Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pledged to transform America’s food system, vowing to crack down on foods and ingredients he blames for many of the country’s ills, including ultra-processed foods and food additives.

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Kennedy as his nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, where he would lead a sprawling 13-agency department that plays a key role in Americans’ health. One of these agencies is the Food and Drug Administration.

Kennedy has some controversial views when it comes to public health, including anti-vaccine activism. However, experts generally agree that his views on food and nutrition are commendable.

Still, he’ll likely face a major hurdle: money.

The FDA’s food division, poised to play a major role in Kennedy’s ambitions, is operating on a tight budget. Unlike the agency’s drug division, which is largely self-sustaining through user fees charged to pharmaceutical companies when they apply for drug approval, the food division is more dependent on congressional funding, said Jerol Mande, a former senior adviser of the FDA and former Deputy Under Secretary for Food. security at the Ministry of Agriculture. (Separately, Kennedy has suggested he wants end-user fees, arguing the system creates a conflict of interest.)

Historically, Mande said, Congress has been reluctant to provide money for the agency’s food and nutrition program.

“The FDA food program has a budget of a billion dollars, and only $25 million of that goes to food nutrition and chronic diseases,” says Mande, now an adjunct professor at Harvard University and the CEO of Nourish Science, a food advocacy group. “So there is almost no money for it, and that is barrier number 1: they don’t have the budget or the people to do anything.”

By comparison, the food industry spends nearly $14 billion a year on advertising, much of which promotes fast food, sugary drinks, candy and other unhealthy snacks, says Elisabetta Politi, nutrition director at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center in Durham, North Carolina. .

The industry, she said, is likely spending millions more lobbying Congress.

“I think this is an apt comparison of how difficult it is for consumers to make healthy choices when the food industry is so powerful,” Politi said.

Kennedy’s ideas about food are “great,” she said, but “how you do that, I’m not so sure.”

Difficult but not impossible

Marion Nestle, professor emeritus of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, said that even with limited resources it is not impossible to take on the food industry, noting that Kennedy is not the only public figure who is unhealthy tackles food.

Former first lady Michelle Obama, an advocate for healthy eating, started the Let’s Move! campaign, which focused on combating childhood obesity, including through healthy eating. She also championed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which established new nutrition standards for school lunches, including more fruits and vegetables.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, has called for more thorough reviews of food from foreign countries and recently passed the processed food industry to the tobacco industry.

Mande said current FDA Commissioner Robert Califf made food a priority during his second term. Califf led the restructuring of the FDA’s food division in the wake of the 2022 infant formula shortage crisis, which emerged after a facility was closed due to bacterial contamination that the agency said may have been linked to two infant deaths.

Yet it is clear that divisions are moving slowly. Mande said Califf probably would have wanted to do more, but had been unable to “get through the bureaucracy to get there” or get the necessary resources.

“I mean, everything that RFK has said about chronic disease and our food and the need to do something about that, Califf has said that during his time in office,” Mande said.

In July, the FDA finally banned brominated vegetable oil, a food additive used primarily in sports drinks and fruit-flavored soft drinks that poses potential health risks, including damage to the liver, heart and brain. However, that ban was only proposed last year, decades after the agency concluded that its use in food was not safe.

The agency is also expected to propose new front-of-pack nutrition labels in the coming weeks and is working on updating the definition of “healthy,” although it’s unclear whether they’ll get that done before the new administration. comes in. The FDA is also reassessing the potential cancer risk of Red Dye No. 3, a synthetic food coloring already banned in California and Europe.

In a statement, an FDA spokesperson said the agency “plans to make a decision on Red Dye No. 3 soon.”

Other additives allowed in the US but banned in many European countries include yellow dyes No. 5 and No. 6, and potassium bromate and azodicarbonamide, both used in flour to make bread.

Allies are needed

Of course, much of what Kennedy will be able to accomplish will depend on how he decides to shake up public health authorities, including the FDA, Nestlé said. Kennedy has threatened to eliminate “entire departments” of the agency, including the food department. He needs people who know how to move food policy forward.

Mande said Kennedy will likely need allies in the administration to achieve his goals, especially at the FDA and the Department of Agriculture, who could push Congress to do more. Trump has not yet announced which people he wants to fill those roles.

To some extent, Kennedy may also have to work with the food industry, Politi said. Nestle agreed, noting that the industry has remained largely silent during Trump’s transition to the White House.

“They’ve been very, very quiet and I don’t hear the cereal companies making any big claims about the artificial colorings, that there is no evidence that they are harmful,” Nestle said. “I don’t hear the fast food industry saying anything, which is confusing because these industries didn’t waste a millisecond when Michelle Obama tried to do something.”

It remains to be seen whether Kennedy will face backlash if and when he is confirmed.

All experts agreed that Kennedy’s best chance to make the most impact is to develop the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which will provide dietary guidance over the next five years and for which the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible the supervision. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is finalizing its scientific report, which will help inform the guidelines, Nestle said. However, she added, both HHS and USDA are responsible for establishing the new guidelines.

“The agencies will write the guidelines and the agencies will have new secretaries,” Nestle said. “The dietary guidelines could very easily reflect Kennedy’s agenda.”

Mande said the dietary guidelines are a “political process.”

“Like I said, the budget they have to educate the public against food advertising? There is no budget, is there? he said. However, Kennedy “will pretty much have the ability to write whatever he wants into those guidelines,” he said.

“It’s powerful,” he said.