Media roundtable: Covering MAHA with Tal Kopan, Deena Shanker, and Lisa Held

Media roundtable: Covering MAHA with Tal Kopan, Deena Shanker, and Lisa Held

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 contradictions Where to find our guests: Tal Kopan's reporting at The Boston Globe [https://www.bostonglobe.com/about/staff-list/staff/tal-kopan/] | @TalKopan on X [https://x.com/TalKopan] | @TalKopan on Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/talkopan.bsky.social] Deena Shanker's reporting at Bloomberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ASznQGEjaUE/deena-shanker] | @deenashanker.bsky.social on Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/deenashanker.bsky.social] | LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/deenashanker/] Lisa Held's reporting at Civil Eats [https://civileats.com/author/lheld/] | @lisaelaineh on X [https://x.com/lisaelaineh] | Civil Eats Food Policy Tracker [https://civileats.com/food-policy-tracker/] | @lisaelaineh on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/lisaelaineh/] Mentioned in this episode: Meet Tony Lyons, the man building RFK Jr.'s MAHA empire [https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/25/nation/tony-lyons-maha-rfk-jr/] — Tal Kopan, The Boston Globe Group that supports RFK Jr. wants to change media messages on public health [https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/01/nation/maha-pac-influencers-media/] — Tal Kopan, The Boston Globe MAHA's Hopes for Healthier School Lunches Collide With Trump's Spending Cuts [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-22/us-schools-face-cost-crunch-as-new-nutrition-rules-loom] — Deena Shanker, Bloomberg Losing Ground: How Trump Is Setting Back Local Food and Small Farms [https://civileats.com/2026/06/01/losing-ground-how-trump-is-setting-back-local-food-and-small-farms/] — Lisa Held, Civil Eats This USDA Program Transformed Food Systems. It's Gone. [https://civileats.com/2026/06/02/the-usdas-local-food-program-transformed-regional-food-systems-now-its-gone/] — Lisa Held, Civil Eats USDA Cuts Dismantled a Program Helping Local Food Economies [https://civileats.com/2026/06/03/regional-food-business-centers-were-strengthening-local-food-economies-now-theyre-defunct/] — Lisa Held, Civil Eats Trump's USDA Revamped the Climate-Smart Program in a Blow to Many Small Farms [https://civileats.com/2026/06/04/trumps-usda-revamped-the-climate-smart-program-in-a-blow-to-many-small-farms/] — Lisa Held, Civil Eats MAHA candidate beats Trump's pick in Iowa Republican primary for governor [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/maha-candidate-beats-trumps-choice-in-republican-primary-for-iowa-governor] — PBS News Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix [https://foodfix.co/]. Follow American Dish on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/americandishpodcast/] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@AmericanDishPodcast]. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co [info@foodfix.co] Check out Forked [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/forked-presented-by-reap-sow/id1821950125], the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz [https://adriennecruz.com/]. Original music by David Bottemiller.

Meet the billionaire trying to clean up the food supply: Todd Wagner.

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 brands Where to find Todd Wagner: Food Fight USA [https://foodfightusa.com/] Food Fight USA on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/foodfight_usa/] Food Fight USA on X [https://x.com/food_fight_usa] Mentioned in this episode: California Food Safety Act [https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB418] New York Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act [https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A1556/amendment/F] Yuka food scanning app [https://yuka.io/en/] Ultra-Processed People [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451300/ultra-processed-people-by-tulleken-chris-van/9781529160222] by Chris van Tulleken [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451300/ultra-processed-people-by-tulleken-chris-van/9781529160222] Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1016268/] (documentary) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1016268/] Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix [https://foodfix.co/]. Follow American Dish on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/americandishpodcast/] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@AmericanDishPodcast]. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co [info@foodfix.co] Check out Forked [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/forked-presented-by-reap-sow/id1821950125], the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz [https://adriennecruz.com/]. Original music by David Bottemiller.

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

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) [https://www.ifballiance.org/] Mentioned in this episode: NOVA food classification system [https://educhange.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/NOVA-Food-Classification-EduChange.pdf] — 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 [https://pod.link/1880072578/episode/NjAwNjIzOWItZDhiOC00OGM1LTkxYTItNzE4NDNhZmQ2ZDEw?view=apps&sort=popularity] — my earlier conversation with the NIH researcher who studied ultra-processed foods in controlled settings California's work on UPF definitions in school meals [https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2025/10/california-enacts-an-ultra-processed-food-law-but-only-for-public-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 [https://foodfix.co/]. Follow American Dish on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/americandishpodcast/] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@AmericanDishPodcast]. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co [info@foodfix.co] Check out Forked [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/forked-presented-by-reap-sow/id1821950125], the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz [https://adriennecruz.com/]. Original music by David Bottemiller.

Nora LaTorre on why school lunch is the biggest lever for children's health

Schools are the largest restaurant chain in America, bigger than Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's combined. Nearly 100,000 locations, 30 million kids, and roughly 7 billion meals a year. Right now, the lion’s share of the calories served through this system are ultra-processed at a time when there’s growing concern about chronic diseases among children. Nora LaTorre is the CEO of Eat Real, a nonprofit that's transforming school meals scale — certifying school districts against doctor-developed standards and helping food service leaders pivot to fresher, more local, more scratch-cooked food. Since 2019, the organization has grown from one district in one state to more than a million kids across 21 states. This expansion has put LaTorre and her organization at the center of an active debate about what the future of school meals should look like in the U.S. Highlights: – How Eat Real's certification model works and what the two-year journey looks like for school districts – Why better food means more kids eat school lunch (which means more revenue) – The story behind California's AB 1264, which passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support – LaTorre’s take on how federal preemption is a serious threat to food policy progress – What the MAHA moment means for school food – What parents can do to support change at their local school – The infrastructure gap: transforming school food nationally could require tens of billions in kitchen investment Where to find Nora LaTorre: Eat Real [https://eatreal.org/] Parent resources at eatreal.org/parents [https://eatreal.org/parents] Follow Nora on Instagram (@nourishedwithnora) [https://www.instagram.com/nourishedwithnora/] and LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nora-latorre/] Mentioned in this episode: AB 1264 — California's school food bill [https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1264] Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix [https://foodfix.co/]. Follow American Dish on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/americandishpodcast/] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@AmericanDishPodcast]. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co [info@foodfix.co] Check out Forked [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/forked-presented-by-reap-sow/id1821950125], the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz [https://adriennecruz.com/]. Original music by David Bottemiller.

The food industry's MAHA moment with Melissa Hockstad

HHS Secretary Kennedy says the food industry is poisoning us. The White House shares AI videos of him body slamming a Twinkie. And somehow, the trade group representing the companies making those ultra-processed foods — and thousands of other products Americans buy every day — has to figure out how to respond. The Consumer Brands Association represents the CPG industry, not just food and beverage, but household products and personal care too. It's the largest manufacturing sector in the U.S. by employment — 22.3 million workers, contributing $2.3 trillion to the GDP. And right now, it's contending with one of the most hostile political environments it's ever faced. Melissa Hockstad, the president and CEO of CBA, is at the center of navigating all of this. She's talking about constructive engagement, transparency, and the long game as major food companies try to stay out of the political wrestling ring, at least publicly. Highlights: – How CBA is approaching the Trump administration's anti-Big Food rhetoric, and where they see room for common ground – The Facts Up Front and SmartLabel programs, and why the industry sees transparency on its own terms as a selling point –How MAHA laws in Texas, West Virginia, and beyond have the industry turning to the courts and to Congress – Why CBA thinks "ultra-processed foods" is too complex to define, and what that means for policy – Front-of-pack labeling: where the Biden-era proposed rule stands now and what to expect from FDA under the Trump administration – The affordability argument is not landing the way the industry hoped at the state level Where to find Melissa Hockstad: Follow Melissa Hockstad on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissahockstad/] Mentioned in this episode: Consumer Brands Association [https://www.consumerbrandsassociation.org/] Facts Up Front [https://www.factsupfront.org/] SmartLabel [https://www.smartlabel.org/] Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix [https://foodfix.co/]. Follow American Dish on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/americandishpodcast/] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@AmericanDishPodcast]. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co [info@foodfix.co] Check out Forked [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/forked-presented-by-reap-sow/id1821950125], the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz [https://adriennecruz.com/]. Original music by David Bottemiller.