The Trump administration is nearing a key milestone in its\u00a0\u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d agenda: proposing a definition of ultraprocessed foods.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stricter scrutiny of nutrition and\u00a0food additives has\u00a0been a focal point of the MAHA movement, gaining support from food policy experts as well as lawmakers across the political spectrum. Ultraprocessed foods have been blamed for\u00a0widespread obesity rates and\u00a0malnutrition,\u00a0as well as being contributing factors\u00a0to chronic diseases, heart disease and cancers.<\/p>\n
But what does it mean to be ultraprocessed?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the administration is preparing to answer that\u00a0by next month.\u00a0Advocates\u00a0say the result will open avenues to research\u00a0to determine which products are the most harmful while providing a basis to clamp down on unhealthy school lunches.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration appears to be taking a two-pronged approach. The Food and Drug Administration is aiming for a more informative role to\u00a0equip the public with the best information about nutritional\u00a0intake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not saying that we\u2019re going to regulate ultraprocessed food,\u201d Kennedy said in a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview. \u201cOur job is to make sure everybody understands what they\u2019re getting, to have an informed public.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Department of Agriculture, however, could use the end result to create policies that have an impact on areas like federal food assistance.<\/p>\n
The two departments\u00a0last summer opened a request for information to solicit feedback on a definition of ultraprocessed foods. By the time it closed in the fall, it had garnered more than 5,000 responses.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast earlier this month, Kennedy underscored the administration\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going to change this overnight, but we\u2019re going to change this pretty quickly,\u201d he said. HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon confirmed that the definition \u201cremains a priority for the secretary and administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cracking down on processed foods has been a bipartisan bright spot for the MAHA movement, which has fomented divisiveness on other issues such as vaccines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee\u00a0hearing for President Donald Trump\u2019s surgeon general pick, Casey Means,\u00a0ranking member Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said he wants to work with the administration on banning junk food ads.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you will be frustrated by how much I will be talking about ultraprocessed foods,\u201d Means said in response.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGood,\u201d Sanders said. \u201cI won\u2019t be frustrated, I\u2019d be delighted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Health effects<\/p>\n
Policy experts and food researchers said that coming to a conclusive definition of ultraprocessed foods will help them study health effects.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Peter Lurie, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in an interview that not having a concrete definition has been a limitation, and that even the definition of the term \u201cprocessed\u201d isn\u2019t entirely clear to scientists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m an enthusiastic supporter of this effort to define them,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then once you define it, then you can start attaching various policy initiatives to that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Lurie noted that the administration\u2019s approach\u00a0oversimplified the issue. He said officials should be focused on cracking down on foods that are known to cause the most harm, rather than being averse to all chemicals in foods.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t look at even a trend like obesity and just sort of say, \u2018Well, it\u2019s just this one thing,\u2019\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dalia Perelman, a research dietitian at Stanford University, said in an interview that the current research standard\u00a0is known as the Nova scale, a system created by a Brazilian researcher that ranks foods based on how much they have been processed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The scale has been useful over the years to measure processing, but it falls short in considering the effect on health. Perelman said the research on determining which food additives are most harmful is still evolving but\u00a0a clear definition of \u201cultraprocessed\u201d would be a good place to start.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope it\u2019s not a missed opportunity to really overhaul the food system and have a little more guidance for the food companies,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The School Nutrition Association, in comments to the FDA, noted that the Nova\u00a0scale doesn\u2019t account for nutrient density. \u201cFor instance, a nutrient-dense item like hummus that contains a stabilizer to maintain texture is treated the same as a cupcake, despite their vastly different nutritional profiles,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
School meal effects<\/p>\n
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Kennedy have tackled ultraprocessed foods in lockstep. The USDA is currently in the process of creating new regulations on school meals, industry experts say, based on the updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans released earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The guidelines did not include the term \u201cultraprocessed\u201d but instead\u00a0advise against the consumption of highly processed foods. They\u00a0set the nutritional standards for federal programs like school lunch and breakfast, as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese dietary guidelines are foundational to so many USDA programs, and their introduction marks the first step in connecting America\u2019s schools and dinner plates to the best of American agriculture,\u201d Rollins said at an event in January.<\/p>\n
School meals won\u2019t change overnight, or even at a speedy pace. It could take years for the industry to adjust the recipes for premade foods.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchools do not have the staff, the equipment, the infrastructure, the culinary training or the funding available to them to scratch-prepare everything that they serve their students,\u201d said Diane Pratt-Heavner, the director of media relations for the School Nutrition Association.<\/p>\n
The organization in January surveyed 1,240 school meal program directors nationwide, finding that\u00a099 percent of respondents need more funding; 94 percent need more staff, equipment and infrastructure; while 95 percent need more culinary training.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nearly all respondents reported the cost of food as a challenge, making for no easy transition away from ultraprocessed foods.<\/p>\n
Pratt-Heavner said there is a \u201cneed to continue to be able to offer pre-prepared items because of operational and funding limitations\u201d as schools rely on prepared foods to service 30 million students per day.<\/p>\n
Carole Erb, the executive director for education and governmental sales at J.T.M. Food Group, which makes meals for K-12 students, said it will take time for companies to research and develop recipes to comply with any new regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt J.T.M., it takes about 18 months to three years,\u201d said Erb, who is also the School Nutrition Association\u2019s industry advisory council chair. \u201cI heard others say that it takes them five years to reformulate.\u201d Erb added that she heard cost estimates ranging from $250,000 per end item to upward of $1 million.<\/p>\n
Producers also have to create products that children will want to eat. \u201cThat\u2019s the tightrope that we all seem to be working on, having a product that meets the nutritional guidelines in the very strict K-12 meal pattern, and yet, having something that is palatable,\u201d Erb said.<\/p>\n
Both Erb and Pratt-Heavner\u00a0cautioned against states implementing a patchwork of regulations.\u00a0The end result could mean companies either comply with the strictest requirements, pull products from certain states or halt the sale of those products altogether.<\/p>\n
\u201cI call this \u201950 kings, 50 kingdoms\u2019 effect,\u201d Erb said. \u201cI can\u2019t produce 20 different kinds of taco meat to meet a whole bunch of different regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration is nearing a key milestone in its\u00a0\u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d agenda: proposing a definition of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[5083,5322,34113,172032,87899,15691,1398,47929,7552,1991,6632,102,86734,2960,53662,464,3714,6636,6631,305,90,53381,5609,1043,10907,56,54,55,2256],"class_list":["post-484663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-agriculture","tag-american","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-brand-safety","tag-department-of-agriculture","tag-department-of-health-and-human-services","tag-education","tag-executive-branch","tag-fda","tag-food","tag-food-and-drug-administration","tag-health","tag-health-and-human-services","tag-healthcare","tag-human-services","tag-infrastructure","tag-media","tag-nutrition","tag-podcast","tag-policy","tag-science","tag-senate","tag-snap","tag-summer","tag-trump","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-vermont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}