RFK Jr. cares more about french fries than US farms

Robert F Kennedy Jr was flanked by a double cheeseburger and a fresh order of fries when he described Sean Hannity They turned me into a verb The fries served at a Florida Steak n Shake and now cooked in beef tallow instead of canola oil thus RFK-ing them were the latest heroes in Kennedy s crusade to Make America Healthy Again a movement that sounds like food procedures feels like branding and tastes according to the secretary fully different What didn t make it into the March Fox News interview was that by the time Kennedy bit into his burger the administration he represents had already slashed a billion dollars from programs supporting small farms the very ones his own reports had praised as the backbone of American healthcare Kennedy has made a platform of calling ultra-processed foods a masses fitness exigency a determination a multitude of masses robustness experts share But in practice his campaign for real food looks less like a reinvestment in farming and more like a rebrand of fast food While the Trump administration continues to pull funding from school produce programs and tribal food systems Kennedy has gone on national television to praise tallow-fried french fries as a step toward national wellness Related Why Trump s fast food obsession matters The conclusion is a general fitness strategy that skips the farm and heads straight for the fryer As The Guardian stated in June independent and organic farmers have been sounding the alarm for months pointing to a widening gap between Kennedy s rhetoric and the administration s actions On paper the secretary is a champion of regenerative agriculture The MAHA Commission an initiative he leads disclosed a -page document in May declaring that the rise in childhood chronic malady could be traced to ultra-processed foods chemical exposure and excessive medication The account which mentions farms farmers or farming times argues that the greatest step the United States can take to reverse childhood chronic illness is to put whole foods produced by American farmers and ranchers at the center of healthcare The document was also dogged by conflict over fake or misleading citations a fitting irony for a campaign that positions itself as science-driven while relying heavily on performance But by the time the ink dried the administration had already cut more than a billion dollars from programs designed to do exactly what the statement proposed Funding vanished for tribal food banks and for a million initiative that had brought fresh local produce into school cafeterias including daily snacks of fruits and vegetables for residents school students in New York City This is a huge deal for small farmers Ellee Igoe a co-owner of Solidarity Farm in southern California informed the publication We re growing healthy food and providing it to local communities And they are cancelling contracts without real reason Out here it feels like it is very politically motivated We need your help to stay independent Subscribe in contemporary times to help Salon s progressive journalism It s not just small farms bearing the weight of the disconnect it s the entire infrastructure of rural agriculture As Mother Jones disclosed in May federal programs and population institutions that farmers depend on have been quietly gutted This spring the USDA suspended billions in payments for at least fifteen programs supporting rural communities and slashed another billion dollars destined for schools and food banks which is another blow to the growers who supply them The department has also shuttered regional offices that once offered critical on-the-ground endorsement several farmers now face hundred-mile drives to reach the nearest outpost Add in the looming impacts of circumstances instability and the picture grows darker Cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which provides essential weather forecasting and to the Bureau of Reclamation which oversees water systems in the West threaten the basic functionality of farm life All of this the function cuts the shuttered offices the slow undoing of rural infrastructure is happening in the background of an administration that proposes to be restoring the strength of the American food system Hunger is rising Populace school meal programs are under threat Farmers are losing lifelines they once depended on And yet as the country s top medical official Robert F Kennedy Jr seems more interested in corporate gestures than general systems In June he declared that Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol had pledged to further MAHA the chain s menu by offering adjustable sweetness levels and testing a new protein foam If this is what counts as innovation in the MAHA movement it s hard not to wonder what the food as medicine approach truly treats the body or the brand Read more about this topic How billion is creating a police state Thanks to Trump the clean ability industry is in jeopardy Trump unaware of cuts Stated GOP bill will touch Medicaid The post RFK Jr cares more about french fries than US farms appeared first on Salon com