Tag: RFK Jr.

Dairy is Meeting the MAHA Moment

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

Few topics have gained as much discussion in agriculture in the second Trump administration as the Make America Healthy Again initiative, which this month sent its report on food and agriculture to the president. MAHA is many things, and for dairy it offers opportunities for policies that better align with what nutrition scientists and families already know — that dairy boosts public health and its consumption should be encouraged. But it could also be a double-edged sword for both farmers and consumers — which is why, as MAHA evolves, dairy needs to be ready to support good ideas and educate both policymakers and consumers in ways that benefit everyone it serves.

First: A little bit of a shakeup isn’t a bad thing. Dairy’s been in several decades-long battles that at this point can’t be explained by anything other than bureaucratic inertia. Some examples: Science supports the benefits of dairy at all fat levels, so why not whole milk in schools? Consumer transparency demands that plant-based beverages stop misleadingly using dairy terms to imply nutritional values they don’t have, so why can’t FDA enforce its own Standard of Identity for milk?

MAHA’s energy can break through some of these generations-old policy logjams. It also provides some tangible benefits to dairy consumers and the industry, such as:

  • Potential increased demand for whole-food dairy: MAHA’s emphasis on nutrient-dense “real” foods, including whole milk, could further raise demand for traditional dairy products. Fluid milk, yogurts, and butter are viewed as less processed than their alternatives. Those products are gaining market share — just look at cottage cheese and yogurt in the snack category. MAHA is part of this trend toward consumers shifting away from additive-laden options toward time-tested nutrition.
  • An even greater competitive edge against plant-based alternatives: Many plant-based alternatives rely heavily on synthetic ingredients, making them suspicious to the often-discussed “MAHA moms” who prefer a diet for their children that’s less dependent on products whose labels read like science projects. We’ve been talking about this for years, and the preference for so-called clean labels is yet another competitive advantage for dairy, which already wins on nutrition, cost and taste.
  • A focus on nutritional benefits: Speaking of nutrition — the MAHA conversation provides an opportunity to highlight the essential nutrients present in dairy products, including calcium, vitamins, and bioactive fatty acids. Dairy can be front-and-center in a healthy diet. We can lead the conversation.

MAHA cuts through many of the weeds that have grown up around food policy. At the same time, cutting through bureaucratic weeds shouldn’t hamstring farmer efforts to control actual weeds — you know, the ones that require herbicides. And that’s where the double-edged sword comes in.

  • Education about innovation: As the MAHA discussion continues, agriculture and dairy will need to be very clear in communicating the value modern agriculture provides to U.S. and global consumers. Technology and innovation has made America the world’s agricultural leader — and giving up on any of it without a thorough conversation and understanding the implications of any actions is essential. The administration has pledged to listen to farmers — let’s take them up on that. It’s a conversation to welcome, not to worry about, because agriculture and dairy have a great story to tell.
  • Continued commitment to food safety: The same is true for food safety, in which, again, America is the world’s leader. The impulse to help the small farmer who sells products locally, perhaps even directly, has long been a feature of agricultural policy in both parties. But any moves that create a two-tiered food-safety system will backfire against everyone. It will limit markets for small producers and create massive headaches in trade negotiations, just when agriculture badly needs better deals.

And a final thing to remember:

  • Dairy as an industry doesn’t need to rely on any single policy movement to thrive. Every opportunity MAHA creates for dairy unfortunately will have knee-jerk detractors who will question the administration’s motives, its science, and the legitimacy of its actions, often to score cheap political points at the expense of consumers. It’s just the moment we’re living in. But dairy’s current $10 billion investment opportunity isn’t being driven by Washington headlines. It’s driven by American and global consumers who recognize how dairy helps them, regardless of their ideological orientation. Milk isn’t Democratic or Republican — it’s universal, as household data shows. That’s something to prize in 2025. It should stay that way.

Dairy will do well in any marketplace that’s based on facts, transparency and quality. From the smallest Amish dairies to complex family businesses with thousands of cows — all of which are necessary to make sure that demand is met and preferences are served — the commitment to providing a product that genuinely serves the public is palpable.

MAHA may help create promising opportunities for dairy. It’s one part of an exciting time for the industry. Proactively engaging with policy shifts, embracing positive changes and staying alert for new challenges will be crucial for the dairy industry to thrive in this evolving landscape. We’re ready to do so.

Gregg Doud

President & CEO, NMPF

 

Dairy’s Pronounced Advantage Over Plant-Based Alternatives

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

“This is a list of ingredients from foods — carrageenan, riboflavin, monosodium glutamate and 20 others that I can’t pronounce.” – HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

This column isn’t here to call out specific food ingredients — carrageenan, for example, has made many an ice cream pint hold together well, proving the value of the raw seaweed extract. But if the idea is to take a more critical look at food ingredients that sound more like science experiments gone bad than healthy, nutritious products, we might just offer one helpful hint: Take a look at the plant-based “dairy” substitutes section and see what you find.

It takes a lot of substances to turn a slurry of chemicals, emollients, emulsifiers, additives and colorings — plus few almonds, oats, etc. — into something that looks like a dairy product. Things like, “mixed tocopherols.” Or “gellan gum,” (which, admittedly, is used in ice cream if you want it to stay stable when placed in flaming alcohol). Or “calcium disodium edta,” (which is also good at treating lead poisoning), among others.

Again, not casting aspersions on anything, just noting that your grandmother probably didn’t talk much about these ingredients over Thanksgiving dinner. Meanwhile, milk is made of… milk, with some vitamin fortification that dates back nearly a century. Cheese is made of… milk, with some additives that follow processes developed over generations. And other dairy products are made of… milk, with whatever else helps keep it safe and stable for consumers who are, in the end, experiencing the same nutrition and wholeness their forebears would have recognized in earlier, less pronunciation-challenged times.

This revelation isn’t anything new: In fact, Dairy Defined did a whole quiz on this theme in 2022 that’s still fun to complete. But it bears repeating as food policy gets a new look. Plant-based products or products derived from the fermentation of a fungus that are engineered to superficially resemble dairy are, by definition, imitations or (poor) substitutes of something that was already out there, already serving a public that understood what it did and what was in it. But in this case, the imposters want to call their product the same thing as the real thing, implying equivalencies in nutrition that just aren’t there and creating confusion in the marketplace.

And that needs to stop.

The last three FDA commissioners, serving both Republicans and Democrats, all recognized the problem — all that’s left is action. Regardless of one’s feelings about specific ingredients or the values they bring to specific foods, being transparent about what something is and what it isn’t, is an important principle from which to build.

Truth in labeling. Not hard to say. And long past time to do.