There is a good chance that out of the US presidential election will come dramatic change in the way ultra-processed foods are made and marketed in the US, Australia and the rest of the world.
Spearheading the drive for that change, Robert Kennedy Jr helped deliver President Trump a clear win. It’s now up to Trump to deliver on his promise and allow Kennedy to bring on the changes required to justify the slogan “Make America Healthy Again” that was used in the campaign.
But as expected, the food and chemical giants are already beginning a vicious campaign against Kennedy and are working hard to convince Trump to recant on his promise.
They are helped by the fact that Kennedy has many agendas, including anti-vaccination, and he may stray into areas that will see him cut down. But as I will explain below, to help Kennedy focus on issues that can be delivered Trump has given him three instructions. If Kennedy sticks to them (plus a fourth I will add) we will have a food revolution.
Reflecting his role in the election result, on election night Robert Kennedy was invited to join Elon Musk on the victory platform. I think the Trump family was part of that invitation and will be important in locking in the President if Kennedy stays on track.
On election night, Trump declared: “He (Kennedy) wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him go do it.”
Trump imposed the requirement that Kennedy should not touch the oil and gas industry, a supplier of important feedstocks for the chemicals industry. “Other than that, go have a good time, Bobby,” the president-elect declared. It’s important to understand how Kennedy made it to the victory party. Initially the son of Robert Kennedy nominated as an independent presidential candidate. Then he decided to pull out of the race and approached the Democrats to do a deal.
But at the time, Harris looked like a winner and the Trump campaign was on the back foot. The Democrats rejected a deal.
Trump jumped at the chance, and under the deal Kennedy would use his army of enthusiastic volunteers to campaign for Trump in five key states.
In return, if Trump became the 47th president, Kennedy would be given the power to change US food processing.
The Kennedy campaign was powerful and clearly had a big role in a majority of white women voting for Trump, particularly in the marginal areas.
Here is an extract from the Kennedy message: “Today, two-thirds of American adults and half of children suffer chronic health issues.
“Fifty years ago, the number of children was less than 1 per cent.
“In America, 74 per cent of adults are now overweight or obese, and close to 50 per cent of children. In Japan, the childhood obesity rate is 3 per cent.
“Half of Americans now have pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes.
“There’s been an explosion of neurological diseases that I never saw as a child.
“About 18 per cent of teens have fatty liver disease, a disease that primarily used to be found only in late-stage alcoholics. Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the young and the old.
“One in four American women is on an antidepressant medication; 40 per cent of teens have a mental health diagnosis. Today, 15 per cent of high schoolers are on Adderall and half a million children are on SSRIs.
“So what’s causing all this suffering? I’ll name two culprits. First is ultra-processed foods. About 70 per cent of American children’s diet is ultra-processed – industrially manufactured in a factory. These foods consist primarily of processed sugar, ultra-processed grains and seed oils.
“Lab scientists concoct thousands of other ingredients to make these foods more palatable, more addictive. These ingredients didn’t exist 100 years ago, and humans aren’t biologically adapted to eat them. Hundreds of these chemicals are banned in Europe, but ubiquitous in America’s processed foods.
“The second culprit is toxic chemicals in our food, medicine, and environment. Pesticides, food additives, pharmaceutical drugs, and toxic waste permeate every cell of our bodies. The assault on a child’s cells and hormones is unrelenting.
“The good news is that we can change all of this, and change it quickly. America can get healthy again. To do that, we need to do three things. First, root out the corruption in our health agencies; all of them are controlled by huge for-profit corporations.
“Second, change the incentives of the healthcare system. And third, inspire Americans to get healthy again.
“With President Trump’s backing, I am going to change that. We are going to staff these agencies with honest scientists and doctors free from industry funding. We will make sure that the decisions of consumers, doctors and patients are informed by unbiased science.”
Kennedy reveals that after the election, Trump gave him three instructions:
1. Clean up the corruption in our government health agencies.
2. Return those agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science.
3. Make America Healthy Again by ending the chronic disease epidemic.
I would add a fourth. An important part of the Trump support base is subsidised corn farmers who produce the syrup that is used similarly to sugar.
Start with the additives. because the farmers will be much more powerful in undermining Kennedy than the chemical companies.
This will be an important test for Trump because it will determine whether you can do a deal with the new president and he will stay with it even if the going gets rough.
Similar situations will arise when he tackles “woke’” culture, which I described yesterday.
Meanwhile, assuming Trump does not recant, the winner of the next Australian election needs to get into the US revolution because we can’t afford the health costs.
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