I don't mean to insinuate that I don't trust the large food companies that churn out mountains of processed food for our consumption.
But I don't trust them. RFK may be a whack job, but not on this issue. Go get em Tiger!
How MAHA Moms and RFK Jr. Are Spooking Food Companies
A White House video pokes fun at complex ingredient names in push to overhaul food system; ‘we’re coming for you’
By Jesse Newman and Natalie Andrews, WSJ
March 16, 2025 9:00 am ET
A federal health roundtable last week ended with an unusual twist: a White House video featuring Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others struggling to pronounce ingredients found in pantry items from Pop-Tarts to Little Debbie oatmeal creme pies.
“Carrageenan, riboflavin, monosodium glutamate and 20 others that I can’t pronounce,” said Kennedy. Education Secretary Linda McMahon took a stab at saying sodium stearoyl lactylate.
“It doesn’t sound good. Polysorbate 80, that stuff’s really bad,” said Claire Guernsey, the wife of a senior Trump administration health policy adviser and a “MAHA mom.”
The minute-long video capped a week of meetings for Kennedy with food executives and mothers who have championed his Make America Healthy Again agenda—events where he pledged an overhaul of the ingredients found in American grocery products. It is an early sign of the pressure that food manufacturers face as the nation’s top health official and his supporters try to bend a major U.S. industry by swaying public opinion.
Kennedy campaigned for president on a vow to strip chemicals from the food supply, blaming them for a wide range of health problems. Since Kennedy suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump in August, the president has largely embraced the MAHA movement and directed a commission to develop a strategy for tackling chronic disease.
The White House posted the video on its social-media feed following a closed-door MAHA Moms Roundtable, a gathering that included Trump cabinet members and administration staff. The meeting covered topics including food additives, infant formula and screen time, according to the White House, an agenda viewed by The Wall Street Journal and people in attendance.
The food influencer Vani Hari, also known as the Food Babe, collaborated with the White House on the video. At the meeting, she presented a list of ingredients in U.S. foods that she said aren’t used in similar products overseas. “This hypocritical double standard has to stop today,” she said.
“We’re going to fix this, hopefully within two years, but by the end of this four-year period we are not going to be using ingredients in our food that are illegal in Europe,” Kennedy told the group.
On Monday, Kennedy told executives from the nation’s biggest food companies that he wanted artificial dyes removed from the food supply by the end of his term. He also instructed the Food and Drug Administration to consider changes to a decades-old rule governing food additives deemed “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS.
For months, food companies have been concerned that Kennedy’s efforts would quickly shift from synthetic colors, which influence how food looks, to a broader swath of ingredients that thicken, flavor or preserve foods. The food industry has defended many of the ingredients it uses, saying they are safe and that decades of refining recipes have helped reduce spoilage, contamination and costs.
Some of the ingredients ticked off in the White House video, such as titanium dioxide, used to brighten colors, and BHT, a preservative, have long drawn the ire of consumer advocates. Riboflavin, also mentioned, is vitamin B2.
People at the meeting said that the video was intended to be lighthearted, and that the ingredients were pulled from the back of popular food products, similar to those that fill White House vending machines. Specific ingredients weren’t targeted in discussions last week, a White House official said.
Kellanova, the maker of Pop-Tarts, and McKee Foods, which makes Little Debbie products, didn’t comment.
Federal law currently lets companies determine whether many food ingredients can be considered GRAS. Because it is voluntary, many companies don’t notify the FDA of those ingredients.
Kennedy promised attendees at the meeting that he would end the GRAS standard. On Thursday, he posted a video to social media indicating that he would step up assessments of chemicals already in use.
“I can’t really blame the food companies,” Kennedy said. “They’re just doing what we’ve allowed them to get away with in a system that’s taken on a life of its own.”
Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of product policy at the Consumer Brands Association, which represents major food companies, said the GRAS process plays an important role in enabling companies to innovate and meet consumer demand.
The group will cooperate with federal agencies to “ensure the analysis of safe ingredients and increase consumer transparency,” Gallo said, adding that it is working with Congress to make certain that the FDA has resources to complete the tasks.
The FDA had already begun changing its approach to food chemicals before Trump’s election.
The agency last year revoked authorization for brominated vegetable oil, used in beverages to keep citrus flavoring from floating to the top, and 21 other chemicals are currently under review.
Still, Hari, who boasts around 2.2 million followers on Instagram, delivered a message to food companies at the end of the White House video. “If you are an American company poisoning us with ingredients you don’t use in other countries, we’re coming for you,” she said.
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