UPFs
So, looking for a few specks of gold in the giant pool of dung, we find Bad Kennedy saying Big Sugar and Big Salt are not all that good for us.
The former environmental attorney – who still must face confirmation by the Senate – is considered by many to be a controversial pick, given his history of making baseless health claims, including that vaccines can cause autism and that wifi technology causes cancer.
Yet some of his ideas around reforming the FDA have found support from health experts, lawmakers and concerned consumers alike – including some Democrats.
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Leading up to the election, Kennedy – a former Democrat – offered several ideas for tackling chronic diseases under his slogan “Make America Healthy Again”.
He has frequently advocated for eliminating ultra-processed foods – products altered to include added fats, starches and sugars, like frozen pizzas, crisps and sugary breakfast cereals, that are linked to health problems like cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
There. Finally. An advocacy that’s not completely wacko. The thing about those ultra-processed foods is that in addition to being empty calories, they are also addictive. Bad combination. They’re not addictive like heroin, of course, but they are in the sense that they make it all too easy to keep munching away – they’re engineered to do that.
Part of Kennedy’s new mandate will include overseeing the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has over 18,000 employees.
The agency is in charge of ensuring the safety of pharmaceuticals and the US food supply, but has come under fire in recent years from some lawmakers and consumer groups, who have accused it of a lack of transparency and action on food safety.
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“There are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA … that have to go, that are not doing their job,” Kennedy told MSNBC this month.
But then he also promotes drinking raw milk, so we’re back in the giant pool of dung.
Also:
That’s not a call for government regulation on processed foodstuffs; that’s a call for getting rid of the department that should have been doing just that. Note that he’s not proposing replacing them.
Option 1: He’s letting the perfect be the enemy of the good; if a department can’t be shown to be exactly what he expects it to be, he’ll gut them and then just walk away.
Option 2: It’s a power-grab; gutting the department means that the regulations they would have written are now going to be written by him and a couple trusted underlings. This will make certain that his agenda can’t be compromised by people who actually know what they are talking about.
Oh, and while I agree with you on the issue, I’m just going to note that those ultra-processed foods, in addition to being unhealthy and addictive, are cheap and have long shelf lives. I doubt that Kennedy, or anyone in the Trump Administration, is going to be suggesting government subsidized fresh grocery outlets in the middle of food deserts.