Currently browsing posts about: MAHA

RFK Jr held a press conference yesterday to celebrate “the biggest news in food reform in modern history”—requiring food manufacturers to notify the FDA when they are introducing a new food additive they want considered Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS).

This wasn’t already required?  No, it was not.  This gap is the long-troubling “GRAS loophole.”

Here’s what the press release says (my emphasis):

The FDA issued a proposed rule that would require manufacturers to notify the agency whenever they conclude that the use of a substance added to human or animal food is Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). The proposal would modernize the GRAS framework, increase transparency, and give the FDA greater visibility into substances entering the food supply.

Since Congress established the GRAS exemption in 1958, manufacturers have been permitted to reach their own conclusions that certain substances are generally recognized as safe under the conditions of their intended use.

Although the FDA has long operated voluntary notification programs, companies have not been required to notify the agency when making these determinations.

The proposed rule would modernize that framework by making GRAS notifications mandatory and expanding the public-facing inventory of submitted notices, significantly improving transparency while strengthening FDA’s ability to oversee ingredients entering the food supply.

For substances already on the market based on industry self-GRAS conclusions, the proposal would establish a time-limited streamlined submission pathway that would allow manufacturers to provide FDA with information about existing uses. This enables the agency to prioritize post-market safety evaluations while minimizing unnecessary regulatory burden.

Comment 

Food advocates for years have called for making GRAS notifications mandatory.  So this move is obvious, and long-awaited.

A reporter sent me an AI transcript of the press conference, which says how this will work (again, my emphasis).

What FDA will do is review a notification within 45 days to ensure that the elements required are in there. We’ll then docket that notification satisfying the requirement. FDA will then, within 180 days, review that notification substantively. If we have issues, we may either send a no questions letter or we may send we may send a letter determining that we don’t believe that the threshold has been established. But again, this is not a pre-market notification program. Companies are not prohibited from entering the market during the tenancy of that process, and they can continue to self-GRAS. What it does is require that companies notify us whenever they are self-GRASing an ingredient, and then we’re going to make that limited information public that’s set more than the regulation in 170.275.

So what’s the big deal?  Well, it’s the first food regulation proposed by the MAHA administration, and it closes the GRAS loophole.

What it does NOT do is keep unsafe additives out of the food supply.  Companies still have plenty of leeway to put whatever they want in their products.  This is not pre-market approval.  The FDA says it has no statutory authority to require that.

So why not go for it when you have the chance?  Despite the MAHA hoopla over the announcement, as Jerry Mande puts it, all this does is continue the FDA’s non-enforcement.

Another question: Does the FDA even have the staff to review food additive submissions, given the thousands who were fired or left?

Making GRAS notifications mandatory is a good thing to do.  Will doing this Make America Healthy Again?  A little, maybe, but it will be extremely hard to prove.

The big, easy-to-demonstrate food safety problems are ultra-processed foods (the FDA says it has sent an as yet unrevealed definition to OMB), and pathogenic microbes, like Cyclospora, with upwards of 25,000m cases so far, hundreds of hospitalizations, and at least two deaths.

And no, Cyclospora is not a food industry conspiracy to keep people from eating real foods–that idea is weird and unsupported by evidence.

Indeed, the FDA says:

Finally, though not part of today’s announcement, with respect to microbiological food safety, FDA will be publishing tomorrow a final guidance document titled “Guide to Minimize Biological Hazards And ready-to-eat fresh-cut produce. This final guidance is intended to help manufacturers and processors of fresh-cut produce comply with applicable FDA requirements and 21 CFR Part 117 titles current good manufacturing practices, hazard analysis, and risk-based prevention controls for human food.

Can’t wait to see this.  Stay tuned.

Resources

• The press release
• The transcript of the call with reporters
• The Federal Register notice
• Stat News on this (I’m quoted)
• FoodNavigator report (I’m quoted)
• CNN on MAHA’s GRAS notification requirement (I’m interviewed)

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RFK Jr’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) made many promises, most of them still in the works.  But one seems to be well on the way to being achieved.  Under MAHA pressure, some companies agreed to voluntarily remove petroleum-based food colors by the end of 2027.

I went to the Target in Ithaca, NY last week and could not find a single kids’ cereal containing the dyes Red 40, Yellow 5 and 6, and Blue 1.

Target promised not to sell cereals with those dyes.  It has kept that promise.

But the Ithaca Tops still carries Froot Loops and other brightly colored, artificially dyed kids’ cereals.  Maybe they will be gone by the end of 2027?

This is a voluntary initiative.  No regulation is involved, to the great dismay of advocates.

The shift to vegetable-based dyes

• Nestlé USA removes artificial colors in all food and beverages:  The Nesquik maker joined other food manufacturers last year in pledging to eliminate synthetic dyes from the rest of its portfolio following pressure from the Trump administration.
• General Mills launches Trix, Lucky Charms cereals with natural colors: The Cotton Candy and “Moana” varieties will debut this summer, the same time the food giant expects to remove synthetic dyes across its cereals.

How is it going?

• How the shift away from artificial dyes is impacting food sales: Sales of products with natural colors grew more than those using synthetic dyes, a report from the National Confectioners Association and RTI International found.
• One Year Later: Are Synthetic Dyes Still in Our Food? Despite growing consumer concern and awareness of synthetic dyes, the Food and Drug Administration has not taken action to ban them in full. Instead, last year, the FDA called on food manufacturers to voluntarily phase them out of their products. While a number of companies have made significant commitments toward that end, others have committed to much more limited changes.
• Kennedy touts food dye crackdown as a midterm win, but big holdouts remain: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans to phase out all artificial dyes from the food supply by the end of 2026. Roughly half of the major food companies have agreed to do so, though only four are meeting that deadline.

Why vegetable colors are a challenge for makers of ultra-processed foods

• Natural Colour Industry Prepares for Major Shift: The global colour industry is bracing for an unprecedented period of growth in natural colour demand due to widespread U.S. market conversion from synthetic dyes. Sensient is making major investments to secure supply and production capacity… Learn more
• Mars’ artificial-dye-free push hits major reformulation hurdles: Mars to introduce artificial-colour-free M&M’s but reformulation challenges leave two colours out in the cold… Read more
• Why food scientists still can’t crack the perfect natural red: Creating a heat-stable natural red remains one of food science’s toughest colour challenges… Read more

Comment

Advocacy groups like CSPI have for years called for removal of these dyes.  Since they are long gone from Europe, Australia, and other countries, you would think they would be easy to replace.

The problem?  Kids (and adults) think cereals and candy taste better when they are brightly colored.  Vegetable dyes are not vivid enough.

When General Mills took the dyes out of Trix some years ago, sales went down.  General Mills reinstated the dyes.

RFK Jr has explicitly stated that he opposes regulation (“nanny state”).  Hence, voluntary.

If companies can remove the dyes voluntarily, they can also volunteer to put them back.

This is a lost opportunity.

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One Year Later: How H.R. 1’s SNAP Policy Changes Are Reverberating Across the Food System

CSPI ad GFI frame this report in an interesting way, as a tale of two distinct, and sometimes at cross-purposes, Trump administration food agendas.

The first, reflected in Project 2025 and H.R. 1, represents an economic agenda focused on reducing federal spending on food assistance, shifting costs to states, and tightening eligibility so fewer people can access programs.

The second, embodied in the Presidentially-appointed Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission’s assessment report and strategy, is a nutrition and public health agenda: reducing chronic disease by limiting ultra-processed foods in federal programs, promoting whole foods, and emphasizing personal responsibility in dietary choices.

These two strands sit in significant tension with one another.

Do they ever!

In just the first 8 months, 4 million people lost SNAP benefits. More than 750,000 children no longer have access. And we don’t yet know the toll that SNAP and Medicaid losses will have on WIC and free school meal participation stemming from loss of automatic eligibility conferred through SNAP and Medicaid.

That was the intent of the law, no?

And here’s what Senator Elizabeth Warren says:

Impact on grocery stores

SNAP recipients account for an estimated 8% of grocery sales.  Fewer SNAP recipients means less income for grocery stores, especially those in low-income neighborhoods.

Estimated losses due to declining enrollments are about $10 billion.

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My post last week, Setting the record straight: Calley Means, generated many comments and correspondence, for which I am most grateful.

I especially want to thank writers who produced their own pieces on this incident.

• Robyn O’Brien on Substack:  The Tobacco Industry Playbook is Being Run Against the Woman Who Wrote the Book On It.
• Jessica Knurick on Substack:  What Has MAHA Accomplished To Date?
• Ted Kyle on  ConscienHealth:  The Effect of “Spectacularly False” Health Noise
• Jane Black on Consumed Substack:  MAHA Picked a Fight With the Wrong 89-Year-Old
• Michele Simon on Break the Silence Substack:  An HHS Official Is Smearing Marion Nestle
• Jerry Hagstrom on The Hagstrom Report: Marion Nestle analyzes MAHA progress to date, sets Means ‘straight’
• Helena Bottemiller Evich at Food Fix:  What I’m reading: MAHA picked a fight with the wrong 89-year-old (Consumed)…Setting the record straight: Calley Means (Food Politics).

Additions

• Raj Patel: MAHA’s fascist turn (July 27)
• Errol Schweitzer, When MAHA Came for Marion

Background (numbers refer to citations at the end)

The Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) commission set an important goal, albeit one ironically similar to Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move” campaign: end childhood chronic disease.[1] Unfortunately, hallucinated references in the report suggested that at least some of it had been written by AI, thereby detracting from its scientific credibility.[2]

Trying to achieve this goal is surely difficult within the context of drastic staff reductions in the HHS and USDA agencies responsible for food policy, and of the deliberate undermining of public confidence in basic public health measures like water fluoridation and vaccination; these actions will harm child health, not improve it.

Also, policies of EPA (approving PFAS, encouraging coal-burning power plants), of USDA (eliminating farm-to-school programs [3], cutting school meal budgets), and of presidential executive orders (glyphosate[4]) directly oppose MAHA goals.

MAHA promises

In September 2025, the commission outlined its strategies.[5]  Here are its main promises about food, and my understanding of what has been done about them to date.  [Stat lists non-food ones as well.  I wrote about its report here]

1. Issue the 2025-2030 dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs)[6] and new food guide.[7] Accomplished. I wrote about them here.  They have some strengths (eat real food; limit ultra-processed foods), but are undermined by errors, inconsistencies, and ideological interpretations of inconvenient science. More recent recommendations of the American Heart Association better reflect scientific consensus.[8]
2. Eliminate petroleum-based food colors. Accomplished, but voluntarily. To date, 27 food companies have agreed to replace these dyes with those derived from plant sources.[9]  Voluntary could mean that the change won’t last; these foods will still be highly processed.
3. Establish post market review of chemical additives in food. In progress, but no rulemaking or regulation as yet.
4. Define ultra-processed foods (UPFs) for research and policy. In progress, but rumored to be held up.
5. Develop a front-of-pack nutrition information logo. In progress, but rumored to be held up. RFK Jr has stated that the FDA is working on one with traffic light colors. We haven’t seen it yet.
6. Close the GRAS (generally recognized as safe food additive) loophole. In progress, but no rulemaking as of yet. [10]   It is hard to know how the FDA will do this, given that it has lost 20% of its staff.[11]
7. Improve nutrition and safety standards for Infant Formula. In progress.[12]  Operation Stork Speed is supposed to review nutrition standards and test for heavy metals, but says nothing about microbial safety, a huge issue right now.  The FEA is checking for heavy metals, and isn’t finding much.  A program to monitor foods in general for heavy metals has been announced.  Microbial safety?  I’m not hearing much about stronger regulation of infant formula.
8. Promote breastfeeding. Nothing on this. 
9. Improve quality of food served to veterans. In progress. Presumably, this will happen as a result of the dietary guidelines, but I’ve not seen rules.
10. Serve healthy food in hospitals.  In progress. A letter was sent to hospitals saying that federal benefits would be withheld if they did not comply.[13] And HHS has just urged hospitals to take ‘Make Hospital Food Healthier’ pledge.  This is voluntary, and it is not clear whether or how tit will be enforced. Also, medical schools have been asked to increase hours devoted to nutrition instruction, and some have agreed. Again, this is voluntary.[14] 
11. Set guidelines to limit the direct marketing of UPFs to children. Nothing on this.
12. Promote whole, healthy foods across its 16 nutrition programs. In progress. Presumably, this will happen as a result of the dietary guidelines, but no rules yet.
13. Encourage state SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) waivers.  Accomplished (maybe). The USDA has approved waivers for 23 states as of July 2026.[15]  These ban the use of federal SNAP dollars for sugar-sweetened beverages and, in some states, candy and other sweets. Will the waivers improve the diet and health of participants?  We don’t know yet.  But since July 2025, SNAP enrollments have dropped by 10% overall and by much greater percentages in some states; losses include more than 800,000 children in the 13 states that report these data.[16]  Advocates expect the waivers to make participation even more difficult.[17]  Furthermore, the state SNAP waivers are being litigated, and some have been blocked.  The waivers may not last.
14. Provide MAHA Boxes to SNAP participants. I’ve heard nothing on this yet.
15. Food Deregulation: Remove restrictions on whole milk sales in schools, allowing full-fat dairy options alongside reduced-fat alternatives. Accomplished.[18]  Will this make a difference to kids’ health?  I doubt it.
16. Education campaign based on the updated dietary guidelines. Nothing on this yet.  NOTUS reports: “the White House killed an RFK Jr. ad campaign. He can blame Kristi Noem: Trump officials abruptly canceled the health campaign focused on processed food and diabetes over cost and image concerns.

Comment

This administration counts much of the work in progress as MAHA wins,[19] but the actual accomplishments seem limited.  The promises most likely to make a real difference to child health—regulation of ultra-processed foods and marketing to kids, better food in schools, a major education campaign—are either held up, ignored, or still waiting for rulemaking.

When I said something like this to Calley Means at the Aspen Ideas Festival (see yesterday’s post), he pointed out that MAHA has had only had a year and a half to get things done, whereas advocates like you, Marion, had been trying to do these things for decades and failed.  We did fail, but MAHA has (or had) the power. I hoped they would be able to use it .  Their inability to do is is disappointing, as is their taking credit for actions they haven’t yet taken.

References

[1] The MAHA Report: Make Our Children Healthy Again: Assessment. May 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/WH-The-MAHA-Report-Assessment.pdf.

[2] Jacobs P.  Trump officials downplay fake citations in high-profile report on children’s health.  Science.  May 30, 2025.  doi: 10.1126/science.zmgabo5.

[3] Brown M.  USDA cancels $1B in local food purchasing for schools, food banks. Politico, March 10, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/10/usda-cancels-local-food-purchasing-for-schools-food-banks-00222796

[4]  The White House.  Promoting The National Defense by Ensuring an Adequate Supply Of Elemental Phosphorus And Glyphosate-Based Herbicides.  Executive Orders, February 18, 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/promoting-the-national-defense-by-ensuring-an-adequate-supply-of-elemental-phosphorus-and-glyphosate-based-herbicides/

[5] MAHA.  Strategy Report: Make Our Children Healthy Again. September 2025.   https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The-MAHA-Strategy-WH.pdf

[6] HHS, USDA.  Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030.  chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://cdn.realfood.gov/DGA.pdf.

[7] USDA.  Real food wins.  https://realfood.gov/.

[8] Lichtenstein AH, Khera A, Anderson CAM, et al. 2026 Dietary Guidance to Improve Cardiovascular Health: A scientific statement From the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2026;153(18):e1285-e1295. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001435.

[9] FDA.  Tracking Food Industry Pledges to Remove Petroleum Based Food Dyes. June 16, 2026.  https://www.fda.gov/food/color-additives-information-consumers/tracking-food-industry-pledges-remove-petroleum-based-food-dyes.

[10] HHS.  HHS Secretary Kennedy Directs FDA to Explore Rulemaking to Eliminate Pathway for Companies to Self-Affirm Food Ingredients Are Safe.  March 10, 2025.  https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/revising-gras-pathway.html

[11] Akst J.  FDA hiring 2,200 people to staff up after last year’s DOGE cuts. BioSpace, June 24, 2026.  https://www.biospace.com/fda/fda-hiring-2-200-people-to-staff-up-after-last-years-doge-cuts

[12] HHS.  HHS, FDA Announce Operation Stork Speed to Expand Options for Safe, Reliable, and Nutritious Infant Formula for American Families.  March 18, 2025. https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/operation-stork-speed.html.

[13] HHS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.  Letter to Hospital/CAH Providers.  Hospital nutrition service obligations in light of updated federal nutrition guidelines.  March 30, 2026.  https://www.cms.gov/files/document/qssam-26-03-hospital-cah-original-release-2026-03-30.pdf.

[14] HHS.  Secretary Kennedy Announces Historic Development in Nutrition Accreditation Standards, New Medical School Pledges. June 8, 2026.  https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/secretary-kennedy-announces-historic-development-nutrition-accreditation-standards-new-medical-school-pledges.html

[15] USDA. SNAP food restriction waivers. Undated.  https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/waivers/foodrestriction

[16] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. SNAP Tracker: People Are Losing Food Assistance as the Republican Megabill Is Implemented. June 22, 2026.  https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-tracker-people-are-losing-food-assistance-as-the-republican-megabill

[17] Food Research & Action Center.  SNAP food restriction waivers. Undated. https://frac.org/snap-restrictions

[18] USDA.  Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 – Implementation Requirements for the National School Lunch Program.  January 14, 2026.  https://www.fna.usda.gov/nslp/wmfhka-implementation

[19] HHS.  Celebrating Big Wins of the Trump Administration.  Undated.  https://www.hhs.gov/hhs-big-wins-maha/index.html

[20] Wallace-Wells D.  Has the MAHA Movement Given Up?New York Times, July 3, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/03/magazine/maha-movement-survival-rfk.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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Washington Post reporter, Tim Carman, contacted me for comment about a speech he heard made by RFK Jr’s top food advisor, Calley Means, in which Means made patently false charges about my work.  From Carman’s report, MAHA Mondays at the Great American State Fair miss one obvious problem:

Means suggested her research had been bankrolled by sugar and tobacco industries, the latter of which once owned major food companies. The industries “funded her to say that basically the base of our diet should be carbs,” Means said. He added that the report made Americans afraid of foods other than grains.

These charges surprised me for two reasons: (1) Anyone even remotely familiar with my work would know these statements could not possibly be true, and (2) I am not MAHA’s enemy. I support parts of its agenda, and am on record as calling for coalition-building around common objectives.

Means began making the false claims on June 30, when we were on a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival, moderated by Corby Kummer.  You can watch the session here and make your own decision about how it went.

I would have let the whole thing go, except that Calley Means followed it up with his speech at the Great American State Fair on July 6.  Tim Carman sent me a transcript of Means’ remarks:

In the 1980s, a group called the Sugar Research Council paid her to do a lot of research. And they really funded her to say that basically the base of our diet should be carbs, and the base our diet to be grains, and we should fear fat. And really, we should fear a lot of natural foods in favor of grains. And her research, she claims credit for being the architect of the 1992 food pyramid. And I told her, when we talked last week, I think it’s actually demonstrable that the dietary guidance from the 1990s has been the most destructive public health document in modern history, because they put grains and carbs at the base of the pyramid. And they didn’t differentiate whole grains or refined grains. Why did they do that? That was directly prompted by the food industry, which at the time was the cigarette industry.

Carman asked: “Any of this true?”

Good grief no. Not only are these statements false; they are spectacularly false.

Let’s take them line by line.

Means: In the 1980s, a group called the Sugar Research Council paid her to do a lot of research.

False. In the 1980s, I was teaching nutrition to medical students at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) school of medicine and running a nutrition education program funded by NIH and, later, by the John Tung Foundation.  To avoid conflicts of interest, I have a long-standing policy of not taking payments from food companies.  The policy is posted on this site here.

Means: And they really funded her to say that basically the base of our diet should be carbs, and the base our diet to be grains, and we should fear fat.

False.  Here, I think he must be referring to the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) which funded researchers at Harvard who wrote a skewed review of diet and heart disease in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967; the review downplayed sugar, and emphasized fat. The SRF’s role in this research was exposed in 2016 in JAMA Internal Medicine by Cristin Kearns, Laura Schmidt and Stanton Glantz: Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents.  I wrote the commentary on this study: “Food industry funding of nutrition research: The relevance of history for current debates.”  I also wrote about both pieces on this site.

Means: And really, we should fear a lot of natural foods in favor of grains.

False.  Here, I think, he must be talking about my role as managing editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. The report summarized the research consensus of that time.

“Fats and cholesterol. Reduce consumption of fat (especially saturated fat) and cholesterol.  Choose foods relatively low in these substances, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grain foods, fish, poultry, lean meats, and low-fat dairy products.”

“Complex carbohydrates and fiber: Increase consumption of whole grain foods and cereal products, vegetables (including dried beans and peas), and fruits.”

The National Academies’ even more comprehensive report, Diet and Health: Implications for Reducing Chronic Disease Risk, made similar recommendations in 1989.

Means: And her research, she claims credit for being the architect of the 1992 food pyramid.

False. I have never claimed such responsibility; I had none. My only role in the 1992 pyramid was to work closely with a reporter for the New York Times, Marian Burros, to expose how the meat industry induced the USDA to suppress the pyramid when it was about to be released in 1991.  I devoted an entire chapter of my book, Food Politics, to providing the evidence for this.

Means: And I told her, when we talked last week, I think it’s actually demonstrable that the dietary guidance from the 1990s has been the most destructive public health document in modern history,

True.  This is what he said and, I assume, is what he thinks.

Means:  because they put grains and carbs at the base of the pyramid. And they didn’t differentiate whole grains or refined grains.

False. The USDA’s pyramid brochure said: “Choose a diet with plenty of grain products, vegetables, and fruits which provide needed vitamins, minerals, fiber, and complex carbohydrates, and can help you lower your intake of fat.”

It also says, “Here are some selection tips: ☛ To get the fiber you need, choose several servings a day of foods made from whole grains, such as whole-wheat bread and whole-grain cereals. ☛ Choose most often foods that are made with little fat or sugars. These include bread, english muffins, rice, and pasta… ☛ Baked goods made from flour, such as cakes, cookies, croissants, and pastries, count as part of this food group, but they are high in fat and sugars.”

Means: Why did they do that? That was directly prompted by the food industry, which at the time was the cigarette industry.

Misleading. Yes, the cigarette industry owned Kraft Foods and other food companies at that time, and taught those companies how to use the tobacco playbook to promote unhealthy products (as we only recently learned).  But the major food industry influences on dietary guidelines and food guides in the 1980s and 1990s were the meat and dairy industries, as I describe in Food Politics. As far as I can tell, they still are, as witnessed by the 2025-2030 guidelines and inverted pyramid.

But that’s not all.  Calley Means said on Instagram: “At @aspenideas, I spoke with @marionnestle – an architect of the 1990s U.S. Dietary Guidelines that led to an explosion of refined carbohydrates and ultraprocessed food in the American diet.”

Misleading again.  I was indeed a member (although hardly the architect) of the 1995 Dietary Guidelines Scientific Advisory Committee.  Here is what the 1995 guidelines said about grains.

“Most of the calories in your diet should come from grain products, vegetables, and fruits These include grain products high in complex carbohydrates—breads, cereals, pasta, rice—found at the base of the Food Guide Pyramid, as well as vegetables such as potatoes and corn. Dry beans (like pinto, navy, kidney, and black beans) are included in the meat and beans group of the Pyramid, but they can count as servings of vegetables instead of meat alternatives.”

Doesn’t this look a lot like what the 2025-2030 guidelines say about grains?  I think it does.

Yes, the 1995 guidelines did not say anything about reducing intake of ultra-processed foods.  How could they? The term was not coined until 2009.

So: Why on earth is Calley Means attacking my work?

I can only speculate.  I see the underlying issue in our current food problems as the food industry having profits to stockholders as its primary fiduciary responsibility, as I have described for decades in my daily newsletter foodpolitics.com, and in my books, most notably,

• Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health
• Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning)
• Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.

In making false charges, could Calley Means possibly be attempting to deflect attention from the difficulties MAHA is confronting in implementing its agenda? (I will say more about that tomorrow).  Means seems to view me as an appropriate target for deflection.  Obviously, I disagree.

MAHA’s agenda appears to be running up against the pushback that inevitably happens when you do something that might threaten food industry profits. See, for example:

• Food Dive: As MAHA clashes with courts, is RFK Jr’s food policy agenda on life support?
• Food Fix: Major MAHA policy plans now seem less imminent
• New York Times: Has the MAHA movement given up?
• Rolling Stone: Are MAGA and MAHA Heading for Divorce?

A final comment

Reasonable people can disagree about elements of nutrition policy. But reasonable people cannot invent a history that did not exist.

If Calley Means or anyone else believes that I have misrepresented the science or the historical record in my lengthy body of work, show me the evidence. I will be happy to consider it.

That’s how Gold Standard Science works.  Otherwise, it’s just name-calling.

Addition

I was just sent this link to Vanity Fair’s article about Calley Means.

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The Supreme Court has just handed Bayer, which owns Monsanto, a “landmark victory.”  The decision may well overturn thousands of pending cases of people suing Bayer in the belief that the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup) caused them to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Monsanto v. Durnell states its premise in the first paragraph:

Monsanto Company manufactures and distributes Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide designed to control weeds. The EPA has repeatedly evaluated glyphosate and repeatedly concluded that glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer. EPA’s assessment is shared by many other regulatory bodies around the world. In accordance with EPA’s view that glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer in humans, EPA has not required labels on glyphosate-based pesticides like Roundup to include a cancer warning.

Ergo: If the EPA says glyphosate is not carcinogenic, glyphosate is not carcinogenic.

An advocacy group, Protect Our Care, organized an emergency virtual event in Washington, DC, to condemn this “deeply misguided” decision. 

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of industry and the Trump administration by effectively granting Donald Trump’s big chemical industry donors blanket immunity from state-based liability claims involving the cancer-linked glyphosate chemical found in Roundup pesticides. In the administration’s latest betrayal of the MAHA movement, Trump’s DOJ filed an amicus brief in support of Monsanto – now owned by Bayer — and Trump’s Principal Deputy Solicitor General argued alongside the chemical maker in court. The decision is also a major affront to cancer survivors, now denied a pathway to damages for any injuries and financial costs they may have endured following exposure to glyphosate. 

At the event, Senator Cory Booker said:

Today’s a really a grievous day where the people of the United States saw that their Supreme Court corrupted by massive gifts from billionaires and people of interest in matters before them. A court that takes gifts, from RVs to tuition to lavish gifts, sided with the wealthy, powerful multinational corporation reversing years and years of precedent, dismissing ultimately effectively hundreds and hundreds, in fact 1000s of cases. They sided with the big multinational corporations against the people. Worse than that, compounding that, is a president who said he stood with the MAHA movement has betrayed that movement by now siding with the big corporations and those who are poisoning people in our country.

Why is this infuriating?

(1) The EPA relied on evidence developed by Monsanto: The EPA Relied on an Influential Glyphosate Study Even After Learning Monsanto Was a “Ghost Writer”

The US Environmental Protection Agency has known for nearly a decade that an influential 2013 scientific paper that concluded glyphosate is safe was actually ghostwritten by developer Monsanto. But the agency never informed the public and continued to rely on it, according to an EPA memo obtained by Mother Jones and revealed here for the first time.

(2)  Monsanto created its own evidence for the safety of glyphosate: Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide.

(3)  The Trump administration’s support of Bayer was aided by officials who came from Bayer’s law firms.

(4)  Getting glyphosate out of the food supply has been a stated objective of the MAHA movement and of HHS Secretary, RFK, Jr (although he later changed his stance)

One more thing: let’s not be taken in by President Trump’s executive order “advancing regenerative agriculture.”  This is really about biofuel production: “The new framework creates significant opportunities for America’s leading biofuel feedstock producers.”

By regenerative, this order refers to “cover crops, improved nutrient management, and conservation tillage—including no-till and reduced tillage.”

This is not my idea of the meaning of regenerative.  I much prefer the approach of Real Organic Project:   “is a farmer-led, soil-grown, pasture-raised WHOLE farm certification with labor protections. “

If a farm uses glyphosate, it’s not regenerative, not matter how much no-till it uses.

This one is not over yet.  At least one lawsuit has been filed to disclose how all this happened.

Stay tuned.

The GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) loophole refers to the way the FDA allows food manufacturers basically to decide for themselves whether the additives they are using are safe, voluntarily or not.

Closing the loophole is a key goal of the Make America Healthy Again Movement (MAHA), and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has made closing this loophole a key goal of his administration, and he has directed the FDA to “explore rulemaking” on this issue, meaning write real regulations.

We have yet to see any sign of what the FDA is proposing.

In the meantime, Yuka, maker of the popular product-scanning app, and Consumer Reports have petitioned FDA to get busy on this.

Now, product-scanning app Yuka and watchdog group Consumer Reports are urging the FDA to tighten regulation of food additives and close the GRAS “loophole”, after their investigation found that 25 out of 40 popular food and drink products contain at least one additive at levels identified as concerning by peer-reviewed research.

“Americans shouldn’t need a chemistry degree to eat safely – but today, no one, not even the FDA, can say exactly what’s in our food,” reads the organisations’ petition, which has already surpassed its goal of 35,000 signatures.

This is an old issue.  My contribution to this discussion was published in 2013: Nestle M.  Conflict of interest in the regulation of food safety: a threat to scientific integrity.  JAMA Internal Medicine 2013;173(22):2036-2038. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.9158.

So what’s the holdup?  Two reasons:

1.  RFK, Jr is on record as saying he doesn’t like regulation.  Regulation is nanny state.  He much prefers education.
2.  Lobbying by the users of unregulated food additives; they like it just the way it is.

NOTUS has a remarkable investigative report on lobbying over the GRAS loophole.  The number of lobbyists on this issue has tripled, it says.

After Kennedy directed the Food and Drug Administration to explore closing the GRAS loophole in March 2025, the number of trade associations, companies and organizations that reported lobbying on the pending regulation have nearly tripled, according to a NOTUS analysis of federal lobbying disclosures.

In-house and hired lobbyists for 35 organizations — from food chemical suppliers to packagers and manufacturers — disclosed lobbying specifically on GRAS reform during the first quarter of 2026, up from 12 during the same period in 2025 and one during the same period in 2024.

NOTUS gives one example:

AFIT [Americans for Ingredient Transparency] paid the Russell Group $240,000 between August 2025 and March, including $170,000 in the first quarter of this year, to lobby on “issues pertaining to ingredient transparency,” according to its quarterly lobbying disclosures.

If MAHA wants to close the loophole, it has to take on the food industry, big time.

No wonder RFK Jr is switching to physical activity: shades of Let’s Move!