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Secretary Kennedy promised to define ultra-processed foods by April (after a call for input), but then said it may be too complicated to define these foods for policy purposes.

Apparently not.

Healthy Eating Research convened an expert panel.

It made three recommendations:

I.  Definition

A food product is ultra-processed if it contains at least one

Cosmetic additive

Examples: flavors (natural or artificial), emulsifiers, sweeteners (both sugar and non-sugar), colors (natural or artificial), thickeners, bulking agents, gelling agents, glazing agents, carbonating agents, anti-foaming agents, and other additives recognized by FDA or Codex technical classifications.

And/or

Non-culinary ingredient

Examples: casein, dextrose, high-fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, modified starch, protein isolates (e.g., soy or whey), hydrogenated or interesterified oils, mechanically separated meats, lactose, lecithin, and others.

II.  Exempt ingredients

Some ingredients do not mark foods as ultra-processed:

• Vitamins
• Minerals
• Herbs
• Spices
• Yeast-derived ingredients

III.  Exempt foods

Foods that meet the FDA’s definition for “Healthy” claims are not considered ultra-processed.  These contain:

• Adequate amounts of recommended food groups
• Less than FDA thresholds for added sugar, sodium, and saturated fat
• No non-sugar sweeteners

Using this definition, the panel recommended a broad range of policies to deal with ultra-processed foods.  These are worth a look and further discussion.  See:

• Executive Summary
• Technical Report
• Partner Toolkit

FDA: take note.  This ought to work.  Now you can get started on some policy actions!

The USDA has announced its implementation of President Trump’s Whole Milk for Health Kids Act.

This act (see Federal Register notice):

• Removes requirements that school milk be fat-free or low fat, flavored or not.
• Permits schools to also offer whole and reduced-fat milks, flavored or not.
• Excludes the saturated fat in milk from counting toward limits.

Bottom line: This act of Congress allows schools to offer full-fat chocolate milk.

As you might guess, the International Dairy Foods Association is thrilled:

 IDFA applauds USDA for moving quickly to put the law into effect and provide school nutrition directors and school milk processors the certainty they need to offer students the nutritious milk options that best meet their nutrition needs. For too long, federal regulations limited schools’ ability to offer the milk options students prefer and are more likely to drink.

Should we care?

Here is a quick comparison of one-cup portions (from USDA Data Central).

• Nonfat plain milk:  84 calories, 0.1 grams saturated fat, 12 grams sugars
• Nonfat chocolate milk: 160 calories, 1.5 grams saturated fat, 25 grams sugars
• Full-fat chocolate milk: 208 calories, 5 grams saturated fat, 24 grams sugars

Thus, it has taken an act of Congress to allow schools to offer milk with more saturated fat and more calories.

Why?  Because the dairy industry thinks it can sell more milk to school kids if that milk is higher in fat and sugar-sweetened.

Selling more chocolate milk in schools is a long-standing goal of the dairy industry.

As I wrote on this very topic in 2009,

• Schools represent sales of 460 million gallons of milk – more than 7% of total milk sales
• More than half (54%) of flavored milk is sold in schools
• Chocolate milk is a key growth area for milk processors

So this act has little to do with the health of America’s children, and everything to do with compensating for failing sales of milk.

How serious a problem is this?  In the greater scheme of problems affecting school meals in the U.S—lack of adequate funding, no kitchens, poor equipment, supply chains that don’t work, inedible USDA commodities—I can’t get too upset about adding a few grams of saturated fat to kids’ diets, much as I would prefer that they were getting their calories from fruits, vegetables, A that this is the kind of thing our current Congress is concerned about—the health of the dairy industry, not of kids.

A CORRECTION OF SORTS

A reader reminds me that the new school food rules that go into effect by 2025-2026 (at the earliest) call for no more than 10 grams of added sugars per 8 ounces of flavored milk.  This standard will apply to whole as well as reduced or no fat milks.

Let me start with a summary from Food Safety News:

The final four in the [meat] consolidation game are:

• JBS – This Brazil-based food giant is the world’s largest beef processor. It owns facilities that slaughter and pack over 20,000 cattle per day in the U.S.
• Tyson Foods – Known for chicken, Tyson is also the second largest U.S. beef processor. Their five beef plants process thousands of cattle daily.
• Cargill – This agribusiness conglomerate is the third largest U.S. beef packer and also owns one of the nation’s largest feedlot operations, Cargill Cattle Feeders.
• National Beef – Majority owned by Brazilian meatpacker Marfig, National Beef operates three U.S. packing facilities that process thousands of cattle per day.

Those are the four companies that control about 80 percent of the U.S. beef market, and there is no reason to believe that any of them are satisfied with their share. American consumers are paying some of the highest, inflation-adjusted prices for steaks and hamburgers than at any time in history.

The Trump administration says it is taking this on.  In a series of announcements on X (formerly Twitter), USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins says:

We must work to address this to protect our ranchers and consumers. @POTUS  and this administration are focused on promoting fairness and competition — ensuring our producers have options and a level playing field.

Not only that, she adds,

Half of these meatpacking giants, including the largest meat packer in the world, are either foreign-owned or have significant foreign ownership and control, making them a threat not just to our cattle producers, but a threat to America itself.

Here’s what she says they doing about it:

We’re putting forward short- and long-term solutions through the @USDA  Beef Plan and a major DOJ investigation into anti-competitive practices ordered by @POTUS.  Food security is national security.

And what is the USDA Beef Plan?  This will enhance disaster relief, increase grazing access, and build demand.

Anti-trust regulation?

Not a chance.

As I endlessly repeat, industry-funded studies tend to favor the sponsor’s commercial interests.  The correlation between industry funding and study outcome is not 100% however.  Exceptions do occur.

Here’s one sent to me by a reader, Matthew Kadey: “Marion, a rare industry funded study with results that likely did not please the sponsors.”

The study: Effects of one avocado a day for six months on cognitive performance in overweight adults: A randomized controlled trial. The Journal of nutrition, health and aging. Volume 30, Issue 6, June 2026, 100847.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnha.2026.100847.

Objective: “To determine if consuming one avocado per day for 6 months has cognitive benefits in adults with central obesity, addressing cognitive health early in the aging trajectory.”

Conclusions: “The consumption of one avocado per day without any additional lifestyle modifications for six months did not significantly alter cognitive function in adults with central obesity across all age groups. Additional work is needed to determine whether avocados, as part of dietary strategies initiated in midlife, contribute to healthy cognitive aging, particularly in normal weight and metabolically vulnerable populations.”

Funding disclosure: “This study was funded by the Hass Avocado Board in Mission Viejo, California”

Competing interests: Nine of the eleven authors report financial support from the Hass Avocado Board Avocado Nutrition Center.

Comment: I could not imagine why anyone would do this study in the first place.  It is a rare example of one that produced negative result from an industry-funded study, but note the positive spin in the conclusions: “Additional work is needed to determine whether avocados, as part of dietary strategies initiated in midlife, contribute to healthy cognitive aging, particularly in normal weight and metabolically vulnerable populations.”

Really?  Why?  I can’t think of any reason why more studies like this would be needed, except to get more funding from the Hass Avocado Board, which seems willing to spend lots on research aimed at positioning avocados as superfoods.

Note:  All fruits and vegetables have nutritional benefits.  By these criteria, all are superfoods.

I just got my copy of the University of California Press catalog for Fall 2026.

The full catalog does not seem to be online yet (mine is hard copy), but the UC Press entry for Sugar Coated is here.

The publication date is September 8.

It can be pre-ordered:

I saw this on AgWeb:

I knew this came from USDA’s Food Dollar series, which reports measurements of where the food dollar goes in the chain of production.

The USDA also illustrates the dollar in reports.  The most recent, with figures from 2023, is here.

These USDA illustrations used to be easier to read, so I like the way AgWeb shows the current data.

But you get the idea: farmers don’t get much.  The real money in food is in processing, retail, and service.

Note the incentive in processing.

No wonder the number of farms continues to decline.

What the Farm Bill (an apparently hopeless cause at the moment) really needs to do is to start from scratch and do two things: promote smaller scale organic and regenerative farming that will protect soil, mitigate climate change, and repopulate the Midwest, and make sure those farmers make an adequate living.

In the way this administration announces things, I saw this on X.

The FDA’s one-page summary says the agency had tested more than 300 samples of infant formulas with these results:

If there is a more detailed report, I can’t find it.

Food Safety News points out

• The FDA did not say which brands it tested
• The FDA has not set standards for contaminants in infant formula
• It did not test for pathogens such as Cronobacter, Listeria, Salmonella, or E. coli

NOTUS points out

• The FDA did not address seed oils or sugars in infant formula

The quality of infant formula is a big issue for the MAHA movement.

Its microbial safety is a bigger issue for me.

The Senate has just passed an infant formula bill to require manufacturers to test for Cronobacter and Salmonella and inform the FDA of positive results.  That’s a good first step.

While all this is going on, I heard this from a reader who works with Rad Moms, a grassroots advocacy group calling on ByHeart, the company that makes infant formula recalled for potentially containing botulism bacteria, to stop running their influencer ads during the recall.

Despite 50+ babies contracting botulism, hundreds of ByHeart ads were still running for MONTHS while cans were still on the shelves (as recently as March 2026). 

The bottom line: Breastfeed if you are able to.  To avoid pathogens, buy pasteurized liquid formula.  I don’t know what to say about the heavy metals and PFAS, except that less is better.

And here is food safety lawyer Bill Marler on what needs to be done to make infant formula safe from pathogens.

Later addition

The Guardian on criticisms of the FDA’s conclusions:  no levels of endocrine disrupting chemicals are safe

Last week, I wrote about what I consider to be a national tragedy: the splitting up and relocation of crucial USDA units.

The latest is USDA’s renaming, splitting up, and relocating the Food and Nutrition Service, the agency responsible for running SNAP and other food assistance programs.

USDA’s actions:

I.  Rename the Food and Nutrition Service; it is now to be The Food and Nutrition Administration

Translation: Serving low-income Americans is no longer part of USDA’s mission; management is.

II.  Split the FNA into multiple units.

Translation: Make sure food assistance is splintered and uncoordinated.

III.  Relocate the units into widely separated areas.  Child nutrition programs go to Dallas, TX; SNAP and safety go to Kansas City, MO; research goes to Raleigh, NC; emergency management goes to Denver, Co; retailer compliance goes to four cities–Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York.

Translation: Get rid of experts on food assistance who actually know how to make these programs work and who care about ending hunger in America, especially among women and young children.

IV.  Keep the overall FNA administrator in Washington, DC.

Translation: Give the appearance of oversight, now impossible given the geographical dispersion.

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins posted this announcement on X (formerly Twitter).  Note her Trump-capitalized explanation:

We’re moving the NEW Food and Nutrition Administration out of DC and into the heartland where it belongs. Shifting staff CLOSER to those they support, makes us MORE efficient and responsive to the millions of families touched by USDA nutrition programs. Delivering faster, better service for families who need nutrition assistance and stronger support for American farmers who grow the food on their tables. We are laser focused on serving the American people with greater efficiency. And this reorganization will do just that.

Yeah, right.

My translation: USDAis systematically doing everything it can get away with to destroy SNAP, decrease participation, and make it impossibly difficult for eligible low-income Americans to enroll in food assistance.

You don’t agree?  Watch what happens to SNAP enrollments.

Decreases are already happening, as shown by ProPublica’s data from Arizona.

If USDA doesn’t have staff who know how to do things, people will not be able to enroll.  And that’s the whole point of the renaming, reorganization, and relocation.

Additional thoughts

• Former USDA official Jerry Mande wrote in a post on X, “during Trump’s 1st term USDA spent about $18m to move FNS to Braddock Pl. USDA signed a 15 yr lease in 2020. Those $$ are being squandered.”  His post also includes GAO data on the loss of experienced staff at USDA.
• GAO report on the effects of moving USDA on staff expertise in the Economic Research Service.

• An earlier 2022 GAO report on why relocating USDA units was not a good idea
• Congressional Research Service report (2026) on authority for USDA’s reorganization