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American Dish

American Dish

De : Helena Bottemiller Evich
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From Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” to Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, America is in the midst of a food and nutrition policy awakening. Why are diet-related disease rates so high in the U.S.? What are the potential solutions? What does the science say? Award-winning journalist Helena Bottemiller Evich cuts through the noise to help us understand what’s really happening with our food system and our plates.Copyright 2026 Helena Bottemiller Evich Alimentation et vin Art Cuisine Hygiène et vie saine Politique et gouvernement Sciences politiques
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  • Media roundtable: Covering MAHA with Tal Kopan, Deena Shanker, and Lisa Held

    Media roundtable: Covering MAHA with Tal Kopan, Deena Shanker, and Lisa Held
    Jun 10 2026
    This episode is something a little different: a roundtable with three journalists who've been deep in this moment in food policy, talking frankly about what they're seeing as MAHA's promises meet the reality of governing in Washington.Tal Kopan, deputy Washington bureau chief for The Boston Globe, has been reporting on the politics and also the money behind MAHA. Deena Shanker covers food for Bloomberg Businessweek and recently wrote about MAHA's school lunch ambitions colliding with funding cuts. Lisa Held is a senior reporter at Civil Eats, where she runs the Food Policy Tracker and just finished a four-part investigative series on what USDA cuts have meant for small farms and local food systems.We go behind the scenes on what it’s like to cover MAHA in this moment — and what comes next.Highlights:– How food dyes became the issue that pulled MAHA into the mainstream– The political and financial infrastructure being built behind MAHA, and what it suggests about Kennedy's long-term ambitions– Why MAHA's vision for school meals is running headlong into the administration's own budget cuts– What USDA's cuts to local food programs mean for small farms, and why those cuts are seen as anti-MAHA– The tension between MAHA as a federal policy driver versus MAHA as a growing grassroots movement at the state level– What reporters are watching next: Iowa's governor's race, Vani Hari's next political move, and whether MAHA survives its own contradictionsWhere to find our guests:Tal Kopan's reporting at The Boston Globe | @TalKopan on X | @TalKopan on BlueskyDeena Shanker's reporting at Bloomberg | @deenashanker.bsky.social on Bluesky | LinkedInLisa Held's reporting at Civil Eats | @lisaelaineh on X | Civil Eats Food Policy Tracker | @lisaelaineh on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Meet Tony Lyons, the man building RFK Jr.'s MAHA empire — Tal Kopan, The Boston GlobeGroup that supports RFK Jr. wants to change media messages on public health — Tal Kopan, The Boston GlobeMAHA's Hopes for Healthier School Lunches Collide With Trump's Spending Cuts — Deena Shanker, BloombergLosing Ground: How Trump Is Setting Back Local Food and Small Farms — Lisa Held, Civil EatsThis USDA Program Transformed Food Systems. It's Gone. — Lisa Held, Civil EatsUSDA Cuts Dismantled a Program Helping Local Food Economies — Lisa Held, Civil EatsTrump's USDA Revamped the Climate-Smart Program in a Blow to Many Small Farms — Lisa Held, Civil EatsMAHA candidate beats Trump's pick in Iowa Republican primary for governor — PBS NewsStay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.coCheck out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.
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    1 h et 9 min
  • Meet the billionaire trying to clean up the food supply: Todd Wagner.

    Meet the billionaire trying to clean up the food supply: Todd Wagner.
    May 27 2026
    Todd Wagner, a tech billionaire and Hollywood mogul best known for co-founding Broadcast.com with Mark Cuban, isn’t particularly well known in food world — but he’s increasingly having a big impact.Wagner first got interested in American food policy after noticing his migraines would all but disappear when he traveled to Europe. He did some research and realized that the U.S. was letting thousands of food additives onto the market without regulatory oversight. In 2023, Wagner and film producer Lori McCreary launched FoodFight USA, a non-partisan non-profit aimed at cleaning up the U.S. food supply. Since then, Wagner and his team have played an integral role in passing historic state food additive bans and are also pressing Washington to revamp food additive oversight nationwide. In this conversation, Wagner shares some behind-the-scenes details from meeting with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.He sees the fight against ultra-processed foods as similar to the fight against Big Tobacco: long, messy, and ultimately winnable.Highlights:– The inside story of urging Governor Newsom to sign the California Food Safety Act– What GRAS actually is, why Wagner calls it the linchpin of America's food crisis, and why no other country has an equivalent– The fight over New York's GRAS disclosure bill and what it would actually require of food companies– Why Wagner thinks the Big Tobacco playbook maps almost perfectly onto ultra-processed foods– Using AI to triage tens of thousands of food chemicals for post-market safety review– Front-of-pack labeling, the black octagon, and why warning labels matter even if they can't fix everything– The "real cost" of a can of Coke: subsidies, SNAP, downstream healthcare, and margin-stacking against smaller, healthier brandsWhere to find Todd Wagner:Food Fight USAFood Fight USA on InstagramFood Fight USA on XMentioned in this episode:California Food Safety ActNew York Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure ActYuka food scanning appUltra-Processed People by Chris van TullekenEnron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (documentary)Stay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.coCheck out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.
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    1 h et 1 min
  • What Big Food wants in the ultra-processed foods debate, with Rocco Renaldi

    What Big Food wants in the ultra-processed foods debate, with Rocco Renaldi
    May 13 2026

    The debate about ultra-processed foods is loud in America right now, but zoom out, and it's everywhere. Governments around the world are trying to figure out what to do about diet-related disease, and the food and beverage industry is under pressure at every turn.

    Rocco Renaldi is secretary general of the International Food and Beverage Alliance, the group that brings together some of the world's biggest multinational food companies — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Mondelēz — for coordinated action on nutrition and public health. He's also an executive at Edelman and is based in Brussels, which gives him a vantage point on these debates that we don’t hear as much stateside.

    Highlights:

    – Why the industry sees the UPF debate as a threat to the work already done on product reformulation

    – What the science does and doesn't tell us about processing as a health risk

    – Whether a workable, science-based UPF definition is even possible, and who's likely to define it first

    – How voluntary commitments like global trans fat elimination and salt reduction are going

    – What MAHA and RFK Jr.'s rhetoric look like from Brussels

    – GLP-1 drugs as a market force versus warning labels as a policy tool

    Where to find Rocco Renaldi:

    International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA)

    Mentioned in this episode:

    NOVA food classification system — the processing-based framework at the center of the UPF debate

    What we still don't know about ultra-processed foods with Julia Belluz & Kevin Hall — my earlier conversation with the NIH researcher who studied ultra-processed foods in controlled settings

    California's work on UPF definitions in school meals — the state's ongoing effort to restrict the most harmful ultra-processed foods from school food programs

    Stay in touch:

    Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.

    Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.

    Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co

    Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

    Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.
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    45 min
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