that have long been promoted in the dietary guidelines are still promoted in the dietary guidelines, but certainly the like shift towards higher protein, um, that was a significant change recommending higher protein, um, consumption and the visual representation of more meat and dairy was big. And that's, I think a lot that that's the message most people are getting is like stakes back, like, right. That's the message. And that's the message they wanted to convey. So surely you've seen the Saturday Night Live skit, a Maha hospital. And the woman comes in, they're like, she needs a steak. Get her steak stat. It was really funny. The SNL skit is really funny. I think even some folks within Maha thought it was funny. Yeah. It was funny. It was really well done. Yeah. I think at one point they were like, at one point they're like, she's, they're like, he's crashing. They're like, get us some bull semen. And you're just like, it's actually very funny. If you haven't seen it, go to SNL, SNL, my hospital, and you will find it. It's very funny. What I did look up when that when we did the food pyramid, because I've been following them, because like you said, many of the people that are going to be going the Maha moms are people in my world. And so I'm just trying to stay in tune. And what I saw was that the food pyramid determines school lunches. And what goes into our school? So my first question is, is that correct? And the second is, I don't think we're going to start serving steak to our kindergarteners. I don't know if we can afford that. We can't afford it. But if we've got ultra processed foods as the enemy, there's a part of me that's like, well, okay, maybe that could trinkle into our school system. This is, I think, the big question. This is the big question. Okay. um cabinet officials like to say that the dietary guidelines dictate school meals and that's sort of like true and untrue it is true and that they're supposed to follow the dietary guidelines but you have to actually write rules to mandate those changes so like school meals is the perfect example school meals um people don't realize that schools are the largest restaurant chain in america Like they're bigger than all the other chains. Yeah. Um, like crazy. We're talking 30 million meals a day. Like actually I think it's more like over 40 if you include breakfast. Um, cause a lot of schools serve breakfast as well. So we're talking massive scale. Um, and we're only spending maybe $2 a meal on like the food for lunch that they are paying higher than that. Cause like there's a lot of overhead costs. You have to have staff and like, so when you ask about steak. I don't think it's that the U.S. actually can't afford to feed kids steak. It's that we choose not to, right? We choose to do like a lower cost option for students. And I think that's been true for a long, long time. Like we're trying to feed the most kids possible for as little as is feasible. That's throughout, you know, when I ate school lunch, it was the same. Like it was like canned peaches and pizza. And we had French toast sticks. Those were really popular. Sloppy Joe's. I remember because I was raised with a total health nut mom. And if the cafeteria was showing, was giving sloppy Joe's, I was like, yes, I get that. You're like, I didn't get that at home. Yeah. So, you know, the push away, the recommendation that people avoid highly processed foods, in theory, should translate to school meals. The issue is most of the foods served in school meals are ultra processed. And so then the question becomes, how do schools do that? Like if they were to transition away from ultra processed foods, you would have to move towards scratch cooking or what's called speed scratch, which means, you know, you might be using canned tomato sauce and like some different components, but it's not like the heat and serve, which is what a lot of schools do right now. The challenge with this is schools need equipment. A lot of schools don't have kitchens. They've been reheating food and serving it. And I was actually just out in California and California is doing a lot to try to get their schools to be cooking again. They're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on like farm to school and they are trying to do more equipment in school. So like I was in the, I was in the Berkeley, um, central kitchen and they have like a long time focus on school because of Alice Waters. I was just going to say you were at the epicenter. Yeah, definitely. And not the typical school for sure. Um, but you know, just the chiller. So they, they would cook the food, they cook the food at a central kitchen and they chill it down and send it off to the schools. Cause that's like an easier way than having each school have their own. Cause you imagine you might have one or two staff at this school and they're serving like, let's say they're serving 500 lunches to an elementary school. How are one or two people going to scratch cook for 500 kids? I mean, you're not. And so they found these ways. So the central kitchen model is really popular, especially in California. But just the chiller to like get the food from, you know, cooked down cool enough to like ship it out, you know, safely. That's like a $70,000 piece of equipment. And so just learning about these examples, you start to realize that there are some real barriers. And like one of those barriers is funding, some of it's training, and some of it's that we don't as a country really prioritize this. You know, we're spending a couple bucks on each meal. And like, I don't know how you do that. And then get beautifully prepared scratch meals that like people, I think a lot of moms would be like, that'd be great if I didn't have to pack lunch. So we're in this moment where there is, I think, a gap between the intention in the dietary guidelines to avoid highly processed foods and then the implementation of that. It's the same for the military. Like if we wanted to reduce ultra processed foods in the military, well, you've got to start building that infrastructure because right now a lot of military bases have fast food on them. You know, and so that's the status quo. Yeah, and then we send them our Halloween candy. Just, you know, put a little cherry on the top. I've always – I never understood that. I'm like, why would we send our Halloween candy to the military? How about we toss it? A lot of people toss their candy. I know. Like I found this out. Because parents are like, I don't want it in the house. Yeah, it's crazy. What do you think the consumer – you know, I think that as you dive into these topics, you can get pretty depressed pretty quickly. and the one solution that I have found if people have the resources is to move away from food that has labels on it start going to your farmers markets like we we actually know our farmers at our farmers markets and we ask them how it's grown and um and I think and I even did a video recently on my youtube channel about how you actually can save money eating whole food versus these ultra processed foods. And so I'm just wondering where we go in this moment. How do you see a way out? It's almost like the problem has been revealed. Now, what do we individually do? Yeah, I think this is one place where you hear a lot of agreement on the problem. Like, we know that higher consumption of ultra processed foods is associated with poor health outcomes, like so many different types. And so then the question becomes like, what do you do about it? And it like goes back to the schools. Okay. Well then that means cooking. Okay. Well, how I feel like it's the same in our houses, right? It's like, you know, I have two little kids. So the between five and 7 PM is like complete chaos in my household, even though like I, I like to cook, like I grew up, my mom always cooked. Like, so I'm lucky that I have the, you know, the know-how and the resources. And, and even then it's like, oh, it's a lot. And so I think, um, you know, I think when we, when we talk about going away from ultra processed foods, the real missing link is like having more convenient options that are minimally processed. And that seems to be where there's a big hole, like, because yes, it is true that you can eat for less if you're getting the ingredients and cooking, but that cooking takes time, skill, equipment. Also the executive function of planning it every week and going to the store and assuming you have access to transportation, assuming you have access to a grocery store that does have all these ingredients or a farmer's market. I think there's a lot more farmer's markets now than there were 15 years ago, but it's still not as accessible. And so I think it really is in the how is where we get stuck. The Trump administration, we see those leaders saying, you know, including Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Kennedy saying that like what you just said, that like actually you can eat for less. Like ultra processed foods actually are not cheap. But the thing is, they're easier. They are easier. They are so much easier. And they're addictive. Well, some of them are, but that's a whole other conversation. Some of them, I think the government has been, it's been interesting. When I was covering the Biden administration towards the end, I saw the FDA commissioner, Robert Califf, say that he personally believed that ultra processed foods caused addictive behavior, which is essentially the same thing as saying they're addictive, but he didn't go quite that far. He said, oh, this is not FDA policy. This is my personal viewpoint. And that was kind of at the end. Now we have cabinet officials straight up saying this food is essentially addictive. We're being mass poisoned. That's what they're saying. And again, I just go back to I'm a food policy reporter. I'm always like in the newsletter, food fix, which everyone should read. You know, I'm like, OK, this is what they said. What are they doing? And if the official position of the Trump administration is that we are being poisoned, what are we then doing about it? And I think that it's where the rubber meets the road. It's in how you transition that more focus needs to be paid. And there's just a huge gap between the rhetoric and the action. And I don't know where this is headed. I think it's possible we will see some policy action, but there's so much tension within this desire to sort of crack down or create a new food system or nudge our food system in a different direction. there's that desire. And then there's also this kind of more traditional Republican viewpoint, which is that like government should be small, limited, less regulation. Um, and those are just not really things you can square in the, in the same way. And so I don't know where this is, where this is headed, but I think there is a, um, a really big gap. Yeah. And I, you know, I also think at least it's at the forefront of the conversations that people are having. So I feel like the awareness is good. We just can't get depressed and not seeing the solution. So I know way too much about this. Yeah. Look, I have little kids. I think you you can't just only focus on like what's wrong. Like you have to be able to look forward and be like, okay, what, you know, there's, there's more awareness. I mean, the fact that we as a country can feed ourselves, like there, there is a lot of, um, there are a lot of positive things about the American food system, but it's also okay that consumers are now going, could we be doing this better? Could we, you know, can we get rid of some of these things that we have concerns about or that maybe other countries don't use? We live in a democracy. Like, it's fair to ask those questions. And if people want to push back on their government and ask for different policies, like, that's how it works. Yeah. Well, we've been watching you from afar for many years. So it's a real joy to meet you. And I just love what I love is the way you take the information. And this is probably your journalistic background. And you're able to present it where we can see both sides. And in a world that we're pointing fingers at everybody and this person's wrong and this one's right. I think your approach is just beautiful. So I just want to I want to thank you for that. And I know you have a sub stack. You have a podcast. Where where can my podcast listeners go and dive deeper into your work? Yeah. So if you want to get the newsletter, it's free every Friday. You can go to foodfix.co or just Google foodfix newsletter and you can find it. Um, I also have a new podcast called American dish, which is interviewing different food system, uh, leaders and officials, um, critics and insiders and all the, everything in between. Um, I do think, I mean, you mentioned being able to see all sides. I think it's important. Like we see so much online. That's like very polarized. And I always say it's like, it's not my job to tell people how to think about these issues. It's not my job to tell people what or how to think about Maha, but like, it is my job to hopefully inform readers about what's going on and like provide context. And that's what I try to do. I've been a journalist for a really long time. Um, I'm trying to do a little bit more on social media because I know so much of the information is, um, it's just really polarized and that's not always super helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Helena, thank you so much. I'm hopefully we gave you like 10 minutes before your children come in. So yeah, I had a little bit of time. That was like my goal. I was like, could I close this down so she could actually maybe go to the bathroom by herself? You're always hoping that there's time for that. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I really appreciate and just know there's many of us that you may not be seeing that are listening to you and watching. Well, I appreciate it. And I, I, you know, I've listened to a few of your pods and I, I am, so I'm about to turn 40 and all of my friends are like, what is going on? Like what? I mean, cause again, speaking of like the information overload, like everyone is like, how are we navigating? I mean, I feel like the, the wave of millennial women is just about to like, come on top of everyone. Gen X, everyone going, what are we doing? I was going to say, welcome, welcome. Those of us who have been in this little, you know, menopausal village will, will, you know, you're right in the middle of it. Yeah, it is. It is wild. And I mean, I don't, I, I, I don't know anything about this, but it's one of the things that's been interesting is, I mean, Maha definitely helped get the black box warning off of HRT. So like, there's all these issues where like certain things come up and people are like, we kind of all agree on this. And then you have other issues that come up and you're like, no, no one agrees on this. It's like, really, it's just all over the map. It's all over the map. But I think, I think we all need to get used to the word bittersweet. You know, it's such a, that two opposing things could come together in one moment. And that I think we can, we can like some of the things that Maha is doing, and we could be really opposed to some of the things. and I think that nuance nuance is important I'm just like you know great which is why we need journalists like you well so yeah yeah so keep up the good work and just know we're sharing you on this was a real treat thank you so much for joining me in today's episode I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you if you enjoyed it we'd love to know about it So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.