Join host Vonnie Estes on “Fresh Takes on Tech” as she welcomes back Mollie Van Lieu, VP of Nutrition and Health in Government Relations at IFPA. They delve into the implications of the MAHA Commission’s first report, co-chaired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., highlighting its focus on ultra-processed foods, regulatory reform, and the influence of industry on nutrition science. Mollie shares insights into challenges with corporate influence, opportunities for produce initiatives, and anticipates changes in public health policy. Discover how these findings could shape the future of food and health policy.

Key Takeaways

•         The MAHA Commission’s first report identifies ultra-processed foods and environmental chemicals as key contributors to child health deterioration.

•         Mollie Van Lieu suggests both “hits” and “misses” in the report, especially regarding the mention of fruits and vegetables in fighting root causes of diet-related diseases.

•         An ongoing challenge in public trust is the intertwined relationship of industry-funded research and policy influences; the need for increased federal funding in nutrition research is crucial.

•         Produce incentives and produce prescription programs are vital yet under-discussed elements within federal nutrition policy initiatives.

•         Future directions may include regulatory actions on ultra-processed foods and school meal contents as well as restructuring of dietary guidelines to be more concise.

Guest Resources

•         International Fresh Produce Association: freshproduce.com

•         Federal SNAP and WIC programs

•         MAHA Commission led by HHS

Engage with the full episode as Mollie Van Lieu offers rich insights into the complexities of nutrition policy and its potential future shifts. Stay tuned to Fresh Takes on Tech for more groundbreaking discussions on food innovation and public health.

Show Links

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0:00:02 Intro Speaker: Welcome to Fresh Takes on Tech, the podcast exploring what’s next in food and agriculture through the lens of innovation and technology. Hosted by Vonnie Estes, each episode features conversations with people driving change in the produce industry. From entrepreneurs to scientists to industry leaders and policymakers. This isn’t about hype, it’s about real conversations with people who are making a difference.

0:00:24 Intro Speaker: Let’s get into it.

0:00:26 Vonnie Estes: Welcome to Fresh Takes on Tech. Today we have Molly Van Lieu, VP of Nutrition and Health in Government Relations at ifpa. Molly, it’s great to have you back on Fresh Takes on Tech. You’ve long been a leading voice at the intersection of food, health and policy, and now with the release of the MAHA Commission’s first report, your work is even more in the spotlight. There’s so much here. Diet industry influence, regulatory reform. So let’s dig into what all this means for the future of food and public health.

0:00:58 Vonnie Estes: The MAHA Commission, co chaired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is tackling what it calls the root causes of deteriorating child health, pointing to ultra processed foods, environmental chemicals and industry consolidation. What struck you the most when you first read this report last week?

0:01:18 Mollie Van Lieu: Thanks, Vonnie. So I think, you know, first of all I was looking forward to reading it because I think anytime that we have an opportunity on the national stage to talk about food and nutrition, we’re in a good position with fruits and vegetables to talk about the contributions that we can make to that. As you shared, this was really identifying the root cause of childhood or sought out to identify the root cause of childhood disease. So I wasn’t expecting any bombshells because in general we kind of know that we, we know that the food environment is dominated by ultra processed foods. We know people are under consuming fruits and vegetables.

0:02:01 Mollie Van Lieu: We know people have barriers to access for a variety of reasons. Some of that wasn’t addressed in the report. But Secretary Kennedy has a strong point of view. So the report was pretty consistent with what he knew his priority, what we knew his priorities were. I think there are some hits and there are some misses in it. They got things right with the fact that our food system consistently under delivers on nutrient dense foods.

0:02:32 Mollie Van Lieu: 70% of the retail store is thought to be ultra processed foods. They’re right that our diet is contributing overwhelmingly to healthcare costs. They called out the importance of the WIC program and school meals program, but it also fell short in some areas too. And you know, they’ve recently come to light that they cited some studies that don’t exist. So that fundamentally makes it challenging to move forward when there’s questions about kind of some of the foundational things that they’re saying.

0:03:13 Mollie Van Lieu: I wish they would have talked more about fruits and vegetables so that even though because it was the root cause, you weren’t going to blame fruits and vegetables for that. But I think we would have liked to have seen a call out of because only 1 in 10 Americans are eating fruits and vegetables that that’s contributing to childhood diet related disease.

0:03:37 Vonnie Estes: So how does this, how do these findings align or diverge from the nutrition and public health initiatives that you’ve worked on in the of what’s different? What’s the same?

0:03:48 Mollie Van Lieu: Yeah. So I think what’s really noticeable is you don’t often see a document coming from the highest level of office, which is the White House saying things so explicitly. And in some ways this is a toned down version of some of the language that Secretary Kennedy has used, like sugar is poison and we’re poisoning our kids with chemicals and environmental toxins. So those types of things weren’t in there in those explicit wording, but it was said in kind of different ways.

0:04:21 Mollie Van Lieu: And the executive level is typically really careful with how they say things, and politicians in general typically, and I know that kind of drives people crazy, I think outside of the D.C. area that politicians can often be very careful with how they say things. But when you’re in government and you’re representing everyone and you have the power to move markets, you’re typically very careful with how you portray things.

0:04:50 Mollie Van Lieu: So that was, I think, a different approach than what we’ve typically seen when folks have talked about nutrition and health from this office before. But many of these things are areas that the fruit and vegetable industry has been championing for years, specifically food is medicine interventions. I think the biggest elephant in the room on this is that this sort of language in some of these positions are things that really have never been said by a Republican administration.

0:05:23 Mollie Van Lieu: And I say that because it has its context for how this may or may not move forward. So, you know, a lot of these things that they’re aiming to do, like crack down on ultra processed foods and remove artificial dyes from foods, are things that require a great deal of regulation and practice. And that’s typically something that Republican Party is usually like pro business, anti regulatory. So I think there’s a lot of question around kind of what that means. And even the current Trump administration has an executive order that for every one regulation you have to get rid of 10.

0:06:04 Mollie Van Lieu: So seeing how that reconciles with that approach is going to be really interesting.

0:06:10 Vonnie Estes: And These aren’t even regulations that he like, if they end up having to be put out, like in pesticides from the EPA or some of the stuff that needs to be put out by the fda, like, he doesn’t have direct control on that anyway, does he?

0:06:25 Mollie Van Lieu: Well, I mean, he himself, if it’s an EPA regulation, no. But what we’ve also seen is typically cabinet members, Cabinet being the head of the Department of Health and Human Service or head of usda, they typically stay very much within their jurisdiction of what they have control over. But this is kind of revolutionary, too, in that he’s talking about. You see him talking about the SNAP program a lot, and he technically has no jurisdiction over that, but is calling for governors to put in SNAP waivers.

0:06:57 Mollie Van Lieu: So while he does not have jurisdiction over epa, it appears, you know, there’s precedent in these first few months that he’s having influence. But yes, there is a regulatory process to all of these things that requires public comment. There could be lawsuits during the course of regulatory framework. So it is a longer process. But it’s interesting because, like, what we saw earlier in the year, one of the first things they came out on was the artificial food dyes and that they’re banning artificial food dyes. But as of today, there has been no regulatory framework that I’ve seen on how that is going to happen. Now, you have seen some companies say they’re going to make efforts to remove artificial dyes, but that’s kind of just a gentleman’s agreement at this point. Not anything that will permanently change policy.

0:07:52 Vonnie Estes: And that would be through the FDA.

0:07:54 Mollie Van Lieu: The food dies, correct?

0:07:56 Vonnie Estes: Yeah.

0:07:56 Mollie Van Lieu: Yeah.

0:07:57 Vonnie Estes: And so just because Secretary Kennedy says it, doesn’t make it so, I guess is the point I want to make, you know, that it has to go through some sort of process from a policy perspective.

0:08:07 Mollie Van Lieu: Yeah. But then, you know, he clearly has a grassroots network. Right. So if you’re changing kind of consumer perception, there’s other ways. Right. That you can influence the market if consumers are absorbing that. And we’ve seen certainly, I think we don’t totally know how much it’s certainly dominating inside the Beltway. Maha. I think we need to figure out how much outside the Beltway it’s really influencing. And maybe people aren’t calling it Maha. Right. But they are when you break down some of these issues, they are aligned in some way with some of these efforts.

0:08:42 Vonnie Estes: So the report didn’t pull any punches when it comes to corporate influence. It notes that the vast majority of nutrition research is funded by industry players, and it even Critiques the makeup of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. How can we rebuild public trust when science and policy are so closely tied to corporate interests?

0:09:03 Mollie Van Lieu: Yeah. So this one’s really interesting and fascinating, and I think it’s important to kind of break it down and look at it objectively. And I’ve been in nutrition policy for a long time at this point. And for people who know me, I’m not going to be the first person to defend a food company that produces majority junk food or foods of low nutrient quality. But so I don’t. I’m coming at this as do I believe that every food company’s first interest is individuals human health? No.

0:09:43 Mollie Van Lieu: But I think that there’s also some of the language used as if it’s almost a conspiracy theory and it’s intentional. And I think if you kind of pull back, we got to this place a little bit unintentionally, too. So we’ve had so many technological. If you look at kind of humans in general, it is a very quick timeline where we went from not being obese to having overwhelming rates of obesity in this country. But when you look at kind of the trajectory over the Last hundred years, 100 years ago in the U.S.

0:10:26 Mollie Van Lieu: we had really low life expectancy, really low. It was not uncommon for many children in a family to not make it out of childhood. And part of that is scientific advances on the medical side, but part of it is food, too. Like, we’ve made technological advances that got people more food. It was cheaper, it was more accessible, and we solved some of those severe malnutrition. But we’ve also kind of overshot it now at this point. Right. And those foods that at one point were really helpful.

0:11:05 Mollie Van Lieu: And then you kind of compound that with societal changes where you had both adults in the household working and not as much time at home to grow food or prepare food. And I don’t think most people want to go back to that. So we have kind of this. All of these technological advances and really solving for issues and then societal changes. But now we have this problem that we have to deal with. So in terms of what’s the corporate influence, there’s really kind of three things that are called out and I think are worth discussing is one, lobbying.

0:11:42 Mollie Van Lieu: Every industry has. Conducts lobbying. Most food companies have their own lobbyists. I’m a lobbyist for the fruit and vegetable industry. And certainly that can have. That has consequences on nutrition policy. There’s no doubt that decisions are made at times based on maybe business needs or industry needs more than what is Best for public health. But I don’t think lobbying in and of itself is bad. I think that that’s a what sets us apart in the United States too. Like everybody has a right to petition their government around their interests, so.

0:12:22 Intro Speaker: Right, exactly.

0:12:23 Mollie Van Lieu: Yeah. Or it’s just like sharing the impacts that this has. And so it’s on the policymakers to do what’s right. But I think, you know, painting it with a broad stroke that all corporate lobbying is bad, I think has unintended consequences that we might not be thinking about. And the same goes for research. So a lot of talk about research and certainly there are industries that are conducting research to make foods appear not as bad as they are. But again, if you paint it with a broad stroke, we’re going to have really terrible unintended consequences.

0:12:56 Mollie Van Lieu: I mean, the produce industry funds a lot of research. Right. And if we don’t fund it, nobody else is. Or we’re partnering and getting some money from the government, some money from academic institutions. And those are things around, you know, improving nutrient density or mechanization or pest and disease. And if you label like any research that is funded by an industry as not trustworthy, there’s severe implications to that.

0:13:23 Mollie Van Lieu: But that being said, there is plenty of research that, you know, companies are putting out, but that’s not, doesn’t necessarily mean that that is influencing decisions like the dietary guidelines, because that’s another area that got a lot of criticism as well.

0:13:40 Vonnie Estes: The commission calls for gold standard science to better understand links between diet, environmental exposures and disease. It also highlights a stark contrast in funding. Industry spends over 60 billion annually on nutrition science while the government allocates just 1.5 billion. Where do you think we need to focus new research efforts and where could the funding realistically come from? You started to talk a little bit about how we’re trying to fund some stuff and other coalitions, but where will that funding come from with all the cuts?

0:14:11 Mollie Van Lieu: Right, exactly. Yeah. So it’s a great question. Right. And there’s not a simple answer to it. And that’s why these issues are so complicated, because they’re, you know, it’s, it’s good to have scrutiny when you’re looking at industry funded research. But as the data shows, if we simply get rid of any industry funded research or don’t use that, we’re going to be, we’re going to have problems. But certainly we need more federal investment in nutrition research and specialty crop research and just producing better and more and you know, improving soil health. So there’s like the specialty crop research that I think is totally related to nutrition, but then there’s kind of your traditional nutrition research. And I think at NIH, it’s like 1/2 of 1% is allocated towards nutrition research.

0:15:03 Mollie Van Lieu: So we definitely want to see an increase there. I mean, we could go. And I’m not a scientist, so I don’t want to. I know on podcasts, people like to pretend they’re people that they’re not sometimes in science, I’m not going to be one of those people. But. But you could go on and on about what exactly that research is. And there’s so much because it’s so severely underfunded, but really what we need is national coordinated response on research.

0:15:30 Mollie Van Lieu: So really having someone at the top coordinating nutrition research, identifying a nutrition research strategy. So with the resources that we allocate, which absolutely need to be increased, we’re then kind of using them and getting the best ROI and making sure that all of the entities that are doing that research are kind of working in the same direction. So we have research happening at NIH, which, as I shared it underrepresents nutrition research. But even in that. That’s really complicated. It’s not without.

0:16:06 Mollie Van Lieu: I mean, we can say we want more funding for it, and we do, but in this environment, when the government is cutting, cutting, cutting, that’s not really realistic. And then when you look at a place like the NIH that’s also doing research on Alzheimer’s and doing research on rare diseases that private companies will never do because the ROI is not there because it impacts so few people and the research is really expensive. But like, if that’s your kid, you want the government to be doing it. So it’s like, what do you take away from.

0:16:38 Mollie Van Lieu: But if we have that national coordination, we can ensure that the CDC and USDA and all of these different offices are kind of moving in the same direction.

0:16:48 Vonnie Estes: How does that national coordination happen? Like, is that supposed to come from HHS or where does that come from?

0:16:55 Mollie Van Lieu: Yeah, so great question. So you could. Congress could establish a position, like make it a cabinet position. You could have the administration appoint someone. I think it’s better to do it through Congress because then you have consistency and you probably, you know, there’s pros and cons of making it an appointee position, which means the whomever the president is gets to appoint that position, but you really need to establish it as more of a cabinet level position.

0:17:27 Vonnie Estes: So, interestingly, while the report critiques ultra processed foods, it barely mentions successful federal produce initiatives like Snap Fruit and vegetable incentives or produce prescriptions. Why do you think these kinds of programs are overlooked and what should be done to elevate their role in national nutrition policy? I know you’re really involved in these programs and we need to push them out there.

0:17:50 Mollie Van Lieu: Yeah. So we had submitted eight recommendations to the MAHA commission in March when they established the commission and said they were going to do this report. So I’m still hopeful that when they put out their second report in August that actually lays out the policy platform that they’ll embed those. But yeah, I was disappointed to not see explicit mention of food is medicine and produce prescription programs because there are some happening within the government, but it’s in a pilot form at this point.

0:18:19 Mollie Van Lieu: But certainly how they talk about food and how it relates to diet related disease and how it relates to healthcare costs is laying the framework for produce prescriptions. But Dr. Oz, who many people know from his TV show, is the administrator for the center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and so would love to see him come out and say that these federal health care programs will make these a standard practice of clinical care. Because once we see coverage happen in Medicare and Medicaid, you typically see it happen in private insurers as well.

0:19:03 Mollie Van Lieu: And then school meals, another one where they touch upon it. But that’s an example of where they didn’t quite get it right, which was disappointing to see because you want to make sure that the facts and the understanding of the programs are really solid when you put out a report like this. They had mentioned they talk about ultra processed foods in school meals, which there is, but it’s more of a symptom of our larger food system. I think sometimes we pick on school meals when they get three bucks to spend on food for a well balanced meal, it must have a fruit and must have a vegetable. So the report said that fruit and vegetables are incentivized, they’re actually required.

0:19:44 Mollie Van Lieu: But we’d love to see in the next report really talk about how you can bolster so not just stating ultra processed foods are a problem, but therefore this is the resources that we’re going to give to schools to ensure that they have other options. Because it’s not as simple as just saying don’t serve ultra processed foods, you need food to replace it with. And when 70% of the food system is ultra processed foods, like there’s a gap there that people can’t just turn on a dime.

0:20:14 Vonnie Estes: Is there a danger with this administration of those programs going away?

0:20:18 Mollie Van Lieu: There’s certainly been, I mean there’s been cuts to the SNAP program. They’ve cut some of the smaller, smaller, like a billion dollars, which is only small in government terms. But in some of the local food procurement, there’s an effort to reduce what’s called the community eligibility provision that allows school schools to streamline their paperwork and just serve food to all kids without kind of doing individual checks.

0:20:48 Mollie Van Lieu: So, yeah, some of this is not speaking to each other on the WIC program is a great example of this, where in the MAHA report, they really speak very highly of the WIC program and the health outcomes that it has. And that’s thanks to the fruit and vegetable program, in large part because you get enough money to align consumption with the dietary guidelines. But just a few weeks ago, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins was testifying and asked if they’re committed to fully funding the fruit and vegetable benefit in wic, and she said she couldn’t commit to that. So you kind of have these two different opinions coming to head, which is that’s what makes this administration very interesting. You have very kind of different opinions and perspectives.

0:21:37 Mollie Van Lieu: And obviously a Congress that’s looking to reduce the federal deficit. So, yeah, it’s going to be interesting to see how they handle some of these tough questions.

0:21:50 Vonnie Estes: So with the strategy due in August, what changes or initiatives do you think we’ll see in the next few months? And are there any signals from the Hill or the White House that we should be paying attention to?

0:22:02 Mollie Van Lieu: Yeah, so we’re really watching what Congress does with this report. Like, are they going to take it and be inspired to introduce legislation? Are they going to ignore it? Right. Which that sends a signal too. So I think really seeing what Congress does is going to be interesting. That being said, certainly the administration is very bold and their approach to these things. So based on the report, I think we’ll see a lot of attention on ultra processed foods. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to do something in the school meal space related to ultra processed foods.

0:22:41 Mollie Van Lieu: The Secretary has already said that they’re releasing a new Dietary Guidelines for Americans that will be four pages long. Right now it’s 160 pages long. So, yeah, so that. And that one’s interesting. And I just get in the weeds a little bit here, but it does have implications on the produce industry. Is I have no doubt that in those four pages, fruits and vegetables are going to be a main component to it.

0:23:05 Mollie Van Lieu: But how the dietary guidelines work is that they are recommendations for all Americans. But certainly most of us are not, you know, going through the 160 pages and determining how we’re going to our our daily meals. But they do it is kind of the baseline nutrition guidelines that go to hospitals, that go to dietitians that go to that are how school meals are. Nutrition standards are formulated. So as a result of the last dietary guidelines, as I said previously, you have to serve a fruit and you have to serve a vegetable. But for vegetables, because the dietary guidelines separates vegetables into subgroups over the course of a week, a school has to serve starchy vegetables, they have to serve dark green vegetables, they have to serve red and orange vegetables, they have to serve legumes. Yeah.

0:23:57 Mollie Van Lieu: So I mean, that’s kind of why you see salad bars, because they have to serve so many. And you know, there was a time where it was not a rainbow at school of Fruits and Vegetables. So if we super simplify the dietary guidelines again and just kind of talk about them as fruits and vegetables, you might revert back to a time where we’re not kind of institutionalizing eating the rainbow.

0:24:23 Vonnie Estes: Yeah. Get a lot of white things. Thank you so much, Molly. I really appreciate your time and your understanding and helping us navigate these issues. It’s really complicated and I think it’s really helpful to have experts like you come on and just kind of guide us through it and we’ll be listening to you in the future and seeing what’s going on.

0:24:47 Mollie Van Lieu: Thank you.

0:24:49 Intro Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to Fresh Takes on Tech, hosted by Vonnie Estes. If you enjoyed the conversation, please subscribe, rate and share it with your network. You can find more episodes and resources at freshproduce.com See you next time for another Fresh take.