How Woke Is RFK, Jr? He Wants To Take Processed Foods Out Of The School Lunch Program…

…And Ban Food Stamps From Being Used To Buy Processed Foods & Sweet Drinks

After college, Dylan’s songs in my head, and virtually no money in my pocket (only rich people hasd credit cards in those days) I wandered off… Europe, Africa, Asia. Eventually, after a long drive to Nepal and back, I washed up, penniless, in Amsterdam. I washed dishes at a macrobiotic restaurant in a meditation center for my meals. It— and the health food world— became the center of my life, though I had, literally, never even boiled water before I got there. I became a chef and, after some time, the manager. Even when I got back to America in 30s and into the corporate world in my 40s, the healthy lifestyle was always part of my life to one degree or another. Still is.

Many of my Amsterdam friends are very excited about RFK, Jr. They’re anti-vaxxers like he is and, like Bernie, agree with what he has to say about the evils of corporate food and corporate medicine. Unlike Bernie, they don’t see the crazy. But, as Mona Charen explained over the weekend, people like my friends “seem to think we can take what we like from the Kennedy buffet and leave the rest. Not so. If he is confirmed, we won’t get only the 3 percent of Kennedy ideas that are sane, we will be saddled with the 97 percent that are deranged. It isn’t that Kennedy is merely misinformed— though he is. It’s that he’s an active agent of misinformation. That’s a character problem. Hiring him to run health policy for this country is like hiring an arsonist to head the fire department.” If polio, measles and smallpox sweep the nation, it won’t matter all that much that more people may be eating more fresh fruits and vegetables. 

Rural MAGAts come to this realization from a very different perspective and Jonathan Weisman looked into it yesterday, particularly in regard to the world of the deadly high fructose— cancerous— corn syrup they’ve been pushing onto American consumers. For the health food community— and RFK, Jr.— Decatur, Illinois, home of Archer Daniels Midland, the industrial behemoth of the corn syrup killing fields, “is the belly of the agribusiness beast, churning out products that he says poison America, rendering its children obese and its citizens chronically ill. To the workers here, those mills— the largest in the world— are their livelihoods.”

In the center of blue Illinois, Decatur, the largest city in Macon County, which voted in increasingly large numbers for Trump all 3 times he ran:

• 2016- 55.9%

• 2020- 57.7%

• 2024- 58.6%

The MAGAts in Central Illinois like RFK Jr for his delusional adherence to the conspiracy theories at the center of their pitiful lives. But they’re smart enough to understand that without the corn syrup Archer Daniels Midland makes those lives end— at least in Macon Co. Wesiman wrote that when Señor T “nominated him to head the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services, which has partial purview over America’s diet through a powerful subsidiary, the Food and Drug Administration, and enormous influence on health through its control of Medicare and Medicaid” it scared the local MAGAts back to their senses.

Now a brewing battle over corn syrup and vegetable oils is raising the prospect of a fight between Kennedy and Trump’s own voters in farm country.

“I may have to spend a lot of time educating him about agriculture,” Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, the largest corn-growing state, just ahead of Illinois, said of Kennedy last month. “I’m willing to do that.”

Kennedy’s critique is broad and deep. Generous federal crop subsidies of soy, corn and wheat artificially lower their costs, making byproducts like corn syrup cheaper for manufacturers who put it into everything from soft drinks to hot dogs to heavily processed bread. Crop engineering has made American grains more resilient to drought and pests but rendered them “nutrient barren,” he says, and farming practices have loaded grains with pesticides.

High-fructose corn syrup “is just a formula for making you obese and diabetic,” he has said in promotional videos, often pinning blame for the state of American grain production on Democrats and promising to “immediately” take processed foods out of the school lunch program and ban food stamps from being used to buy processed foods and sweet drinks.

In fact, his most vocal allies on the issue come from the left. Michael Bloomberg, the former independent mayor of New York and Democratic donor, waged his own unsuccessful war on corn-syrup-laden soft drinks. On Thursday, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the Senate’s most left-wing member who leads the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, pressed the leaders of the F.D.A. at a hearing to label sugary processed food and drink as unhealthy and to restrict advertising of such products.

“For decades, Congress and the F.D.A. have allowed large corporations to make huge profits by enticing children and adults to consume ultra-processed food and beverages loaded up with sugar, salt and saturated fat,” he said, sounding very much like Kennedy. “None of this is happening by accident.”

But corn country is Trump country, and any concern about Kennedy is muted. Decatur’s mills operate around the clock and employ around 4,400 workers and contractors, but their economic power is much broader than that. At harvest season, farmers ship their corn from all over the Midwest, on trucks, rail cars and barges, lining up for miles. Electricians, pipe fitters and truck drivers service the mills year round.

…If anything, the economic concerns are being voiced mainly by the few Democrats in office in the area. Representative Nikki Budzinski, a [conservative corporate] Democrat whose [Democratic Party gerrymandered] district includes downtown Decatur and the A.D.M. wet mill, allowed that the interests of farmers and workers needed to be balanced with health concerns. But with Trump threatening tariffs on U.S. corn markets like China and Mexico, she worried that retaliatory tariffs by trading partners will do serious harm to the mills that are the “economic engine” of the region. An attack on corn syrup would only worsen a bad situation.

Kennedy “is going to go through the advice and consent process,” she said. “I would hope that the Senate will take that seriously.”

Rodney Weinzierl, the executive director of the Illinois Corn Growers Association in nearby Bloomington, Ill., said corn farmers were actually in a buoyant mood, more optimistic that the Trump administration will soften regulations on pesticides, herbicides and endangered species protection than concerned about Mr. Kennedy.

That doesn’t mean Weinzierl isn’t worried. Fights over high-fructose corn syrup have come and gone since the 1980s as agriculture lobbyists have fought bureaucrats in the F.D.A. and Agriculture Department. But no one has experienced doing battle with a cabinet secretary, let alone one with Kennedy’s zeal.

“We don’t know what it’s like to have a secretary that’s trying to drive the debate,” he said in a conference room nicknamed the corn crib. “Anything that causes uncertainty, you start paying more attention to it.”

An all-purpose refrain in the Midwest to parry critics of corn syrup is “sugar is sugar,” a dismissal of those like Kennedy who think sweeteners extracted from sugar cane would be healthier than sweeteners refined from corn. But there is an “America First” element to it: Much of America’s cane sugar is imported, from countries like Brazil, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, while American corn is a major export crop.

And the corn economy is in a precarious state. Corn harvests are setting records, but demand is not keeping up, especially as Brazilian farmers increase their competitiveness. That has sent corn prices plunging. Farmers are working harder, reaping more and earning less.

High-fructose corn syrup might absorb only about 4 percent of the nation’s corn crop, but any decline in demand— or even a threat of decline— when yields rise each year will depress prices further, hollow out rural America and force the consolidation of farms into ever bigger behemoths, Weinzierl said.

“A little change in supply or demand has a larger impact than you think it would,” he cautioned. “Abrupt change is a huge issue in the rural economy. We need demand.”

Voters in the farm belt continue to show a deep trust in Trump, regardless of the impact of his actual policies. At Debbie’s Diner in Decatur, a dozen workers expressed opinions ranging from full-throated support for Kennedy’s campaign to “make America healthy again” to confidence that the incoming president would protect them from any adverse impacts. Few were particularly worried about their jobs in the short run.

The mills, after all, don’t just make corn syrup. They turn corn into cornstarch, ethanol and livestock feed as well.

“It’d be impacted,” said one mill worker who refused to be named, “but they produce so many other products.”

“Elon will figure it out,” his friend said, referring to Elon Musk, the billionaire Trump adviser.

That faith could insulate Trump from any potential blowback and help Kennedy carry out his designs, if he can survive his confirmation process. Earlier this year, a detailed study of the impacts of Trump’s tariffs during his first term found that the levies had failed to increase the number of jobs in the affected industries, as promised.

But people living in areas most affected by the tariffs— particularly the Midwest and around the Great Lakes— still became more likely to vote for Mr. Trump and less likely to identify as Democrats.

Americans, the study found, are drawn to action, regardless of consequence.

I doubt the obese Elon will be able to solve the problem that calorie-dense high fructose corn syrup contributes to overeating because it doesn't stimulate insulin and leptin production as effectively as glucose, leading to impaired appetite regulation. When I was being treated for a relatively rare form of cancer 9 years ago, my very serious oncologist told me that foreswearing processed sugar had helped me through the process.

Linked to insulin resistance, high fructose corn syrup consumption is a precursor to type 2 diabetes, as well as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, gout, tooth decay, heart disease (by raising triglyceride levels and bad (LDL) cholesterol and higher blood pressure. And let’s not kid ourselves foods high in high fructose corn syrup (empty calories) are always low in essential nutrients, leading to nutrient deficiencies— providing energy but no vitamins, minerals or fiber. And it can stimulate dopamine release in the brain, creating a pleasurable response similar to addictive substances, leading to a cycle of craving and overconsumption.

Despite Musk’s threats to pay for a primary against anyone who opposes any of Señor T’s nominees, Politico reported this morning that Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Bill Cassidy are all skeptical. “Kennedy’s political baggage is another problem Republicans can’t ignore, as they try to remain largely deferential to the president-elect. Though many have boasted about party unity, some are increasingly anxious about giving a rubber stamp to nominees far outside the mainstream. But tanking more of Trump’s picks could end up sparking his ire, with Republicans bracing for him to boost primary challengers against those who won’t go along… [S]ome of his proposals, like removing fluoride from American drinking water or reevaluating childhood vaccine recommendations, have drawn instant criticism from health experts.”