My interview with an avatar named Jimbo Hoyer on Second Life has just been posted. This was kind of an out-of-body experience for me. I like the avatar that someone created for me. It (she?) is sort of younger, thinner version with a great figure. Anyway, their (our?) interview covers a variety of food issues. Enjoy!
The World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research has just come out with an update on their 1997 report on diet and cancer risk and prevention. After five years of research, the groups have produced ten recommendations. These, no surprise, look not all that different from most other sets of dietary recommendations issued for the last 50 years or so for prevention of chronic disease risk. The recommendations emphasize staying lean and being active (“eat less, move more”). The report will be loaded with data, charts, and references and I’m looking forward to getting my copy. Enjoy!
Today’s USA Today has several terrific stories about how hard it is to know where our food comes from and why it matters that we do. The cover story in the Life section follows Phil Lempert, the supermarket guru, around a store reading package labels to try to figure out the origins of ingredients. A second piece lists where specific foods come from. Dairy, peanut butter, bread, and soda pop are All-American, but Brazil is the number one source of orange juice. And who knew that fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables head the list of imported foods and Mexico is the leading source? A third story, in which I am quoted, discusses Country of Origin Labeling (COOL), a law passed by Congress years ago but endlessly postponed under pressure from food industries. Only supermarket fish are required to list the country that caught or farmed them, and as far as I can tell, this is a law ignored more often than not. If Congress doesn’t get its act together and put COOL into action, we won’t have a clue where our food comes from. Why do we need to know? Safety and miles traveled, for starters. Ever heard of COOL? It’s worth writing your representatives for this one.
I was delighted to see this opinion piece in Forbes by Hank Cardello, who writes very much from the food industry’s point of view: The One Big Beautiful Bill To MAHA: Drop Dead.
The so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” now moving through the Senate proposes sharp cuts to SNAP (food stamps), WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) and Medicaid—programs that are lifelines for low-income families. The contradiction is glaring: How can one branch of government promote healthier eating while another branch strips away the supports that make that possible?
“The bill handicaps MAHA’s goals,” he says, pointing out that reducing benefits for these programs can only “increase food insecurity, making it more difficult for people to afford nutritious food and sustain their health.”
This, he says, is
a political blunder…affordable food has more power to sway voters than tariffs or slogans. Cut these programs, and we widen the gap between what families should eat and what they can eat….Medicaid and SNAP aren’t just social programs—they’re long-term investments in public health and economic stability.
He suggests three ways to make MAHA a reality:
COMMENT
Wow. I could not have said this better myself. What this tells me is that at least some segments of the food industry fully understand that making people too poor to buy their products is not good for business, let alone for society. Cardullo always has intelligent things to say about food issues, even when I don’t always agree with them. On this one, we are completely aligned. Thanks Hank.
FDA has announced a joint research initiative with NIH
Under the new Nutrition Regulatory Science Program, the FDA and NIH will implement and accelerate a comprehensive nutrition research agenda that will provide critical information to inform effective food and nutrition policy actions to help make Americans’ food and diets healthier. The initiative will aim to answer questions such as:
- How and why can ultra-processed foods harm people’s health?
- How might certain food additives affect metabolic health and possibly contribute to chronic disease?
- What is the role of maternal and infant dietary exposures on health outcomes across the lifespan, including autoimmune diseases?
This sounds terrific —and I’m all for all of this.
An article about it in JAMA, of all places, raises some concerns. It quotes Jerry Mande,
The bad news, he noted, is that the announcement may follow a recent pattern within the federal government of unveiling an initiative but providing few details on how it will be executed. The April press conference held by the HHS and the FDA on eliminating synthetic food dyes is one such example, in his view.
It also quotes me as noting that the announcement is short on detail and even shorter on timeline.
The food industry is in a difficult position…Ultraprocessed foods are among their most profitable, and food companies consider the ability to market to children to be essential to their business models. They could voluntarily start making and marketing healthier products and reducing unhealthy ingredients, but experience tells us that they won’t do this unless forced.
MAHA has now issued requests for proposals on two initiatives.
I. A Research Study of Contaminants in School Meals
This pilot study supports a comprehensive, FDA-led initiative aimed at evaluating the toxicological safety and nutritional quality of meals served in all schools that actively participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), including both public and nonprofit private schools…Schools must be equipped to engage in structure intervention activities and collaborate with a partner to support the transition to minimize the use of foods commonly considered ultra-processed.
The goals of this funding opportunity
- Identify contaminants (e.g., heavy metals) present in school meals.
- Promote whole food offerings and minimize the use of foods commonly considered ultra-processed,
- Measure potential changes in contaminant levels and nutritional content pre- and post-intervention.
Yes, let’s give kids real foods in school, preferably and whenever possible cooked from scratch. But,
The offer is for grants of about $2 million each. The timeline for submission is short (check the links for how to submit and by when).
The FDA sent further information to applicants.
Comment: I have a nagging suspicion that what this is really about is a push to substitute “cleaner” products for current products used in schools. This is a concern because so many of the people now associated with HHS sell “clean” products and, no doubt, would love to sell them in schools. Substituting one product for another will not solve the single major problem faced by school meal programs: lack of adequate funding for personnel, equipment, and fresh food.
II. Take Back Your Health Campaign
Purpose: The purpose of this requirement is to alert Americans to the role of processed foods in fueling the diabetes epidemic and other chronic diseases, inspire people to take personal responsibility for their diets, and drive measurable improvements in diabetes prevention and national health outcomes.
Scope: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will launch a series of bold, edgy national campaigns with innovative messaging to inspire and empower Americans to reclaim control over their health. This initiative will challenge individuals to adopt disciplined, lifelong habits—centered on eating real food, physical fitness, and spiritual growth—to build a healthier, stronger nation.
As Stat News puts it, HHS plans ‘bold, edgy’ campaign on ultra-processed foods and diabetes.
The campaign, estimated to cost between $10-20 million, will urge Americans to shift their behaviors and see health wearables as ‘cool’. The call for pitches was posted on the evening of June 12, with a swift deadline of June 26. It asks not only for “daring, viral messaging to motivate behavior change” but for campaigns that specifically “popularize technology like wearables as cool, modern tools for measuring diet impact and taking control of your health.” Surgeon general nominee Casey Means’ health tech company, Levels, uses continuous glucose monitors and lab testing to help people track their health.
Comment: Oh dear. Personal responsibility. Never mind that the MAHA Commission report clearly identified environmental factors as responsible for epidemic chronic disease. Neither of these initiatives gets at changing the “toxic” food environment. To really do that, MAHA would need to stop food industry marketing of ultra-processed foods, especially to children. And to get at other environmental causes of poor health, especially for children, it would need to take on the cigarette industry, the gun lobby (guns are a leading cause of kids’ deaths), and the industries that dump chemicals into the water and food supplies.
I’m totally for educating people about healthy diets, eating real food, and physical fitness. But education is not enough to change behavior. Education has to be backed up by policy.
Where’s the policy? For that, we must wait for the next MAHA Commission report, due out in August. Stay tuned.
The MAHA Commission released its report last week: The MAHA Report: Make Our Children Healthy Again. Assessment.
This is one impressive report, forcefully written and tightly documented (it cites my work, among that of many others).
Overall, it paints a devastating portrait of how our society has failed our children.
It begins by stating that “The health of American children is in crisis” due to:
The result: high rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, neurodevelopmental disorders, cancer, allergies and mental health problems among kids.
Here are some selected items I particularly appreciated in the report. The bullet points are direct quotes.
On poor diet
The driving factors for poor diets
On the dietary guidelines
They maintain problematic reductionist recommendations, such as:
They also,
On food systems
On Corporate Capture
Research recommendations
Comment
The report has been criticized for not getting some of the science right. The agriculture industry is particularly concerned about the attack on the chemicals it uses. It is said to be outraged by the report. The report did throw Big Ag this bone: “Today, American farmers feed the world, American companies lead the world, and American energy powers the world.”
But the report raises one Big Question: What policies will this administration come up with to deal with these problems? These, presumably, will be in the next report, due in about 80 days.
This is an extraordinary report, a breath of fresh air in many ways, and I would love to know who wrote it.
But to fix the problems it raises will require taking on not only Big Ag, but also Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Chemical, and other industries affected by these and its other recommendations (the report also says a lot about drugs and mental health). Big Ag has already weighed in. Others are sure to follow.
Oh. And it’s hard to know how policies can be implemented, given the destructive cuts to FDA, CDC, and NIH personnel and budget.
I will be watching this one. Stay tuned.
Resources
Additional resource
The effects of all the proposed budget cuts, clearly aimed at cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of the poor, will be painful, but two are especially ironic given the Making America Healthy Again effort.
The first were the farm-to-school programs “in alignment with President Donald Trump’s executive order ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government and DEI Programs and Preferencing.’” These cuts were especially stupid because the programs did not cost much but were a demonstrably a win/win. Schools got fresh produce, and small farmers got paid.
Now we have a second tiny program to lose funding, SNAP-ED, more formally the USDA’s National Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program.
Here’s what AI says about this program (not a bad summary, actually).
SNAP-Ed stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education. It is a federally funded, public health program designed to help low-income individuals and families make healthy food choices and adopt active lifestyles within their budget. SNAP-Ed provides nutrition education and promotes healthy food choices, while also supporting physical activity.
Goal: SNAP-Ed aims to improve the likelihood that people eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will make healthy choices within a limited budget and adopt physically active lifestyles.
Evidence-Based: The program uses evidence-based nutrition education and obesity prevention strategies.
Federally Funded: It is a grant program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
State and Local Partnerships: SNAP-Ed works with state and local organizations to deliver its services.
Focus Areas: SNAP-Ed initiatives include nutrition education (Classes on healthy eating, budgeting, meal planning, basic cooking, and food safety), social marketing campaigns (Community-based campaigns to promote healthy eating and physical activity), and efforts to improve community policies and environments.
Although AI didn’t mention it, SNAP-ED works. See: SNAP-Ed: The Transition of the Nation’s Largest Nutrition Education Program Into a Pillar of the Public Health Infrastructure
The SNAP-Ed program has demonstrated that its comprehensive approaches are primed to address public health crises along with its ongoing role of helping to eliminate nutrition-related health disparities. Despite the program’s public health focus, community-wide scope, and capacity for sector-level change, SNAP-Ed funding has been static for more than decade, even as its audience and mission have doubled. Funding for SNAP-Ed was only 0.4% of the total 2021 SNAP budget, or $5.15 annually for each of the nearly 90 million people in its audience—roughly the cost of a bag of oranges or potatoes.
The cost of this program is roughly half a billion dollars a year, not even a rounding error in the federal budget. Cutting it does no good for anyone, undercuts the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) agenda, and is thoughtless and unnecessary.
Resources
The FDA is an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, now headed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. It is getting busy on carrying out Secretary Kennedy’s stated agenda. It took four actions of interest last week. Check out #3; it requires action.
I. Approved Three Food Colors from Natural Sources
Since the HHS and FDA announcement last month during a press conference at HHS on petroleum-based food dyes, more U.S. food manufacturers have committed to removing them within the FDA’s set time frame of the end of next year.
“On April 22, I said the FDA would soon approve several new color additives and would accelerate our review of others. I’m pleased to report that promises made, have been promises kept,” said FDA Commissioner Martin A. Makary, M.D., M.P.H. “FDA staff have been moving quickly to expedite the publication of these decisions, underscoring our serious intent to transition away from petroleum-based dyes in the food supply and provide new colors from natural sources.”
FDA approved color additive petitions for:
II. Announced top priorities for the Human Foods Program
FoodNavigator-USA report that Mark Hartman, who directs the new Office of Food Chemical Safety, Dietary Supplements, and Innovation, says the FDA soon will:
III. Extended the comment period for front-of-package labeling until July 15
We are taking this action in response to requests to extend the comment period to allow interested parties additional time to submit comments. Comments should be submitted to Regulations.gov and identified with the docket number FDA-2024-N-2910.
Recall: This is what the Biden FDA proposed. Here’s what I said about it (basically, we need something better).
Here’s a real opportunity. If you want a front-of-package warning label like those in Latin America, here’s your chance to weigh in.
RFK Jr says he wants to Make America Healthy Again. One way to do that is to discourage sales of food products high in saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars, but also discourage sales of ultra-processed foods. Identifying foods as ultra-processed, on the basis of their chemical additives as well as their fat, sugar, and salt, would be an excellent step forward.
If you like the warning labels used in Latin American countries, send a note to the FDA Docket. You have until July 15 to do that.
IV. Announced a joint research initiative with NIH to address, among other unspecified questions,
Comment
OK. This represents action or proposed action. My question: What will the FDA actually do? I’m particularly interested in the joint NIH research initiative on ultra-processed foods. Will NIH reverse its stance on Kevin Hall, whose research aimed to answer precisely that question? I will be watching all this with much curiosity.
I’m giving the opening keynote address at this meeting at 4:15 p.m. It’s also online. For information, registration, and online access, click here.
My talk: “The Elements: Food, Nutrition, Health & Politics, 2025 Style” will be at 4:15 pm. I’m also doing a panel the next day with Cathy Kaufman: “Choosing Our Words: How We Talk about Food Technologies Shapes Our Edible World”
