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On Mondays, I typically post something about industry-funded research or investigator conflicts of interest.

In the light of Robert F. Kennedy’s complaints about conflicts of interest in previous dietary guidelines advisory committees, it is startling to observe the industry ties reported by members of this administration’s committee.

These conflicted interests are also surprising in light of the high prioritization of meat in these guidelines, which advise eating protein (a commonly understood euphemism for meat) in every meal, and high-fat dairy.

The committee’s membership and disclosures are given on pages ix-xviii of the Scientific Foundation report.

To focus just on ties to meat and dairy groups, members report financial ties to

• Global Dairy Platform
• Nutricia/Danone
• National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
• Texas Beef Council
• American Dairy Science Association
• National Dairy Council
• National Pork Board
• California Dairy Innovation Center
• Fonterra Limited
• California Dairy Research Foundation
• Dairy Management Inc

This was reported originally in Stat News (which quotes me elsewhere in the story).

It’s unclear how the Trump administration appointed its group of nutrition scientists and other researchers. A scientific report linked at the bottom of a new federal website, RealFood.gov, says only they were chosen through “a federal contracting process based on demonstrated expertise.”

The Times quotes Mark Kennedy, the senior vice president of legal affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which supports plant-based diets and has filed a complaint with the government saying it should withdraw the guidelines.

Disclosing conflicts of interest at the end of the process “isn’t really going to cut it..Because if nobody ever had a chance to weigh in, and nobody other than the government behind closed doors had a way to assess it, there’s no way to ensure there’s fair balance.” (Mr. Kennedy is not related to the health secretary.)

Comment

In reading through press accounts, I’m pretty sure I saw one where one of the committee members reporting financial ties tossed it off with some comment about how he was sticking to the science and that’s all that mattered (I’ve searched but can’t find it now).

I heard that a lot after publication of my book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.  In that book, I review research on the “funding effect,” the strong correlations between who pays for food and nutrition research and its outcome.  Industry-funded research tends to produce results favorable to the funder’s interests (otherwise it wouldn’t be funded).  But recipients of funding typically did not intend to be influenced and do not recognize the influence.  It is not surprising that this committee—unlike many other scientific committees over the past decades—came to precisely the conclusions decided in advance by Secretaries Kennedy and Rollins.

Alert to readers: Amazon.com displays listings for several more workbooks, study guides, and cookbooks purportedly based on my book, What to Eat Now (see previous post on this).  I did not write any of them.  Caveat emptor!

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I can hardly get my head around this.

Here is USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins doing a version of the dairy industry’s milk mustache campaign celebrating the reintroduction of whole milk into schools.

Our otherwise dysfunctional Congress has managed to pass a bipartisan bill, “The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025.”

The bill overturns previous restrictions on whole-fat milk and dairy alternative milks in schools.  Now:

I.  Schools may offer students dairy milks—or nutritionally equivalent non-dairy beverages 

• flavored (e.g., chocolate) and unflavored
• organic or nonorganic
• reduced fat, low-fat, and fat-free
• lactose-free

II.  Milk fat will not count as saturated fat in rules about saturated fat limits

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is happy about the the non-dairy alternatives.

But this has to be counted as a clear win for the dairy industry, desperate to get whole and flavored milks back into schools.

The rationale?

How will doing this make kids healthier?

Here is my milk summary table from What to Eat Now.

And this is before the chocolate and sugar get tossed in.

How much difference will it make to kids’ overall calorie and saturated fat intake?  My guess: probably not much.

Here are my immediate questions:

• How many different kinds of milk, dairy and not, can schools logistically manage to store and serve?
• Will kids drink more milk now?
• Will they choose whole over skim?
• Will they choose chocolate whole milk over chocolate skim?
• Will they choose plant-based alternatives?

Note: all of these are about the selling of milk, not health.

That’s because this is not a health initiative; it is a dairy promotion initiative.

A recent study finds pasteurization of milk to be an effective preventive measure against avian influenza in mice.

We found that milk pasteurization fully inactivated pandemic H1N1 and bovine H5N1 influenza viruses yet preserved hemagglutinin (HA) protein integrity. In mice, repeated oral exposure to inactivated virus did not alter mortality after H5N1 virus challenge.

This is excellent news.  It means that the risk of getting bird flu from pasteurized milk is extremely low.

Bird flu is increasingly widespread in dairy cattle.

The CDC says the risk to humans is low, but 71 cases have been observed so far, with one death.

The situation with bird flu is one more reason to expect bettter safety from pasteurized than raw milk.

The FDA continues to say that pasteurized milk is safer.  Its page on raw milk offers these links.

• Food Safety and Raw Milk
• The Dangers of Raw Milk: Unpasteurized Milk Can Pose a Serious Health Risk
• Questions & Answers: Raw Milk
• Raw Milk Misconceptions and the Danger of Raw Milk Consumption

The FDA reports that from 1998 through 2018, there were 202 outbreaks linked to drinking raw milk, which caused 2,645 illnesses and 228 hospitalizations.

This is a lot or not, depending on point of view, but all were likely to have been prevented by pasteurization.

The Raw Milk Institute insists on the benefits of raw milk.

My assessment: there may be benefits, but they are marginal.  There are safer ways to improve immunity.

The risks of raw milk may be infrequent, but when it comes to milk, I’d rather play it safe.

As I noted last May, I get asked all the time about what they will say, but have no inside information.  But this may be a good time to go over the clues.

The process

• A scientific advisory committee reviews the research and writes a report.  This was released in December.
• Unspecified (to date) people in USDA and HHS write the guidelines.

The promises

• They will come out “hopefully early fall” (this did not happen)
• Now, according to Reuters, the new dietary guidelines will be released some time in December.

What they won’t say

• They will not continue the tradition of “leftist ideology”  [I think this must mean plant foods]
• They will not promote seed oils (RFK Jr prefers beef tallow).
• They will not promote sugar; RFK Jr says sugar is poison.  [But declared a MAHA Win for Coca’ Cola’s replacement of high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar]
• They won’t say anything about sustainability [anything about climate change is forbidden]

What they will be about

[According to Reuters] Kennedy said the new guidelines would change the kind of food served to military service members and children in schools, but gave no details on the new recommendations.

“If we want to solve the chronic disease crisis, we have to tackle obesity,” Kennedy said. “Obesity is the number one driver of chronic disease,” he said, adding that 50% of the adult U.S. population was obese or overweight, driving costs up for diabetes care and cardiac diseases.

What they might say

Beef

• In its Plan to Fortify the Beef Industry, the USDA says the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines will “encourage protein as the foundation for every meal.”
• In an announcement to ranchers, USDA quotes RFK Jr, “we are restoring whole foods as the foundation of the American diet and ending the decades-old stigma against natural saturated fat in beef and dairy products. We will strengthen America’s ranching industry so families can choose nutrient-dense, minimally processed foods.”

Dairy

In a news conference, officials gave some clues.

We are going to be there for the dairy industry…our agencies are about to release more dietary guidelines in the next several months that will elevate those products to where they ought to be…There’s a tremendous amount of emerging science that talks about the need for more protein in our diet, and more fats in our diet, and there’s no industry that does that better than this industry.

Speculation

When RFK Jr first talked about the new guidelines, he said they would ignore the scientific advisory committee report and would be simple, short (5 pages), easy to understand, and out by September.  I’m guessing that the conflict between the science and ideology is proving more difficult to resolve than anticipated.

The science continues to argue for a largely (but not necessarily exclusively) plant-based diet, reduced in meat and ultra-processed foods from current levels.  RFK Jr initially talked about the need to reduce intake of ultra-processed foods, but the second MAHA report merely asked for a definition.

This administration seems obsessed with protein, a nutrient already in excess in US diets.

If it wants to do something about obesity, it needs the guidelines to suggest ways to reduce calories.  Nobody has mentioned that word so far.

As I keep saying, I can’t wait to see what the new guidelines will look like.  Stay tuned.

USDA Secretary Rollins held a press conference with the dairy industry to announce the removal of artificial color dyes.

This is a voluntary, proactive pledge to eliminate the use of Red 3, Red 40, Green 3, Blue 1, Blue 2, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6 from ice cream and other frozen dairy desserts by 2028.  “I applaud the International Dairy Foods Association for stepping up to eliminate certified artificial colors,” Secretary Kennedy said. “The American people have made it clear—they want real food, not chemicals. Together with Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, we’re holding the food industry accountable and driving a nationwide effort to Make America Healthy Again.”

In 2029, when the dyes are out of ice cream, ice cream will still be ice cream.  Alas.

Here’s an update on what’s happening with artificial colors.  But before getting to it, here’s the result of my research trip to England: Froot Loops with no artificial colors.   Check out what they look like.

Iceland Food Warehouse, Oxford. Photo Jean Lavigne.

And now for the latest on the cancelling of artificial color additives.

• Synthetic dyes are out. Here’s who’s in and how they’re achieving it:  Major food companies like General Mills, Kraft Heinz, Conagra and Smucker are leading a sweeping shift away from synthetic colours. Here’s where the US food industry stands right now… Read more
• FDA redraws the rainbow to dye another day:  The storm over artificial dyes is clearing and the FDA is ushering in a brighter, cleaner food palette. With Red No 3 fading fast and new colours blooming, brands are now racing to catch the rainbow… Read more
• FDA approves natural blue color, urges accelerated phaseout of synthetic red dye The White House asked companies to remove Red No. 3, an artificial color in candy and cereal, sooner than the 2027 deadline put in place by the Biden administration.
• Texas AG targets Mars over continued use of artificial colours: Despite making a public commitment nearly a decade ago to phase out artificial colours, the M&M’s and Skittles maker is in hot water over its continued use of synthetic dyes in the US… Read more

A Canadian reader, Michel Lucas, sent this one (merci).

The report: Benoît Lamarche, Arne Astrup, Robert H Eckel, Emma Feeney, Ian Givens, Ronald M Krauss, Philippe Legrand, Renata Micha, Marie-Caroline Michalski, Sabita Soedamah-Muthu, Qi Sun, Frans J Kok.  Regular-fat and low-fat dairy foods and cardiovascular diseases: perspectives for future dietary recommendations.  The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 121, Issue 5, 2025, Pages 956-964,  ISSN 0002-9165, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2025.03.009.

The workshop: Saturated Fat in Dairy and Cardiovascular Diseases, Amsterdam, 15–16 April, 2024.

Findings: “The most recent evidence indicates that overall, consumption of milk, yogurt and cheese, irrespective of fat content, is neutrally associated with CVD risk. There is also no evidence yet from randomized controlled trials that consumption of regular-fat milk, yogurt, and cheese has different effects on a broad array of cardiometabolic risk factors when compared with consumption of low-fat milk, yogurt, and cheese.”

Conclusion: “Thus, the body of evidence does not support differentiation between regular-fat and low-fat dairy foods in dietary guidelines for both adults and children.”

Implication: “Strategies focusing primarily on reduction of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods, the main source of SFAs in Western diets, rather than on the fat content of dairy foods, are more likely to benefit the population’s cardiovascular health.”

Funding: The workshop “was supported by an unrestricted grant from the Dutch Dairy Association.”

Comment: Foods from animal sources—meat and dairy—are by far the main sources of saturated fatty acids in US diets (all food fats, no exceptions, are mixtures of saturated, unsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids; it’s just the proportions that differ).

Cows eat grass; grass has fatty acids but they are mostly unsaturated; bacteria in the cows’ rumens saturate the fatty acids.

Pretty much everyone agrees that when saturated fatty acids are substituted for unsaturated or polyunsaturated fatty acids, they raise blood cholesterol and the risk for heart disease.  The disagreements are over by how much and whether clinically meaningful.

The dairy industry would like everyone to believe that the saturated fatty acids in dairy foods are benign.  Hence this workshop.

Conflict of interest: The disclosure statement begins with “The Dutch Dairy Association had no role in the discussions held at the high-level closed workshop and did not participate or provide comments during the development and writing of this manuscript.”  It didn’t have to.

Here’s the rest of the statement (I’ve emphasized dairy connections):

AA is a member of the Journal’s Editorial Board and is also an Associate Editor on The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and played no role in the journal’s evaluation of the manuscript, reports a relationship with Rééducation Nutritionnelle et Psycho-Comportementale Scientific Committee and American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that includes board membership; and a relationship with Ferrero that includes funding grants. QS reports travel provided by Dutch Dairy Association. AA, RHE, IG, EF, RMK, PL, RM, M-CM, SS-M, and FJK reports financial support and travel provided by Dutch Dairy Association. BL reports writing assistance provided by Chill Pill Media Ltd and relationship with Health Canada that includes funding grants. EF reports a relationship with Food for Heath Ireland and Teagasc Food Research Ireland that includes funding grants; relationship with Irish section of the Nutrition Society and British Journal of Nutrition that includes board membership; relationship with National Dairy Council Ireland that includes consulting or advisory and travel reimbursement. IG reports a relationship with Global Dairy Platform, Dairy Australia, Barham Benevolent Foundation, UK Research and Innovation, Medical Research Council that includes funding grants; relationship with European Milk Federation, French National Interprofessional Centre for Dairy Economics, and Dairy Council Northern Ireland that includes speaking and lecture fees and travel reimbursement; relationship with ELSEVIER INC that includes consulting or advisory. RMK reports a relationship with Dairy Management Inc that includes funding grants. RM reports a relationship with National Institutes of Health and Gates Foundation that includes funding grants. M-CM reports a relationship with French Dairy Interbranch Organization, Sodiaal-Candia and Danone that includes funding grants; relationship with Sodiaal-Candia that includes consulting or advisory; relationship with International Milk Genomics Consortium that includes speaking and lecture fees and travel reimbursement; relationship with Danone Nutricia Research and French Dairy Interbranch Organization that includes travel reimbursement. SS-M reports a relationship with Dutch Dairy Association and Danish Dairy Research Foundation that includes funding grants.

 

 

Let’s end Food Politics this year (this is the last post until January 6) with some more good news: USDA Builds on Actions to Protect Livestock and Public Health from H5N1 Avian Influenza

The Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today announced a new National Milk Testing Strategy (NMTS) requiring that raw (unpasteurized) milk samples nationwide be collected and shared with USDA for testing.  T

This new guidance, developed with input from state, veterinary and public health stakeholders, will facilitate comprehensive H5N1 surveillance of the nation’s milk supply and dairy herds, USDA said.

Testing will be mandatory.

• Producers will have to share raw milk samples, if asked
• Producers must provide epidemiological data to enable contact tracing of infected cattle
• Veterinarians and labs must report positive results to USDA

Great.  Now if USDA would only enact the same requirements for testing for toxic E. coli.

As food safety lawyer Bill Marler explains in Hey, RFK, your “Raw Milk Czar” has had a few E. coli issues:

A total of 11 people infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli were reported from 5 states…Of 11 people with information available, 5 were hospitalized and 2 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. No deaths were reported.

Raw milk, after all, is high on the list of foods Bill Marler won’t eat.

On that cheerful note, happy food politics holidays.  I will be back on January 6.

A reader, Katya Bloomberg, suggested I take a look at Bored Cow, “animal-free dairy milk” pumpkin spice flavored, no less.

Animal-free dairy milk sounds like an oxymoron.  What could this be?  Mostly, the website says what it does not contain.

So what’s in this?  The website doesn’t say, but Target’s does.

Ingredients: water, cane sugar, whey protein (from fermentation), sunflower oil, less than 1% of: cinnamon, vitamin a, vitamin b2 (riboflavin), vitamin b12 (cyanocobalamin), vitamin d2, citrus fiber, salt, dipotassium phopshate, acacia, gellan gum, mixed tocopherols (antioxidant), calcium potassium phosphate citrate, natural flavor.

An ultraprocessed drink, for sure, with 20 grams of sugar per 12 ounces.  The whey (the main protein in milk) is made by microorganisms, not cows. 

The process is called precision fermentation.  It involves 5-steps:

• Genetic modification of bacteria or yeast (the Bored Cow website says nothing about this)
• Cell growth
• Protein production
• Purification (centrifugation, homogenization, filtration)
• Whey production

How precise is the fermentation?

Iowa-based Health Research Institute (HRI) tested a Bored Cow product, which is described as “a milk alternative made with milk protein from fermentation instead of cows.” Using full spectrum molecular analysis technology, HRI found 92 small molecules in the product that are unknown to science, according to John Fagan, chief science officer at HRI.

Katya points out:

People are still largely confused and have no understanding what a bio-identical whey protein created by means of fermentation is. Largely though people also think that fermentation is good for health. Many vegans think this milk is vegan since it’s animal free, but it wouldn’t be a good choice for those on a plant based diet as it’s identical to actual cow milk protein. Not to mention that it’s a mix of protein with water and added oil which is hardly good for anyone… It’s a milk information war at its finest!!! Just keep confusing the consumer.

So how does this stuff taste?  I went to the Ithaca Target to look for it but could not find it.  If you can and try it, let me know.