President Trump’s recent musing that Coca-Cola should ditch corn syrup and bring back real sugar tapped into a deeper truth: not only has Washington shaped who wins in the food industry, it has also influenced what ends up in our bodies. And Americans have been paying with their waistlines and their health ever since.
For nearly a century, Washington bureaucrats have been in the business of telling Americans what to eat. Since the 1930s, the alphabet soup of federal agencies, the FDA, USDA, EPA, and FTC, has dictated not only how food is labeled and inspected, but also which producers thrive and which are left behind. Washington’s subsidies and regulations have crowned winners and losers in the food industry, but the real loser may be Americans’ health. (RELATED: The Rotten Truth About the Egg Cartel)
While these policies have, no doubt, created profitable producers, it is far from clear that they have produced healthier Americans. In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite. Some government interventions have been beneficial to the American diet, but many have had dire unintended consequences, fueling poor nutrition, chronic illness, and soaring health costs.
American health outcomes are bleak, especially compared to our economic peers. Among many other maladies, chronic disease has tragically become the rule in the U.S. rather than the exception. According to the National Institute for Health Care Management, roughly six in ten Americans live with at least one chronic condition, from diabetes to heart disease. These illnesses carry not only enormous personal suffering but also staggering economic costs. (RELATED: Trump: Look at the Slow-Moving FDA)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the prevalence of chronic conditions has been rising steadily for two decades, a trend with no sign of slowing. Today, the leading health burdens in America include heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory illness, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and kidney disease. Our aging population, combined with poor nutrition, sedentary lifestyles, and medical advances that prolong life without necessarily improving its quality, means the burden of disease will only grow heavier.
At the center of this epidemic is diet … And poor nutrition, in large part, is the downstream effect of what the government has decided belongs on our plates.
At the center of this epidemic is diet. A mountain of research links poor nutrition with chronic illness. And poor nutrition, in large part, is the downstream effect of what the government has decided belongs on our plates.
Consider how sweeping this administrative influence is. The FDA regulates additives and labeling. The USDA oversees meat, subsidies, and nutrition guides. The EPA determines pesticide use. The FTC polices advertising claims. In short, Washington doesn’t just try to keep food safe; it shapes the entire composition of the American diet.
Some of these decisions are infamous. The USDA’s Food Guide Pyramid, first issued in the 1990s, told Americans to eat more bread, rice, and pasta than anything else. In retrospect, flipping the pyramid upside down would have been better nutrition advice. Meanwhile, subsidies for corn made high-fructose corn syrup cheaper than sugar, changing the formulation of nearly every soda in America. (RELATED: Are Sugary Sodas Going to Disappear Under RFK Jr.’s Healthy Food Campaign?)
The FDA also gave its blessing to synthetic food dyes such as Red Dye 40, which remain controversial for health reasons. The agency allowed companies to self-certify chemical additives as “generally recognized as safe,” a loophole that ushered in products like Olestra and artificial sweeteners without meaningful scrutiny.
When federal regulators finally banned trans fats in 2015, it was after decades of these oils saturating the national diet, in part because the government had once encouraged them as a safer alternative to butter. Irradiation mandates, labeling rules, and school-lunch regulations further entrenched processed food into daily life. Even pasteurization requirements wiped raw dairy, still widely consumed in Europe, off most American tables.
The result? A food system dominated by ultra-processed products. Nearly three-quarters of what sits on U.S. grocery store shelves is classified as “ultra-processed.” Americans get more than half of their daily calories from such sources, compared to just 43 percent in the most processed European nations, and as little as 14 percent in places like Italy and Romania. It is little wonder our chronic disease rates are off the charts.
Each of these regulatory choices, on its own, might have been defensible. Food safety inspections and outbreak tracking can save lives. But put together, they amount to a government-managed food economy where politically favored producers win subsidies and regulatory carve-outs, while consumers inherit diets high in refined carbohydrates, dyes, corn syrup, and additives. That may be a victory for corporate giants, but it is a defeat for the health of ordinary Americans.
If America is serious about reversing its health decline, the solution is not another layer of federal guidance or subsidies. It is to recognize that government “management” of food has too often meant mismanagement, picking winners who became losers for the rest of us.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now serving as secretary of Health and Human Services, would do well to take note: his Make America Healthy Again movement cannot succeed by doubling down on the very bureaucracies that created this mess. Instead of bureaucrats dictating what goes into school lunches or which sweetener is cheapest to use in soda, competition and consumer choice should lead.
Regulatory competition, not monopoly control by federal agencies, offers a way to discover which foods and production methods truly serve the public interest. Government bureaucracy has had its hand on America’s plate for nearly a century, and the results are in: record chronic disease, diets dominated by ultra-processed foods, and a health crisis with no end in sight. It is time to get Washington out of the kitchen.
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