Sugar expert: RFK Jr. motivated to act before midterm elections

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Exactly what actions the Trump administration will take to implement its Make America Health Again initiative are still unclear, but Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is motivated to act before the midterm elections, Courtney Gaine, president and CEO of the Sugar Association said here this week. 

“There is lots of motivation to get things done before the midterms” when the Democrats could regain control of Congress, Gaine said at the International Sweetener Symposium, a gathering of the American Sugar Alliance, whose members are cane and beet growers. 

Gaine said the most immediate expected actions are the release of the Make America Health Again Commission report, which is scheduled for this month; a rewrite of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, now set for September; and a subsequent rewrite of the standards for school meals. 

The Trump administration is also attempting to redefine the term “healthy” and how food companies can use that term to describe food, she said. 

“Across the country there is a lot of MAHA enthusiasm,” Gaine said.

Kennedy, she noted, has encouraged states to ask the Agriculture Department for waivers from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program rules so they can ban participants from buying soda and some other products with their benefits. Twelve states have asked for waivers, which are expected to go into effect next year. 

As the states create a patchwork of exceptions to the current SNAP rules, which allow the purchase of anything except hot foods, there will be a movement toward a national standard, Gaine added. 

In her presentation, Gaine told the sugar growers that MAHA supporters “could be on our side” because they like the fact that sugar is considered “natural.”

President Trump recently convinced Coca-Cola to sell some Coke with cane sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup in the United States, as it does in Mexico. Gaine described Trump as “very supportive of real sugar,” but noted that Kennedy has described sugar as “poison” and “an environmental toxin.”

The current climate surrounding sugar is “an emotional rollercoaster,” Gaine said. When someone says “sugar is poison,” there is “no study to refute that. You have to tap into people’s emotions and their own paradigm.”