How Maga fell out of love with fast food

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Story by The Times

Episode Title: How MAGA fell out of love with fast food
Air Date: May 12, 2026
Host: Luke Jones
Reporter/Guest: Louise Callahan, Americas Correspondent for the Sunday Times

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Overview

This episode explores the surprising turn in American health politics: how the core of Trump-supporting “MAGA country” has begun to embrace anti-ultra-processed food rhetoric and “healthy eating” policies once considered the preserve of liberal elites. With the ascendance of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, spearheaded by figures like RFK Jr., deep-red states like Oklahoma are seeing their politicians and institutions rally around public health measures—albeit with mixed results and skepticism about policy substance and class impact. The episode combines on-the-ground reporting from Oklahoma, interviews with food bank workers and recipients, and perspectives from nutrition experts to chart this cultural shift and its discontents.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Turning Point in Conservative America’s Food Culture

• Setting the Scene: Luke Jones opens at a gubernatorial campaign rally in Oklahoma City, noting that it’s one of the most conservative states in the US (Trump won every county in 2024).
• Health Rhetoric from the Right: Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Charles McCall breaks Republican norms, advocating for lifestyle changes and healthier eating habits.
  • Quote: “I love chicken fried steaks, but I shouldn’t eat them probably more than twice a year.” — Charles McCall (02:10)
• Historical Resistance: The state historically opposed soda taxes and Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaigns, making this change particularly noteworthy.

2. The Rise of MAHA (Make America Healthy Again)

• The MAHA movement, helmed by RFK Jr. (now Director of Health and Human Services), reframes health consciousness as a populist, anti-establishment cause.
  • Quote: “President Trump and I are gonna replace the corrupt industry-captured officials with honest public servants. We’re gonna become once again the healthiest nation on earth.” — RFK Jr. (06:21)
• Political Calculation: Trump’s campaign realized distrust in institutions—pharma, health, food—could bond health-conscious voters and traditional base, leading them to embrace anti-ultra-processed messaging.
  • Quote (on Trump’s eating habits): “Trump loves McDonald’s. He loves Diet Coke. He made a big deal…about ordering McDonald’s delivered to the White House.” — Louise Callahan (05:20)

3. Oklahoma as Ground Zero

• Cultural Shift: Once left-wing-coded concerns about additives, food dyes, and processed food are now championed by conservative politicians in Oklahoma.
• Breadbasket Paradox: Despite producing much of the nation’s food, local Oklahomans face high rates of food deserts, obesity, and diet-related chronic disease.
  • “Half of adults in Oklahoma have a chronic disease which is linked to diet, and two-thirds are overweight.” — Louise Callahan (08:37)
• New Executive Orders: Moves to eliminate artificial dyes from food served in schools and prisons (07:24).

4. On-the-Ground Reality: Food Insecurity and Processed Food Dominance

• Food Bank Experience: Louise visits the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma and speaks with Austin Prickett, highlighting the challenges of sourcing and affording healthy foods (09:39—10:29).
  • Quote: “Getting a processed food is a lot cheaper than just going to the store and getting the same amount of fresh produce.” — Austin Prickett (10:29)
• Societal Patterns: Many Oklahomans rely on snacks from dollar stores or petrol stations; preparing fresh food at home is rare for many families.
• Barriers:
  • Fresh food is expensive and often physically inaccessible.
  • Even new grocery stores in poor areas can’t survive as residents can’t afford the offerings, perpetuating stigma/failure narratives (12:25).

5. “Veggie Prescriptions” – Medical Community Responds

• Clinics Prescribe Vegetables: With so many patients experiencing diet-related illnesses, some Oklahoma clinics literally give out veg at the prescription window (13:17).
  • “There was a window in the doctor’s office...getting ready to give out bunches of leeks and carrots to people who were getting treatment.” — Louise Callahan (13:17)

6. Why Ultra-Processed Food Won in America

• WWII Legacy: Louise traces the explosion of shelf-stable, processed foods to wartime logistics, with the technology and marketing ethos carried over to peacetime (17:50—20:00).
• Cultural Entrenchment: 1950s TV dinners, liberation from the kitchen, and the Pringles slogan (“Once you pop, you can't stop”) exemplify how food’s addictive and convenience qualities shaped modern American eating habits (20:00).
  • “The majority of American adults get the majority of their dietary intake from ultra-processed foods.” — Louise Callahan (20:02–20:42)

7. Policy Stalls and State-Level Shifts

• MAHA Policy Record: Despite loud promises, meaningful reforms—like removing certain dyes from food—have been limited.
  • Quote: “Kennedy has really talked very big about how he’s going to make America healthy again. But he hasn’t really delivered on any of these policy prescriptions.” — Louise Callahan (21:09)
• Controversial SNAP Changes:
  • Oklahoma outlaws using SNAP (food stamps) for snacks, sweets, and fizzy drinks.
  • Many on benefits see this as punitive rather than helpful.
    • Quote: “How are you going to buy juices and snacks for six year olds if you can't buy snack food and at a local supermarket? What’s cheap is not necessarily what’s healthy.” — Ashley Rader, SNAP recipient (23:01)

8. Regulatory Differences and Loopholes

• US vs UK/EU: EU and UK require pre-approval for new food additives. In the US, companies can self-certify additives, raising fears about untested chemicals in food (24:12).
  • “It turns out that there’s a loophole in regulations...if you, as a food company in the US want to put a new chemical in your food, you can just tell the regulatory agency that you’ve tested it and it works, and then you’re allowed to put it in and sell it.” — Louise Callahan (24:12)

9. The Greater Mistrust and the Fight Ahead

• Wider Anti-Institutional Sentiment: The health and food system becomes another vector for expressing populist anger and mistrust (“anti-vax” currents among MAHA supporters).
• Policy Solutions or Band-Aids?
  • “There really needs to be major structural changes...not just asking exhausted people in food deserts to…track their blood glucose when they can’t access real food.” — Ashley Gearhart, ultra-processed food expert (26:10)
• Food Companies: Some react to consumer anger (for example, advertising beef tallow over seed oils) but there’s a danger that focus on obscure additives misses the systemic issue and spirals into suspicion-based health fads more than evidence-based change (29:48).

10. Where Does the Movement Go Next?

• Analogy with Tobacco: As chronic disease catches up with the population, advocates describe it as another looming “Big Tobacco” moment—when public recognition and policy begin to shift (26:44–28:37).
  • “We’re now seeing that deaths related to ultra-processed foods are surpassing those from alcohol and opioids. So the consequences of this…yeah, it’s that bad.” — Ashley Gearhart (28:37)
• Prospects for Change: Big Food is powerful and entrenched, but grassroots anger crosses political lines and could drive political change if harnessed.
  • “There is this really powerful grassroots movement of people across the US…not just in the kind of liberal elites, but really people from all across the country and all across the social spectrum who want change.” — Louise Callahan (31:23)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On shifting rhetoric in conservative America:
  “We have an unhealthy population here in Oklahoma for various reasons, mainly because of lifestyle choices. I love chicken fried steaks, but I shouldn’t eat them probably more than twice a year.” — Charles McCall (02:10)

• On the culture of processed food:
  “It’s the slogan of Pringles, right? Like, once you pop, you can’t stop.” — Louise Callahan (20:00)

• On regulatory failure and US exceptionalism in food additives:
  “It turns out that there’s a loophole in regulations… you can just tell the regulatory agency that you've tested it and it works, and then you’re allowed to put it in and sell it.” — Louise Callahan (24:12)

• On real consequences:
  “We’re now seeing that deaths related to ultra-processed foods are surpassing those from alcohol and opioids. So the consequences of this…sometimes people are like, can it really be that bad? And, yeah, it’s that bad.” — Ashley Gearhart (28:37)

• On personal impact:
  “If you’re a parent… the amount of corporations that feel like they’re trying to make money off of the fact that I’m tired…” — Ashley Gearhart (25:57)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Focus | |:---------:|:-------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:32 | Introduction: Setting the scene in Oklahoma | | 02:10 | Charles McCall discusses unhealthy eating | | 04:17 | Defining MAHA: Make America Healthy Again | | 05:43 | Trump’s embrace of anti-processed food rhetoric | | 07:24 | Oklahoma executive order banning dyes in state-sponsored food | | 09:19 | Interviews at Oklahoma food bank—food access challenges | | 10:29 | Economics of processed vs. fresh food | | 13:17 | Clinics “prescribing” fresh vegetables | | 17:50 | Historical roots of processed food in US | | 21:09 | MAHA’s (lack of) policy achievements | | 22:42 | SNAP ban on snacks, impact on recipients | | 24:12 | Additive regulation in the US vs the UK/EU | | 25:41 | Perspective from expert Ashley Gearhart | | 26:44 | Comparison to Big Tobacco / health consequences | | 29:16 | Expert description of ultra-processed foods | | 29:48 | Companies responding by targeting niche ingredients (beef tallow, etc.) | | 31:23 | Optimism/pessimism about structural change and grassroots activism |

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Conclusion

The episode draws a nuanced picture: America’s relationship with food is at an inflection point, where concerns about processed food and the interests of public health have leapt across the political spectrum—even, perhaps especially, into the heart of MAGA country. Yet, the solutions remain contentious, slow, and sometimes punitive. Lasting change, the episode suggests, will depend both on national policy and on the grassroots momentum currently building across America—cutting across traditional cultural and political divides.

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Transcript

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[Luke Jones]

From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the Story. I'm Luke Jones. It's early April in Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain and we're in the state capitol, imaginatively called Oklahoma City, where a hardline conservative running for governor, Charles McCall, is holding a campaign rally.

[Charles McCall]

Rural health, Health. Here in the metro, it's a challenge everywhere.

[Luke Jones]

After McCall steps down from the pickup truck where he was giving his speech, he says something that would have been career suicide five years ago.

[Charles McCall]

We have an unhealthy population here in Oklahoma for various reasons, mainly because of lifestyle choices. I love chicken fried steaks, but I shouldn't eat them probably more than twice a year.

[Luke Jones]

I this is an extremely conservative state. President Trump won every county in 2024. It's also a place that has staunchly opposed taxes on soda, as well as Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity. But recently, when it comes to healthy eating, something has shifted.

[Charles McCall]

I think people have got to continue to exercise their freedom, but we can do better, showing them what good health looks like and how to get there.

[Luke Jones]

After decades of health consciousness being seen as the preserve of liberal elites, Americans from The coast to the heartland are turning against ultra processed food. So what happened? The story today, how MAGA fell out of love with big food.

[Louise Callahan]

I am an Oklahoma patriot for the British mind. The distances that you're talking about in Oklahoma are just incredible. It's just these miles and miles and miles of cornfields. And the weather there is crazy. They have tornadoes that sweep in.

[Luke Jones]

Louise Callahan covers the United States for the Sunday Times. A lot of what she does is travel around the US Reporting on the impact of some of the Trump administration's policies, which is what brought her to Oklahoma.

[Louise Callahan]

You know, when you think of the plains of the US Then this is kind of it like stretches kind of up north from above Texas, you know, and then kind of towards the Midwest, towards Kansas. And it's just this huge, huge state.

[Luke Jones]

And you were there reporting on something we've talked about on the podcast before, the sort of MAHA movement, the Make America Healthy Again movement, before we hear about why it was, why it's such a thing in Oklahoma. What is that in of itself MAHA,

[Louise Callahan]

the Make America Healthy Again movement, is spearheaded by RFK Jr. Who's the director of the Health and Human Services department

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

in the U.S. hey, everyone, I'm here today to tell you how we can make America Healthy again. And the first thing you need to do is get one of these. And we need everybody walking around and wearing it everywhere they go.

[Louise Callahan]

And it's basically a political movement which has been kind of co opted by the administration which says that Americans are unhealthy, they have bad health outcomes, and they want to try and fix that.

[Luke Jones]

Does it sort of dovetail quite nicely with Make America Great Again, the sort of Trump world? Are they naturally MAHA types as well?

[Louise Callahan]

They are, in a way, strange bedfellows. Right, Because Trump is not a diet guy.

[Luke Jones]

Yes, it has been observed.

[Louise Callahan]

Exactly. Trump loves McDonald's. He loves diet Coke. He loves really well done steak. He made a big deal a few weeks ago about ordering McDonald's delivered to the White House. I have your doordash order for you, Mr. President.

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

That's very nice. Look at this.

[Louise Callahan]

This doesn't look staged yet, does it? They're all your favorites.

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[Louise Callahan]

But I think ahead of the elections in 2024, they did something really clever, which is that they saw that there was a lot of votes to be won among people who deeply mistrusted the American health system and the American food system. And they kind of jumped on that and they thought, you know, we can get these guys on our side a lot of the support for Trump comes from people who don't trust institutions, who distrust the political system, you know, big pharma, all this kind of stuff. And they thought, actually there's a lot of health conscious people here who we could kind of bring in on our side. So they did this very politically savvy move where they brought on RFK Jr.

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

President Trump and I are gonna replace the corrupt industry captured officials with honest public servants. We're gonna become once again the healthiest nation on earth.

[Luke Jones]

And what is the policy platform, briefly? Just what would RFK Jr be pushing for that could make all of this better?

[Louise Callahan]

Well, it's interesting in that they're really short on actual policy proposals and policy implementations, but one of the big ones is getting certain dyes and getting certain chemicals out of food and promoting a kind of whole food diet, I would say.

[Luke Jones]

And so to Oklahoma, then why does it hit particularly there? The voters there?

[Louise Callahan]

The reason why I went to Oklahoma is because I just kept noticing that people in and around the administration, Republicans who, you know, a few years ago would not have been seen dead campaigning for healthy eating, were all of a sudden posting about like, the dangers of additives in food and microplastics and things like that.

[Oklahoma Official]

Most Americans, definitely all Oklahoma, really wants this Make America Healthy Again movement. And so we want Oklahomans to be healthy. And I'm signing an executive order today to make sure that the food we feed kids in schools and also prisons, any state sponsored food, we eliminate any kind of artificial dyes.

[Louise Callahan]

As an outsider. That kind of stuff is very like left wing coded. It's quite like a liberal, like a rich liberal lady sort of ideas, you know, people being worried about kids having additives in their lunchables and only giving them organic food in their lunchbox. But there was something about the way in which this health consciousness had spread from being a kind of, yeah, like wealthy liberal idea to spreading everywhere and going to even somewhere like Oklahoma. Oklahoma is this ruby red state. They voted overwhelmingly for Trump. And there's still so many people there who are increasingly becoming really, really kind of distrustful of what's in their food, feeling that the food system is rigged against them. And combine that with the fact that Oklahoma is part of the breadbasket of America. I mean, so much of the US's food comes from there, but people who live there, many of them don't have access to good food. You know, I spoke to people who live more than an hour's drive from anywhere where they could buy an apple or a lettuce and their health outcomes are just completely extraordinary. Like half of adults in Oklahoma have a chronic disease which is linked to diet, and two thirds are overweight. I mean, it's unbelievable. And this is in the richest country in the world, in one of the biggest food producing regions in America.

[Luke Jones]

Wild. So when you went there, who did you speak to about how people are accessing food and what that is?

[Austin Prickett]

We have a prep kitchen over here.

[Louise Callahan]

Oh, cool. So I went to a food bank in Oklahoma and I met Austin Prickett. How long have you worked for Austin?

[Austin Prickett]

I've worked here for seven years, going on eight years.

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

Wow.

[Louise Callahan]

And he, he, he works at this food bank and he was describing to me the scale of the problem.

[Austin Prickett]

So in Oklahoma specifically, we're consistently one of the hungriest states in the United States. Unfortunately, that's been the case for decades.

[Louise Callahan]

So a third of adults don't have access to healthy food. And that could be that they live in a food desert.

[Austin Prickett]

We have partners that are hours away, they're maybe hours away from a grocery store.

[Louise Callahan]

You need a car to get anywhere, right? And so if you don't have a car, then you're in many cases going to be restricted to only being able to buy food that's from a petrol station, which might be the closest thing to you. So that's stuff which is kind of shelf stable. You know, I met families in the process of this reporting who basically only live off snacks from a dollar general store or a petrol station.

[Austin Prickett]

I would say getting a processed food is a lot cheaper than just going to the store and getting the same amount of fresh produce. So that makes it difficult for folks.

[Louise Callahan]

I think, like fresh food is difficult to find, it can be expensive. And then also for many families, it's been so long really since like making food together as a family has been a kind of part of the American culture for them that that's just kind of been lost. So I met a lot of families and this is something that the food bank is working on who are very reliant on these ultra processed foods. So what the food bank tries to do is try and kind of send out fresh food to people and kind of hope that that'll be able to change their diet.

[Austin Prickett]

There's also probably angle, which is what we try to do and teach people that you need to be eating fresh produce. These are things that make you healthier, they reduce your risk of heart disease, they reduce your risk of diabetes. All these things are all kind of

[Louise Callahan]

interconnected, but it's an incredibly, incredibly difficult task.

[Luke Jones]

What did your man Austin say about the kind of people who were presenting themselves at the food bank in need?

[Louise Callahan]

Well, sometimes it's just people who are hit with unexpected bills.

[Austin Prickett]

You just see people that maybe are there for the first time, their car's in the shop and now they have a bill that they weren't really expecting.

[Louise Callahan]

It's older people and that's because they're on limited incomes.

[Austin Prickett]

They're not. They're kind of stuck in a place where they're not able to get out of the cycle and so they have to come back monthly.

[Louise Callahan]

Sometimes it's people who just need a bit of extra help each month.

[Luke Jones]

And you mentioned there that veg is quite expensive in the U.S. well, food generally is expensive in the U.S. why is that the case? And is that something that you've noticed? A lot of what Americans at work on this podcast have said, fresh fruit in the UK is so much cheaper comparatively than if you're in the US somewhere?

[Louise Callahan]

Yeah, I mean, part of it's inflation, part of it's rising fuel prices and kind of knock on effects from the Iran war. But in general, I think there are so many places that I've been to in the US where fresh food is seen almost like a luxury item. It's not a big priority for businesses to get it out to low income neighborhoods. And in fact, I spoke to some officials in Oklahoma who said that even when they had opened a supermarket in a food desert because it's expensive, then the people who live there can't afford it and then no one buys it. And that kind of reinforces this circle, this idea that people in low income areas don't want fresh food when in fact that's not the case at all.

[Luke Jones]

But incredibly also, it's not just some of the shops trying to help or people running those food banks, but doctors are even trying to get veg to people as well.

[Louise Callahan]

This was absolutely one of the craziest things that I saw. I couldn't believe this. Someone told me about this and I had to go to the clinic myself to check it out. And it's true. So there are clinics in Oklahoma where doctors have been faced with so many patients with diabetes and with heart disease, chronic disease linked to diet, that they are prescribing vegetables. And I spoke to one doctor who was saying that, well, you know, the thing is we tell them to eat healthier, but how are they going to do that? You know, they don't have access to healthy food. They can't. I mean, they can't walk two hours to go to a supermarket to buy some kale. The public transportation is so bad, it's really difficult to get around. And then so yeah, there's literally there was a window in the doctor's office. You know, whether they give out the prescriptions, there was a big picture of some kale hanging above it and they were getting ready to give out bunches of leeks and carrots to people who were getting treatment as part of their medical treatment.

[Luke Jones]

Coming up, how did the biggest food producer in the world's richest country get to a point where kale and leeks were only available at a pharmacy window? After the break, how ultra processed food took over America Foreign.

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[Luke Jones]

Louise we're back in the world of Maha, not Maga Maha Make America healthy again. It's got quite a hold on parts of America. As you've explained, so many people at the moment there relying on cheap, ultra processed food. And if there's one thing ringing around our ears in 2026, it's that ultra processed food is not good for you. Why is it done so well in the United States though? Why is the US a place where you actually can't move for the stuff?

[Louise Callahan]

So the US is really where ultra processed foods started to take off. So during the second World War, then American companies worked really hard to develop all these kind of transportable, shelf, stable versions of everyday goods to feed soldiers. So that's, you know, powdered milk, canned me that kind of stuff.

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

Since the last war, nutrition has become a science. And our Army Quartermaster corps uses that science in planning army meals.

[Louise Callahan]

And then, so when peace came, then these products were repurposed for the civilian market. And the companies that made them wanted to make money.

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

They were destined to revolutionize not only an industry, but the distribution techniques, the shopping habits, the very standard of diet of hundreds of millions of people.

[Louise Callahan]

And so then came the 1950s, the era of the TV dinner, when the idea of this modern American family who all sat down together and ate the tray of TV dinner in front of the telly in the evening became this kind of part of the American dream. And part of the marketing was this idea that cooking is difficult, it's time consuming, and it was almost gonna liberate women in this kitchen that has made her task of food preparation so much lighter. The housewife can share her family's enjoyment at mealtime. And then obviously these, you know, America is this, like so much of the Western world is in this kind of obviously hyper capitalist system where all these companies are trying to make money, so they're trying to sell as much of their products as possible. And a lot of the scientists that I spoke to for this piece who've been looking into ultra processed foods and what's in them. Say that this essentially gave some of this food addictive properties. So from the chemicals and, you know, the salts and the sugars and the dyes and everything that's in them, I mean, I recognize that, that feeling when I was reading, when I was reading books about this and talking to the scientists involved. It's the slogan of Pringles, right? Like, once you pop, you can't stop.

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

Once you pop, the pop don't stop.

[Louise Callahan]

You start eating them and you want another one and another one. And then so this kind of, this transformation of food from being, you know, fruit and vegetables and, you know, meat and starches that you chopped up and cooked together to becoming this kind of mix of chemicals and starches and sugars that are blended together in different shapes and sizes and sprinkled with different things and then consumed. That change has completely altered the American way of eating. I read somewhere that the majority of American adults get the majority of their dietary intake from ultra processed foods. So it's really, really dominant here in the U.S. yeah.

[Luke Jones]

And even actually when you go to the U.S. even if you just look at what's in the milk there, everything has got some long list of additives that have been pumped into it as well. So, I don't know, make it last longer or taste better. You mentioned RFK Jr. The Kennedy who's now in charge of the health department in the federal government and how this is his big campaign. What has he actually done about any of.

[Louise Callahan]

Right. So Kennedy has really talked very big about how he's going to make America healthy again. But he hasn't really delivered on any of these policy prescriptions. What he has done, he's convinced some food companies to take some dyes out of their food. But it's not actually entirely clear that, that many of them have done that. And actually a lot of the people who voted for Trump because of their support for the MAHA Coalition are pretty disappointed in how he's done. I mean, the polling is pretty bad for him at the moment. And from the MAHA Coalition, then they're very disappointed in a lot of Trump's kind of inaction or the administration's failure to deliver on what they have done. I mean, on the state level, there have been some changes made. So for example, in Oklahoma, there was a new state law passed this year that said that SNAP benefits, which are sort of benefits for low income people, food stamps could no longer be used to buy snacks and chocolate bars and fizzy drinks and stuff. Like that. And then. So on one hand that could be painted as a MAHA achievement, but on the other hand, I mean, people that I spoke to, experts in the field, said that that just ends up penalizing working people.

[Luke Jones]

So when you were at these food banks in Oklahoma, some of the people who were there anyway, I guess some of them might have been recipients of these snap, sort of like food benefits. What did they think about all of this?

[Louise Callahan]

So I spoke to Ashley Rader, who's a mum of three. I talked to her in a food bank where they were giving out assistance. Okay, so tell me, so tell me a bit how you ended up, how you ended up here at the pantry.

[Ashley Rader]

At first I just came up here for food to help my family out because I was struggling.

[Louise Callahan]

And she said that she really, really struggles with the new restrictions on snack benefits because she has to send her kids to school with snacks and they

[Ashley Rader]

just don't want us having no junk food or snack foods.

[Louise Callahan]

What do you think of that?

[Ashley Rader]

I don't, I don't like it because at the end of the day I have a six year old, so she's in kindergarten. I have to buy snacks. How are you going to buy juices and snacks for six year olds if

[Louise Callahan]

you can't buy snack food and at a local supermarket? What's cheap is not necessarily what's healthy.

[Ashley Rader]

I think that you're trying to make it more harder on people that don't have the money. You know what I mean? I'm not able to just go out there and spend $300.

[Louise Callahan]

And for people who are living on SNAP benefits and who are living on assistance from food banks, it's really, really not easy to make healthy decisions from your family. If you're also trying to save money.

[Austin Prickett]

I would say it has made life harder for people trying to get food.

[Louise Callahan]

And Austin Prickett, who I spoke to in the Oklahoma Regional Food bank, agreed with her.

[Austin Prickett]

The systems are difficult to navigate already and when you add more and more regulations and requirements, it's. This is all kind of compounding, I think in my mind.

[Luke Jones]

How did you feel listening to all of that? Somebody, I guess, with a kind of British background, I mean, it seems so different what their kind of version of food poverty kind of.

[Louise Callahan]

But I know that we also have a lot of these issues in the uk, right? I mean, it's not like we're coming in there with our well balanced Mediterranean diet casting judgment on American food consumption. I mean, look like where I'm from in Hastings, it was like chicken shops all along the Streets. And I was growing up, like, that's. That's where you go after school to go hang out in McDonald's. I think that one big difference is legislative. So in the UK and in the eu, there's a lot of rules about what you can and can't put into food. And if you come up with a new chemical and you think, well, this would be brilliant, I'm gonna put it in my, you know, pasta heats I'm selling, then it needs to go through a regulatory process. Someone needs to test it and think, this is actually going kill you. So in the us, it turns out that there's a loophole in regulations, which means that if you, as a food company in the US want to put a new chemical in your food, you can just tell the regulatory agency that you've tested it and it works, and then you're allowed to put it in and sell it. So this is something that RFK Jr. Said that he's trying to change, but he hasn't changed it. I mean, when you say you look at the milk in the US and it has 20 ingredients in it, I mean, it's not entirely clear that anyone has tested these ingredients and checked whether they actually make you sick.

[Luke Jones]

Yeah,

[Ashley Gearhart]

It just feels like we're operating in this rigged environment, and I think people are getting sick of it.

[Louise Callahan]

So I spoke to Ashley Gearhart, who's an expert on ultra processed foods, about this, and she said that Maha has really struck a chord, I think, especially

[Ashley Gearhart]

if you're a parent. I'm a parent with two little boys. And the amount of corporations that feel like they're trained to make money off of the fact that I'm tired, but

[Louise Callahan]

there really just haven't been these major structural changes that they've been promising.

[Ashley Gearhart]

It's really important that it's met with policy changes that focus on the, you know, what the industry's doing and not just asking, you know, exhausted people in food deserts to, I don't know, track their blood glucose when they can't access real food, you know, so there really needs to be major structural changes that need whatever political party. It kind of feels like a jump ball right now. It feels like whatever political party can really deliver on this would have a lot of people cheering them on and that that's, you know, a pathway to vote.

[Luke Jones]

Lots of people are always saying about this. You know, we're approaching a moment that Big Tobacco faced decades ago. Does she agree?

[Louise Callahan]

Yeah, I asked Ashley about this, and, yeah, she thinks so.

[Ashley Gearhart]

I'm from rural Ohio. I'M from like a really small town, very, very red part of the country. I don't know anyone who, you know, in my world who like, doesn't have a family member who isn't facing a diet related disease that's threatening to shorten their life. And so it kind of feels like to me, we're in that era where people started dying from emphysema and lung cancer. You know, the generation that grew up smoking. As they aged in to their middle, middle age, older age, the chronic diseases came home to roost and it became personal.

[Louise Callahan]

If we think about going back 50 years, then tobacco smoking was seen as something that it's your choice, probably unhealthy, but if you're an adult smoke, go for it if you want to. Then it changed from that to saying, actually secondhand smoke harms children. And it became a societal, like a broader kind of societal issue, rather than a question of just personal choice. So with this before, I feel like the Republican rhetoric was always like, this is about freedom. Don't you dare take my big drink away from me. Or, you know, I'm gonna eat a steak three times a day if I want to, and you can't come shaking your salad at me, telling me what to do. And now it's changed to say, actually this food is really making America sick and it's making children sick, and it's institutionally rigged against people so that they have, they're gonna get diseases and have low life expectancy, and that this needs to change.

[Ashley Gearhart]

We're now seeing that deaths related to ultra processed foods are surpassing those from alcohol and opioids. So the consequences of this, sometimes people are like, can it really be that bad? And, yeah, it's that bad.

[Louise Callahan]

One thing that I was really struck when speaking to scientists and nutritionists about what ultra processed food looks like, is that the way that they describe it, it's just that it's very separate from food.

[Ashley Gearhart]

Many of these products are just really cheap commodity crops that have been turned into industrial slurries that they then make seem appealing by dousing them with lots of additives and colors and texturizers and then marketing them, you know, and that's nasty.

[Luke Jones]

And are food companies actually responding to any of this? Are they hearing the call and making changes to what they put into their weird mush of starch and chemicals with sprinkles on top?

[Louise Callahan]

Kind of, I think in certain places, yes. Here in New York, then I keep seeing businesses advertising that they're using beef tallow instead of seed oils. But then so this is part of the problem with the Maha movement is that instead of just saying everyone should just be eating a good amount of like normal whole foods and having three square meals a day, they kind of latch onto sometimes quite scientifically dubious claims, all of which are rooted in the same issue, that a food is full of chemicals and, you know, is bad for you. But there just seems to, to me at least, seems to just latch onto these kind of essentially random things. It'll be like one die that they're really angry at, or seed oils. And that to me is just an expression of mistrust and anger. And the way in which a lot of people express that within the Maha movement sometimes is through being suspicious of certain types of medications or certain chemicals, certain dyes become anti vaxxers. All of it is just a wider expression of anger and distrust towards institutions.

[Luke Jones]

And if that's the case, that must just finally leave you feeling very unoptimistic about all of this changing because it seems so structural. It's about the way food is made. It is how people's lives are set up. It is about the amount of money people have to spend on their food. These are sort of enormous, enormous issues.

[Louise Callahan]

In one way, big food is incredibly powerful in the U.S. you know, they're not gonna stop buying corn syrup or chemicals to make their food higher in calories and make it last longer and make it more delicious, make you want to buy more. At the same time, there is this really powerful grassroots movement of people across the US and not just, you know, in the kind of liberal elites, but really people from all across the country and all across the social spectrum who want change. And so I think these voters, they have power. And if other people, other politicians are offering to try and make these changes, whether it's on the federal level or a state level, then there is absolutely the possibility of change.

[Luke Jones]

That was Louise Callahan, the Americas correspondent for the Sunday Times. Today's producer was Sophie McNulty. The executive producer was Taryn Siegel, and sound design and theme composition was by Malicetto. Your questions and comments are of course always welcome at any point. The storyatthetimes.com is how to email us. I, Luke Jones. See you soon.

[Barclays Brief Podcast Host]

Today's markets move fast. Get the insights you need in 10 minutes with the Barclays Brief, a new podcast from Barclays Investment bank. Through sharp dialogue and scenario based analysis, our leading experts analyze key market themes each week. So whether you're managing a portfolio or leading a business, the Barclays Brief podcast can help you make smarter decisions today. Stay sharp, stay brief. Find Barclays Brief wherever you get your podcasts.

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