The major companies that produce and sell ultraprocessed foods are making big changes, or at least they are promising to. The Trump administration has celebrated “wins” over companies as varied as PepsiCo and Steak ‘n Shake. It’s not clear whether decisions from these companies to change their products – out with synthetic dyes and in with beef tallow – are coming from pressure at the federal level, new state laws, changes in the marketplace – or if anything meaningful is happening at all.
TRANSCRIPT
Theodore Ross: Welcome to Forked: Food Politics in the MAHA Age. I’m Theodore Ross. I’m the editor-in-chief of the Food & Environment Reporting Network, and I’m joined by my co-host, Helena Bottemiller Evich from Food Fix. Today we’re going to talk about the Trump administration’s MAHA wins. Companies that produce and sell the ultraprocessed foods that Americans love are making big changes. Sort of.
High-fructose corn syrup is out, sugar is in. Maybe. The real question is whether we’re seeing a shift toward good food or just good business. It’s definitely good politics. Helena, hello. Welcome back to Forked. How are you?
Helena: I’m doing well. How are you?
Theodore: I’m well. Why don’t we jump right in. So, as you know, every two weeks when we do Forked, we start off with the double take. Something that’s happening in the food system that’s so outrageous and shocking and makes you do a double take. This one’s a little different, though. I think this is more a double take ’cause you have to look back to make sure something actually happens. And the thing I want to talk to you about starts on July 18 with, as these things often do, a Truth Social statement from President Trump where he says, quote, “I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL” — and of course “real” is in all caps — “using REAL cane sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so. I’d like to thank all those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them. You’ll see. It’s just better.”
Now here’s the key thing. There was a response shortly thereafter from Coca-Cola. Let’s read that one, too, just to get the fine print quote: “We appreciate President Trump’s enthusiasm for our iconic Coca-Cola brand,” the company said in the statement. “More details on new and innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon.”Helena, what just happened there?
Helena: This was wild. When I started getting texts from my friends who I never hear from about food policy, about this, I was like, oh, this broke through. I think immediately the press was just, oh, Coca-Cola switching out, you know, sugar. First of all, Coca-Cola Classic is made with high-fructose corn syrup in the U.S., and the assumption, I guess, was that they would wholesale be reformulating to sugar. If you really look closely, that’s not exactly what the president’s post said.
Theodore: Not really.
Helena: And then it’s also not, for sure not what the Coca-Cola statement said. They left themselves a lot of wiggle room to have new offerings, right? And so this was, but this was a massive news cycle. I mean, everyone’s talking about this on social media, like, what’s going on? Or: This will be delicious. I mean, there is a cult following for what’s called Mexican Coke, right? Like the …
Theodore: Good stuff.
Helena: … old-school, you know, and you can buy it in the U.S., but it’s more expensive. It’s like a niche product.
And so, you know, I was asking around to everyone, like, what is actually going on here? Are they actually doing this? Was this, you know, did Trump get ahead of this company? Or is he misunderstanding what’s going on? And basically everyone who’s really smart in this space, and actually in the know, were, like, this is not actually going to happen.
This is probably just adding some more product lines with sugar. But, you know, HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was thanking the president. I mean, the MAHA people were saying it was going to be healthier, or at least better. I mean, simpler. It was so much reaction, to your point of, you have to go back and be: What is actually happening?
And we still do not know what is actually happening here.
Theodore: So let’s walk through this a little bit, all right? So part of it has to do with the debate around high-fructose corn syrup, corn, right? Now when we look at corn in this country, both as a sweetener and as a fuel for our cars, it is — and I’m paraphrasing from an article we recently published by Tom Philpott in Mother Jones — corn, is, as a commodity, the product of 50 years of intentional government policy. The reason we have high-fructose corn syrup in our Coke is not an accident. It’s something that the government did, that big agricultural companies and big food companies took up on, and to change away from that is a big political decision.
So we can put that part of it to the side. Why don’t you talk for a second just about the difference in nutrition quality, if any, between a high-fructose corn syrup Coca-Cola and a Mexican Coke, sugar-based Coke. What does that mean?
Helena: So a lot of people say it tastes better. I think that’s anecdotally out there. Certainly the ingredient list would look simpler, which is a thing that a lot of consumers are seeking. I think those two things are true. For a lot of people, that’s a preference, right? But yeah, metabolically, is this now a healthy product because it is made with cane sugar and not high-fructose corn syrup?
No. Every expert is pretty clear on that. It’s still a lot of added sugar, with really nothing else. It is a sugar-sweetened beverage, whether it is sweetened with corn syrup or sugar. It’s just not a healthy product. And I think the concern that some of the health folks have is that this could kind of give a health halo to Coca-Cola.
Sugary drinks, actually sugar-sweetened beverages — so the ones that actually have sweetener in them, that are not artificially sweetened, you know, like Diet Coke and whatever — those have been on the decline in the U.S. A lot of the soda taxes and just the overall messaging on, you know, you should reduce sugar consumption, have gotten through to consumers, and consumers are moving away from these products generally.
Theodore: All right, so that’s nutrition. And it’s debatable, right? Let’s talk about the policy aspects of this. So on the one hand, you could say to yourself, if we can force these companies to stop using high-fructose corn syrup, then we’re cutting off some of the subsidy incentive for, we’re harming this part of Big Food and Big Ag, which is reliant on money from the government to raise a massive amount of corn.
The problem I have with that, and I’m curious what you think about it, is that, I mean, sugar’s pretty subsidized, too, right? This is not a clean cut, as you’d think.
Helena: Yeah. I don’t think this is the kind of move, you know — if Coca-Cola were to be actually doing this, which I don’t believe they are, or we don’t have that confirmation that they are, you don’t have evidence to say that they are — it would not fundamentally overhaul the agricultural makeup of the U.S. Corn is used in so many things. Corn syrup, there’s different types of corn syrup, but corn as a sweetener is used broadly across bakery and, you know, snacks and lots of other processed foods.
So this wouldn’t pull the rug out from underneath the system. And, you know, as I mentioned, sugar-sweetened beverages or high-fructose corn-sweetened beverages have been declining in the U.S. anyway. And so it’s one of those things that — I think the term I keep hearing from public health, when they look at, you know, dyes or sugar or whatever the move is, they’re, it’s kind of like rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
Theodore: Deck chairs on the Titanic.
Helena: We’re not really turning around the ship, and the products that we’re talking about are, generally speaking, the ones that nutrition experts are telling people to eat less of; sugar-sweetened beverages, ultraprocessed foods, like that’s where these ingredients are going.
And so, you know, this is probably a wash if it were to be happening, which again, I don’t think we have evidence that it is. And you know, it’s interesting, though, that politically the president just went there without, you know, without concern about whether or not this would piss off corn growers.
I didn’t see anything directly from corn growers, but the Corn Refiners Association put out a pretty blunt statement that said, essentially, this doesn’t make any sense.
Theodore: And it doesn’t.
Helena: Of course, they make high-fructose corn syrup. So, you know, they would very much like to see something like this not happen.
The other thing we should mention is corn syrup, or HFCS, as we call it for short, can be as much as twice as expensive as sugar. And so this would be a huge economic decision in addition to a vibes one. So we’ll see what it happens.
Theodore: We’ll see what happens.
Helena: I think we’ll see more options. I think we’ll see more. I think it will — that would be my guess.
Theodore: I think there’s something interesting in the politics here, too. We’ve already talked about the nutrition, which is not much. We talked about the policy, which is not much.
But one of the things that was interesting to me, I spent a little time this morning just reading about Republican feeling about sugar and about corn, right? And I found it odd — there was a lot of commentary from the Heritage Foundation, which is essentially anti-sugar. In fact, they have …
Helena: Well, they’re anti, they’re kind of anti-farm subsidy.
Theodore: They’re anti-farm subsidies, right?
Helena: Generally.
Theodore: So they have this article, “America’s Addiction to Big Sugar Leaves a Bitter Aftertaste.” And they said that in the U.S., sugar costs 40 cents per pound, double the global price of 20 cents, and those high prices are a result of Big Sugar’s monopoly on the sugar market.
So walk me through the thinking here. We have a president who brought us DOGE, who brought us cuts to the USDA, eliminated the Department of Education effectively, is doing all these things that are based on thinking, not in any small part, from the Heritage Foundation.
What is the politics on the right For preferencing sugar over corn? I don’t get it.
Helena: So I have seen no evidence that there is a thought process here. I think this was a shot in the dark, kind of Hail Mary. I mean, there were people all over the internet thinking, alleging that this was a way for the president to distract from, you know, he’s getting a lot of pressure to release the so-called Epstein files. There were a lot of …
Theodore: Are we still talking about Epstein?
Helena: There were a lot of, frankly, hilarious memes about this that you can go read about. You know, people were very quick to be,, this is just a distraction, whether or not it’s happening.
It just seemed like a way to sort of get something else in the news. It certainly worked for a hot minute, and then people were back to talking about Epstein. But I don’t think that there was a thought process in terms of food and agricultural policy or long-term strategy or thinking.
I think this is something where the president sees a potential populist win. Like maybe this is just popular: Oh, it tastes better. It seems like they’re doing something that makes, again, food seem simpler. Kind of harkens back to this nostalgic time, right? If you think about Make America Great Again or Make America Healty Again, it’s back to some other time.
And I think there’s some nostalgia around the old Coca-Cola, like back in the day. You know, rightly or wrongly, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthier, but I think that’s part of it. The MAHA stuff, generally speaking, looking at removing additives, removing food dyes, even banning processed foods from schools, mandating nutrition education in publicly funded universities.
These are things that poll extremely well, and they poll well with Democrats and Republicans. And so my uneducated or sort of my guess, right? I’m not talking to the president. I don’t have his cell phone number, but it just seems like he sees these things as a win. I don’t want it. I don’t want it.
It seems like he sees these things as just a win. This is just like a winning thing. And you know, if you look at the way the White House messages around MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, you can see they’re just doing little victory laps around all this stuff. And so it’s like a T-ball win for them, right?
I think that’s how they’re viewing it. And, you know, this is another one of those, I think.
Theodore: I’m sure you were referencing MAHA wins. There was a pretty significant thing on Instagram where they released their MAHA wins, and I think it’s worth us just walking through some of the list that appeared on Instagram.
So Steak ’n Shake, they moved to a hundred percent beef tallow and replaced seed oils.
Helena: Okay. Okay. But there’s an asterisk. Their fries are still coated in seed oils, and so some of the MAHA diehards are, like, this isn’t enough. Apparently they’re working on it. Okay, continue. That’s the asterisk for that one.
Theodore: Fake fat news. All right. McCormick dropping food dyes and reformulating certain of products. PepsiCo removing artificial ingredients. In-N-Out kind of removing red dye, but maybe not. They’re not, right? That turned out not to be true?
Helena: They are removing, I think they are removing dyes. But the original White House press release said they were also switching to beef tallow, but that was actually an April Fools’ joke that the White House accidentally linked to. And I really want to just pour one out for the intern who made that mistake. That’s rough.
Theodore: I just want to also say, In-N-Out fries, very polarizing issue. I don’t know if you’ve been out to California and had, I mean, I’ve had …
Helena: Yeah, I went to school in California. I’m very familiar, but they’re polarizing because some people think they’re not good, right?
Theodore: Yes, some people love them and some people do not.
Helena: Because they’re kind of soggy.
Theodore: I’m staying out of that one. You know? All right. Skittles, remove titanium dioxide. It just goes on and on and on. So what do you mean by T-ball wins. What are they trying to accomplish?
Helena: It is popular. I think these moves are, I think regardless of your political affiliation, whether you’re Republican, Democrat, independent, you know, people just look at that, and they’re, like, that’s probably fine or good, you know? And that’s not just my guess. I’ve looked extensively at the polling. Removing artificial dyes in certain ingredients from processed foods polls at 65 to low 70 percent approval for Republicans and Democrats.
You know, there aren’t a lot of issues where you’re going to see that level of agreement on both sides. So I think that’s part of it. And the top MAHA folks have talked about wanting to rack up wins. It’s a way to get momentum and sort of keep public support, even if, you know, I think when pressed they would also acknowledge that dyes are not going to magically make these foods really healthier or really doesn’t automatically make them a good choice per se. I actually was just listening to, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary went on Megyn Kelly and did a pretty lengthy interview. It was mostly about hormone replacement therapy and menopause.
So set that aside. I know nothing about that, but she did ask him about all of this. And he said, essentially, we’re just getting started. This is just the beginning. And so I think we’ll see. We’ve talked a lot about how there’s been no federal policy, like, you know, this has mostly been a campaign so far of encouraging
the states to take action, which many of them have, and vibe shift, like really, really strongly changing the rhetoric, like we’re being poisoned. I mean, RFK’s out there saying sugar is poisoning us. He’s literally saying that, right?
So there’s all that, but we still don’t see federal policy. We still don’t know what the federal agenda is here. And so I think that’s still very, very unclear, even though they are racking up these wins. These are mostly moves that companies are making voluntarily.And many of them are looking to January 2028, which is when West Virginia has a ban on all these synthetic food dyes.
Theodore: So let’s move on from that and let’s actually go and talk a little bit more about someone you just mentioned, Marty Makary.
Helena: Ma-KARY. Marty Makary
Theodore: Now you’re sorry. Thank you. Thank you. That’s why you are …
Helena: Everyone says it wrong.
Theodore: That’s fine. That’s why you got Food Fix and I don’t.
So he is the U.S. commissioner of food and drugs. That’s a specific job. It is not the head of HSS, it’s not whatever Mehmet Oz does, it is its own thing. And I just want to quote him from a little while ago when he’s talking about the food guidelines for the United States, which are going to come out, I believe, in the fall.Correct?
Helena: Well, it is possible. They might come out in August, but I think fall might be more likely. Soon-ish.
Theodore: So he says, we’re going to ensure that the new guidelines are based on science and not medical dogma. And that was not in all caps. I just did that — that was my all-caps voice.
He also said that he believes the recommendation to avoid saturated fats is dogma. There was groupthink, he said, the medical establishment locked arms and walked off a cliff together, insisting that the reason for heart disease in the United States was that people were not eating skim milk and no-fat and low-fat foods, ignoring the roles of refined carbohydrates and so many other things.
Okay. Again, is this in the category of the MAHA win? I mean, probably there’s some, at least some debatable truth about this. What do we do with all this?
Helena: Oh, man. So the thing about nutrition is that there still is debate about things that have been — I would say, there’s still debate about things that maybe seemed settled for a long time. Everyone remembers the whole eggs and cholesterol thing. We were told to avoid them. And then it turns out dietary cholesterol isn’t as big of a factor as they thought. Things do change, right?
So it’s hard. Settled science in nutrition is a known difficult field, because it’s really hard to pin down what individual foods or categories do to people over the long term. It’s hard to do those studies. It’s hard to isolate.
I mean, it’s just, it’s really, really hard. So, all that said, the science on saturated fat can kind of be boiled down into … Whenever there’s debates about this, I go to the Cochrane reviews, right? Which is, what is the best evidence overall. And what Cochrane review says on saturated fat is essentially that reducing saturated fat intake can reduce cardiovascular events.
So think heart attacks, all those things we’re trying to prevent, right? But it doesn’t appear to reduce all cause mortality or mortality from cardiovascular events. And so that kind of gets to this weird debate of, well, there is evidence that says replacing, you know, going to polyunsaturated fats or, you know, basically it’s like going away from things like lard and tallow and having more olive oil and avocado oil and all those things. There is pretty good evidence that that reduces cardiovascular events, and that’s why we’ve been recommended this forever. But you have this growing kind of minority voice within the nutrition research community, and then also just the podcast world and wellness world saying, no, this is wrong. And we’ve been told to stay away from all these foods that they view as very healthy.
Theodore: You know what it sounds like you just said? I’m going to make light of this for a second.
Helena: Make light of it.
Theodore: It just sounds like what you said was that the consensus was that saturated fats, avoiding saturated fats will help you prevent a heart attack. But when you die, your heart will still stop. Therefore, it’s not that good for your heart.
Helena: I don’t know if that’s what you can take away from it, but what I’m trying to get at is there is some legitimate debate about the extent to which saturated fats are the boogeyman that we have been told. But there is pretty clear or overwhelming evidence that reducing them and replacing them with some of these other fats can have benefits. And so the nutrition establishment — so think about the top public health experts, nutrition researchers, Harvard, Yale, CSPI, these groups that we hear from about nutrition —
if the dietary guidelines come out and say saturated fats are not an issue, people do not need to avoid them — which sounds like that’s what Marty Makary is saying they’re going to say, that we’re dumping this, he calls it dogma, other people would call it evidence-based recommendations, right?
If they drop that, I think we are going to see the nutrition establishment rip these guidelines apart as unscientific, as, you know, not based in evidence. I think we could see something very similar happen like we’ve seen with vaccines, where RFK Jr. fired the entire ACIP committee, which makes vaccine recommendations.
And now you have other outside groups, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, saying we’re going to have our own vaccine guidelines. That’s not a great outcome, because it’s going to be really confusing.
Theodore: No, that’s a terrible outcome.
Helena: It’s going to be really confusing, and people are going to be looking around to, like, who do I trust for this information?
And one of the great ironies here is that I think the dietary guidelines are probably also going to do some things that those nutrition researchers, those same nutrition researchers and CSPI and these other groups, these health groups, have wanted to see, which is the government tell people to consume less processed food, or specifically ultraprocessed foods.
The government has not said that to people, to say, you know, ultraprocessed foods are not good for you. We’ll see how far they go. But the top health officials have been hinting that that is going to be in there, too. Basically, don’t consume processed foods. Don’t worry about saturated fat.
These may be the vibes that we get or the messages that we get. But I foresee this becoming this very messy thing where a lot of experts are going to say, you can’t trust these. And that’s going to be a weird position, because generally when the dietary guidelines come out, it’s pretty much, okay, here’s what the new consensus is. You know what I mean?
Theodore: Let’s talk about those vibes in that context, right? So one of the things that I think distances people from trust in government, particularly with public health, is there’s a sense that the cautious, you could call it science-based, fact-based approach, means that you can’t speak directly to people in terms that they understand. It’s very legalistic. It’s very qualified, and for all its, you know, for better and for worse, the MAHA movement, that ain’t its problem, right? If RFK Jr. thinks that sugar is bad for you, he calls it poison. He doesn’t cite the study, and he doesn’t couch it in those terms.
Is there an advance here? I mean, we have to, we do have to reestablish public trust in public health in the United States. Is using clear, simple language something that the science-based, fact-based community can do, right? How do they counter it if that’s what needs to happen?
Helena: I think this is a great question, and we’re going to have to see how this unfolds.
I think there is a world in which consumerss will read about this and go, oh, the government’s finally being honest or direct. That’s more helpful than whatever this mealymouthed version was before, which may have said, you know, choose — I can’t remember what the language is — choose minimally processed or whatever.
But that’s not as impactful as cut back on ultraprocessed foods. That’s a clearer message if that is what they say, and it seems like they’re going to say that. It may be a situation where this is more popular. I mean, one of the things I think I’ve talked about on this podcast — I know I’ve mentioned it in the newsletter — is there is this real dichotomy between how popular the food MAHA stuff is and how polarizing and not necessarily popular the vaccine stuff is. And so this may be a situation where they win on the public opinion side.
What does that mean going forward? Does that mean people trust the dietary guidelines more? I don’t know. I mean, generally people don’t really follow the dietary guidelines. We’re not eating enough fruits and vegetables. We’re not eating, we’re not following, generally speaking, the dietary guidelines. And so it’s not to say they don’t matter. They do matter. They eventually set the policy for, you know, tens of billions of dollars of federal nutrition programs, like school meals.
I personally think one of the most interesting things to think about is, what does that mean if you say, you know, you need to reduce consumption of ultraprocessed foods. What does that mean for the National School Lunch Program, school breakfast, and all these, which are mostly processed foods because we’re spending a couple bucks a pop and, you know, some of these schools barely have kitchens.
We’re feeding 30 million kids a day, and it’s kind of, you know, kind of called this daily miracle that we make that happen. But if you are saying the official guidelines are that you need to cut back, I mean, what does that mean? That’s like a wholesale, that would mean a wholesale reimagining of those programs. But that’s down the road.
Theodore: Which is always the circular problem of these kinds of things. Because what that would require is regulation.
Helena: Regulation and money. So much more money. Yes, no question. And I mean, that’s just a fact.
Theodore: So let’s say this happens, right? And we were able to go forward with radically new dietary guidelines that call the spade of sugar a spade or whatever it is that they’re actually going to say.
How would we stack up that kind of achievement in terms of nutrition, say, compared to, I don’t know, the Obama, you know, Michelle Obama’s — well, she didn’t pass it, but she was sort of the driver of it — the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010. How would it compare to something like that, which at the time was super controversial, right? There were so many people on the right who hated it, even though it was sort of saying some of the same kind of things, right?
Helena: That’s a good question. I think, you know, changing the dietary guidelines is a big deal. Even though people don’t really follow them to the letter, it is a big deal because it sends a really big message, and there’s a lot of press coverage around the dietary guidelines.
And they also are probably going to change the messaging, the visual messaging around, you know, like we used to have this food pyramid. I keep hearing Marty Makary, the FDA commissioner, refer to this food pyramid, and I said the other day, I’m going to lose it if I hear them keep using this term. We haven’t had a food pyramid since 2011, technically even before that.
Theodore: Let it out, Helena. I read it. I read it in the newsletter. I knew you’re mad. Let it go.
Helena: We’ve had MyPlate, which is — the problem is no one knows about it because the government doesn’t spend any money marketing it. But it’s actually this very simple plate. Four quadrants. You have fruits, vegetables, grains, and protein.
It’s actually very — oh, and of course dairy, floating off like a cup of milk. You know, some people think it should be water. Like, whatever. So we do have different messaging now, but a lot of people don’t know about it. There’s not a lot of muscle. So again, this comes down to money.
If they’re really serious about messaging on nutrition, then they should be spending money. And actually HHS has put out an RFP to do, I think it’s a $10 to $20 million campaign, around processed foods and diabetes risk. And, you know, if they do that, that would be a big change. I don’t know that in my covering food policy, we’ve ever spent something like that on a campaign that was that targeted.
Other countries have done this. I mean, you could go — I remember seeing pictures in Mexico, I think it was Mexico City and their public transit. There were signs that were really vividly telling people to not consume sugar-sweetened beverages. We’ve never seen anything like that in the U.S.So, you know, they could put money and muscle behind nutrition messaging. We’ll see what they do. So, it’s a long way of saying the dietary guidelines do matter, and they will eventually affect the school meals program. But the difference between that and what Michelle Obama did during the Obama administration is they put regulations in place that actually forced schools to serve more whole grains, to cut fat, to cut calories, to do half a cup of fruits and vegetables. Those were changes they had to make in order to get the reimbursement rate they wanted. And so that forces change to happen more quickly. It’s probably going to be a very long time before the school meals program updates to follow the dietary guidelines, unless the Trump administration decides to kind of put its money where its mouth is on this. Every time I’ve asked Rollins and RFK Jr., are you going to update the school meals program rules, the regulations, they just dodge it.
Theodore: They don’t want to talk about that at all, right?
Helena: They dodge it.
Theodore: The presence of the federal government in education policy at that level is, that’s a no-no for the Trump administration, right? They don’t want to be a part of that at all, right? That’s why you get rid of the Department of Education is because you don’t want to be a part of the Department of Education, you know? Or am I missing it?
Helena: Well, you know, I think just the regulation word kind of makes everyone break out in hives.
Theodore: The R word.
Helena: Yeah. But there is no path to wholesale changing the makeup of school meals without regulation. I mean, the whole program is governed by rules. It’s a federal nutrition program.
So, you know, schools will follow what the rules are. We’ll see. I think we’re still somewhat early in the administration, but if they are going to be making changes to regulations, I think we should see some moves being made this fall to indicate whether or not they’re serious about federal policymaking. I don’t know.
Theodore: All right, so let’s go on to our final segment, which is the “Good Vibes,” which is something within the food system that we’re covering that gives us some potential for optimism. I think it is telling that in this case, given the conversation we’ve had today, that we’re not talking about Coke. We are talking about Pepsi. All right?
So PepsiCo made an announcement that they would be increasing the levels of protein and fiber in some of their legacy products. It’s probably going to start with oatmeal. And that they’re also going to lower the amount of synthetic dyes in a lot of their products, that
they’ll be rolling out stuff like Tostitos and Lay’s with no artificial dyes, and that they’ll have an increased focus on smaller packages and portions, which is all probably a good thing. You tell me, is this a thing? Did we double take on this one and not have it happen? And is this about consumer demand or is it about government pressure?
Helena: Well, I do think it’s a little bit of both. I think, you know, these big companies are really careful and they’re really, I would say, thoughtful about how they make changes, right? Because, well, (a) they’re publicly traded, they have to be really careful and deliberative and, you know, that’s one of the reasons why this Coca-Cola post on Truth Social didn’t make any sense. That would be so sloppy. And also they could get sued in many ways [from their shareholders. So companies are careful.
I think part of it is listening to consumer demand. The thing about the MAHA movement and all of this chatter from public officials is it does put these issues in the mainstream. Consumers are hearing messages about additives and synthetic food dyes and sugar, you know, in a way that they were not. And so I do think that eventually affects consumer demand. And at the same time, we have an increasing portion of the population on GLP-1 medications, which does shift how you consume, how you snack. You mentioned protein and fiber. Folks who are on those drugs tend to consume products with more protein and fiber. So it’s also a way to position PepsiCo to be, you know, just better off in that new environment that we’re moving to. So I think that’s part of it. Of course, it also does help them with the administration that they can make these types of announcements.
Although when it comes to synthetic food dyes, I believe PepsiCo has announced Lay’s and Tostitos are not going to have any. But, you know, if you think about Lay’s, most of those don’t, right? They’re the potato chips. It’s going to be a lot more difficult and a lot more impactful when they come back and say, Doritos and Cheetos don’t have dyes.
And I was even looking the other day. I can’t remember who I was talking to about this, but Cool Ranch Doritos actually have teeny-tiny little blue flecks on them.
Theodore: Yes, they do. They do. I love Cool Ranch Doritos.
Helena: I mean, they’re delicious. Yeah, they are. But I remember thinking, how have they not removed? This seems so easy. Who would notice these little blue flecks being gone? It’s so minimal, right? It’s not like the whole thing’s blue. And I wish I could remember who I was talking to. They were, like, oh, no, this would be a huge deal. People would absolutely notice. ItIt’s like playing with fire.
And I think that sort of is indicative of where these companies are. They’re trying to figure out how to give consumers what they say they want — that’s food with fewer additives, simpler ingredients — but also not rock the boat about some of these things that have always been big sellers.
They’re mainstays for a lot of snacking consumers and so it is a hard line to walk, and PepsiCo hasn’t actually announced that they’re going to, or when they’re going to, get dyes out. The assumption in the food industry right now is most companies, or maybe all of them, are going to figure out how to comply with this January 2028 West Virginia ban, because it’s going to be real difficult to keep Cool Ranch Doritos out of West Virginia, or any state that wants to take similar action. Or Texas, which would require a warning label. That’s what they’re trying to do, although I think there’s going to be litigation over that. But it’s the law that is going to, laws and regulations are, I mean, these food companies are going to follow those.
So I think that’s where we look: specific hammers that are being used and lines that are being drawn. I think those are what’s more important sometimes than just saying, hey, we intend to do this. Food companies have before said they’ve intended to remove artificial dyes, and then they have backtracked because consumers were, like, “What is this?” You know, “I expected this to be brightly colored,” and they get a lot of complaints.
Theodore: I also wonder, and I don’t really know the answer to this. I mean, the report I was talking about, it’s for their legacy brands. So in some ways it could be a matter of trying to boost the sales of things like Lay’s and Tostitos. Instead of, you know, like my kids — I have kids who are 12, 14, and 19 — they’re more into the Takis end of the spectrum than the Lay’s end of the spectrum, if you know what that means.
Helena: Okay. Great question. Do they do the blue? There’s some very brightly colored, VERY brightly colored …
Theodore: Anything that I let them, you know, they’ll eat. And I don’t let them eat anything. This is all out in the world.
Helena: Those Takis — I think it’s Takis. The Takis are fluorescent blue. They’re so blue. So I do wonder how they will handle that. You know, they’re going to probably look different.
Theodore: They’re going to have to if they follow through.
Helena: Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see. I think, you know, laws are laws. That is a line in the sand, right? That’s different than RFK Jr. and Marty Makary going up and saying, we want companies to get this out by 2026. That matters for sure. It is a pressure point, but what really matters are laws and regulations.
Theodore: All right. I think that we should stop on that. That’s a good takeaway for this episode: Laws are still laws. Although maybe it doesn’t feel like that every day. So thank you, as always, Helena.
Like I always like to do,I think you should tell everyone how they can subscribe to your super-awesome newsletter and tell them all about it.
Helena: If you want to get on the newsletter list, just go to foodfixx.co and drop your email there. Comes out every Friday, and there is a lot going on. Usually summer is a quiet time, and it has not been quiet. So, yeah, it’s a good way to track what’s going on.
Theodore: Well, thank you, everyone for coming. Just as you know — you’re here, so you know how to subscribe, but you could tell a friend, you could tell a friend’s friend, and you could also tell them, you could check it out on our YouTube feed as well. We have this in video as well as in audio. And, like I said, appreciate you all being here. Laws are laws, and we’ll see you in a couple weeks.
Forked is a production of the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Our executive producers are Theodore Ross and Tom Laskawy. Our sound engineer is Lauren Newsome. Katie Gardner is the producer and video producer for Forked.
Our hosts are Helena Bottemiller Evich and me, Theodore Ross. To find out more about FERN and donate to support our independent nonprofit reporting, go to www.thefern.org.