Lifestyle Sports: Latest from Food Politics: Some thoughts on the Big Beautiful Bill's implications for food politics

by Marion Nestle

July 08 2025

Some thoughts on the Big Beautiful Bill’s implications for food politics

I would be remiss not to comment on congressional passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill” which takes money from the poor and gives it to the rich (see Paul Krugman’s Attack of the Sadistic Zombies).

For what all this has to do with food, take a look at Kevin Klatt’s “6 Months of MAHA: A Reflection and Call to Action.”

My summary of his summary of what MAHA and MAGA have done so far:

Cut $1 billion from USDA for local food purchases for school lunch and food bank
Proposed a 40% cut to the NIH budget (which pays for nutrition research)
Made huge cuts to SNAP.
Cut WIC fruit and vegetable benefits.
Allowed obesity researcher Kevin Hall to resign
Cut landmark nutrition trials such as the Diabetes Prevention Program.
Defunded major nutrition departments, like Harvard’s.
Cut several molecular & community nutrition grants at Cornell.
Eliminated USAID, a major funder of global nutrition research and intervention.
Disrupted lead exposure programs.
Cut FDA and CDC, including the human foods program HFP and food safety lab funding and staff (some reinstated).

Klatt’s point:

At 6 months in, I think it’s time for food and nutrition advocates, scientists and professionals to call out the MAHA agenda for what it is – it’s a movement with the right vibes, the wrong priorities and solutions, headed up by someone with dangerous thoughts on public health who is not going to improve the health of Americans, nutritional or otherwise.

By wrong priorities, I’m thinking color additives (yes, let’s get rid of them, but other things matter more) and seed oils (really, they are healthier than animal fats, especially in large amounts).

There are still real questions about what MAHA will actually do. I’m waiting for the dietary guidelines and second MAHA report. Those should reveal the real agenda.

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