The US Might Finally Be Cleaning Up Its Ultra-Processed, Corporate Controlled Food Culture

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For decades, America’s biggest food export hasn’t just been burgers, fries, and sugar-laden cereals, it’s been a whole lifestyle of Ultra-Processed, Corporate-Controlled Food Culture. Supermarket shelves from London to Sydney to Singapore are packed with the same hyper-processed products fueling a global health crisis.

But now new US Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (shown bottom left) says it’s time for a reset. He’s stepping into the ring with Big Food and Big Pharma, promising to shake up a system that’s been feeding the world a steady diet of deception, disease, and diabetes.

First up, he's cutting off government handouts to junk food. That means no more taxpayer-funded subsidies propping up sod(soft drinks), ultra-processed snacks, and other nutritionally bankrupt products in school lunches and food stamp programmes. “We shouldn’t be spending 10 percent of the SNAP program on sugar drinks,” RFK Jr. says. In other words, if you want a fizzy sugar bomb, that’s your business, but don’t expect the government to foot the bill

Source: PFN Ai Archives - US Junk Food Graphic

Then there’s the issue of food transparency or rather, the lack of it. Kennedy is going after misleading labels, shady ingredient names, and deceptive health claims. Ever tried to figure out what’s actually in half the stuff on supermarket shelves? Good luck. Kennedy calls it a war on “radical transparency,” promising consumers the right to know what they’re really eating.

But the big one? The so-called "Dietary Guidelines for Americans" - the official nutrition rulebook that’s been hijacked by food industry lobbyists for decades. Kennedy wants an overhaul. “If you want Hostess Twinkies, you should have them,” he says, “but you should know what impacts your health.” No more corporate-backed “studies” pretending Lucky Charms are healthier than vegetables (yes, that actually happened).

And then there’s the chemical warfare going on in kids’ lunchboxes. The US still allows hundreds of food additives that have been banned in other countries, many of them linked to cancer, ADHD, and other health issues. Kennedy’s plan? Ban them. Simple. “We need to get rid of the hundreds of food chemicals that other countries have already prohibited,” he says. If Europe can do it, why can’t the US?

Source: PFN Ai Archives - US Healthy Food Graphic

Beyond just cleaning up the mess, Kennedy wants to go deeper, right down to how health itself is studied. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will now have to take preventative and holistic medicine seriously, not just keep throwing billions at pharmaceuticals. “In the current system, researchers don’t have enough incentive to study generic drugs and root-cause therapies that look at things like diet,” RFK Jr. explains. In other words, instead of waiting for people to get sick and then selling them pills, how about looking at why they’re getting sick in the first place?

Kennedy’s message is clear - the food industry and pharmaceutical giants have had their way with health policy for too long. “I’m not going to let the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry run health policy anymore,” he declares.

So, is the US finally ready to change? And if it does, will the rest of the world follow? For years, America has been the poster child of industrialised food gone wrong. If Kennedy pulls this off, the US might actually start exporting something new - a food culture that’s clean, transparent, and actually good for you. Now that would be amazing.

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