In September 2025, I was invited by the Flagstaff Family Food Center to give a talk on “Anti-Hunger Politics 2025: Planting Seeds for Resilience.”  This is an organization in Northern Arizona doing outstanding anti-hunger work.

The Center has just produced its 2025 Northern Arizona Food Equity Report.  The online copy is here.  It is well worth a look.

The Center sent this to me with this message:

We hope this resource can serve as a resource for multiple stakeholders across the food landscape, like you. Data and lived experience should always be the guiding light in this work, and we are proud to be part of a community that shares that sentiment and helps carry it out.

I wrote the Foreword to the report (see page 4).  Here’s what I said—and I meant every word:

It is my honor and privilege to introduce the impressive and utterly compelling
2025 Northern Arizona Food Equity Report. The Flagstaff Family Food
Center (FFFC) has done a superb job of collecting what must have been
incredibly hard-to-get data on hunger and food insecurity in the rural and
tribal communities it serves.

These data reveal a shocking truth: many people—even those working full- or
part-time—lack sufficient resources to feed themselves and their families
and require government and private food assistance to survive. Even working
people cannot keep up with the rising costs of housing, rent, utilities, and food.

Today, government food assistance programs like SNAP and WIC are under
siege and targeted for cuts, not increases. Private groups like FFFC do the
best they can to fill the gaps and meet the ever-increasing demands for
food assistance, especially from the most vulnerable members of society-
-children, the disabled, and seniors.

This report presents the stark facts: too many Northern Arizona residents
experience food insecurity, and their numbers are rising. It explains the
reasons for food insecurity, particularly for these communities, and draws on
the lived experience of community members to describe why this problem
requires an immediate solution. It describes potential policy solutions, and
the reality-based barriers to achieving them. And it presents this critically
important information without ever losing sight of the cultural context in
which food insecurity occurs in Northern Arizona.

These are tough times in America. Northern Arizona is fortunate to have a
group like the FFFC doing the hard work and clear thinking needed to solve
some of the most difficult problems facing our society today.

I was riveted to come across this item.

Coked-Up Salmon Go Speeding Upstream: Have you ever wondered whether the cocaine you snort ends up giving Atlantic salmon the zoomies? It turns out it does—at least to a certain extent. Welcome to the Salmonopolis 500.

No.  It never entered my mind.

But now there is a study:  Cocaine pollution alters the movement and space use of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in a large natural lake [Current Biology, 36, 2018-2027.e4]

Here, we combine slow-release chemical implants with acoustic telemetry tracking to reveal how environmentally realistic levels of cocaine and its main metabolite, benzoylecgonine, affect the movement of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) smolts in a large natural lake (Lake Vättern, Sweden). Benzoylecgonine exposure increased weekly movement rates of fish in the wild, with exposed fish swimming up to ∼1.9 times farther per week relative to controls. In addition, benzoylecgonine-exposed fish dispersed up to ∼12.3 km farther than control conspecifics.

Oh.  They put the cocaine into the fish.  Not a natural experiment.

But here’s another study, examining drugs in the natural environment: Pharmaceutical pollution of the world’s rivers  [PNAS:119 (8) e2113947119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113947119]

Here, we present the findings of a global reconnaissance of pharmaceutical pollution in rivers. The study monitored 1,052 sampling sites along 258 rivers in 104 countries of all continents, thus representing the pharmaceutical fingerprint of 471.4 million people. We show that the presence of these contaminants in surface water poses a threat to environmental and/or human health in more than a quarter of the studied locations globally.

Cocaine did not show up as a major contaminant in this study.  Tylenol does; it is #1.

The contaminants with the highest concentrations were paracetamol, caffeine, metformin, fexofenadine, sulfamethoxazole (antimicrobial), metronidazole (antimicrobial), and gabapentin

Comment

We take a lot of Tylenol and drink a lot of coffee, explaining the two drugs most frequently found in this study.  Lots of people take metformin for type 2 diabetes.  The more drugs we take, the more we pee out, and the more gets into rivers.

The investigators found huge socioeconomic inequities in drug contamination.  There were drugs everywhere they sampled, even in Antarctica, but the highest levels were in low- and middle-income countries with unregulated pharmaceutical manufacturing plants, untreated sewage, and waste dumping.

Rivers with the lowest drug contamination were in remote areas with few people or those with access to modern medicine, were in places with effective wastewater treatment, or had so much flow that the drugs got diluted.

I’m not worried about cocaine in salmon.  And I live in New York City which has outstanding water treatment.

Otherwise?  Get a good filter.

My forthcoming (September 8) book with Lisa Sutherland, Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food, discusses Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) efforts to remove potentially harmful artificial colors from the food supply.

I just bought the first cereal that dropped those colors and replaced them with vegetable dyes.

The company did this quietly.  I had to look hard to find the green label in the upper right corner saying “colors from natural sources.”  Compare the colors of the cereal (pretty close to what it actually looks like) to the original Trix colors, still on the market.

As for the cereals, both:

• Are ultra-processed
• Have artificial flavors and other chemical additives
• Contain 12 grams of sugars per serving
• Contain only 1 gram of fiber

Trix without artificial colors

Whole Grain Corn, Sugar, Corn Meal, Corn Syrup, Maltodextrin, Rice Flour, Canola And/Or Sunflower Oil, Salt, Color (Vegetable And Fruit Juice, Annatto Extract, Turmeric Extract And Other Color Added), Natural And Artificial Flavor, Trisodium Phosphate, Citric Acid, Malic Acid, Rosemary Extract. Vitamins And Minerals

Trix original, with artificial colors

I don’t usually host guest posts here, but I read food safety lawyer Bill Marler’s blog and obtained his permission to reprint it.  It should be obvious why I thought you should read it.

The people who find foodborne outbreaks are being fired, defunded, and disbanded — and the bugs do not care.

For more than thirty years I have represented the families on the other end of a foodborne outbreak — the parents of children on dialysis with hemolytic uremic syndrome, the survivors of a contaminated hamburger or a bag of spinach, the people left planning funerals. I built a career holding companies accountable when the food safety system failed. I never imagined the federal government itself would become one of the things that fails. Over the past year and a half, it has.

The cuts this administration has made to the FDA, the CDC, and the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service are not abstract budget lines. They are going to get people sick, and some of them are going to die. The cruelest part is that it is all being done under a banner that reads “Make America Healthy Again.”

Consider the FDA, which polices roughly 80 percent of our food. It lost nearly 3,900 employees in 2025 alone, part of an HHS purge of some 20,000 jobs. It began in February with what the agency’s own deputy commissioner for human foods called the “indiscriminate” firing of 89 people from the food program — after which he resigned, saying it was “fruitless” to continue. The administration fired so blindly that it had to scramble to rehire the official in charge of infant formula safety.

By March, HHS planned to cut a fifth of the FDA’s workforce, including more than 170 people from inspections and investigations. Understand what that means. In 2024 the FDA had all of 443 inspectors to cover more than 36,000 food facilities at home and abroad — against the roughly 1,500 it says it actually needs. We were already running on fumes. ProPublica found that foreign food inspections fell by nearly half in early 2025. We are importing more food than ever and looking at less of it.

Then there is the surveillance — the quiet, unglamorous detective work that is the entire ballgame in my world. By the time a family calls me, public health investigators have usually already connected a sick child in Ohio to a sick adult in Oregon and traced both to a single contaminated lot. On July 1, the CDC gutted that capacity, scaling its FoodNet surveillance network back from eight pathogens to two. It stopped actively tracking Campylobacter, Listeria, and four others. Listeria — the same pathogen that, in the Boar’s Head outbreak just last year, caused the deadliest listeriosis outbreak in over a decade. We are turning off the smoke detectors and telling ourselves the house won’t burn.

The USDA has done its part. Its inspection service shed hundreds of positions while line speeds at some slaughterhouses climb and inspectors step back — fewer people asked to catch more contamination moving faster. And in a move that should alarm anyone who believes in evidence, the department disbanded the two scientific advisory committees that had guided federal food safety policy for decades, one of them since 1971. Their combined cost was about $300,000 a year. One was, at the moment it was dissolved, reviewing how to keep Listeria out of deli meat. That work simply stopped. For good measure, FSIS withdrew its proposed rule to limit Salmonella in raw poultry — a pathogen that sickens more than a million Americans a year — after years of work.

I want to be fair. No one in Washington woke up wanting to poison a child, and the food safety system was underfunded long before this administration; I have said so under presidents of both parties. But you cannot fire the inspectors, blind the surveillance, suspend the lab testing, dismiss the scientists, and abandon the rule making all at once and still claim that food safety is a priority. Actions are what count, and these all point one direction.

Here is what three decades have taught me. Outbreaks do not announce themselves. They are found by people — inspectors who walk the plants, epidemiologists who connect the dots, technicians who confirm the strain. Take those people away and the outbreaks still come. We just find them later, after more children are on dialysis and more families are planning funerals instead of birthday parties. The bacteria do not care about budget cuts. They never have.

I have spent my life suing companies that put profit ahead of safety. If these cuts stand, I expect to be busier than ever. That is the worst thing I could possibly tell you.

Last week on my way home from the Washington, DC, launch of the ultra-processed papers from the American Journal of Public Health, I was corresponding with Richard McCarthy (Think Like Pirates) about our mutual sadness about the death of Slow Food founder, Carlo Petrini.

Richard said our conversation inspired him to ask the free ChatGBT to produce this portrait.

I absolutely love it and wish I looked like that.

I’m trying to figure out how to use it.  Suggestions welcome.

Thanks Richard (and AI)!

Nutritionists like me cannot understand why people think they need more protein, so much so that the food industry is putting protein into everything.

Most Americans consume close to twice the amount of protein needed, and practically anyone who consumes enough calories gets plenty.  Protein is in lots of foods and it’s really hard not to get enough unless you aren’t eating much.

I’m endlessly entertained by protein in everything, and am tracking its effect on the food industry.

Guess what.  There’s a shortage.

Protein powder shortage threatens America’s biggest food craze: Companies are now grappling with whether to raise prices at a time when consumers are already reeling from a prolonged period of inflation.

The food industry views the protein craze as a growth opportunity.

How protein is shaping active nutrition in 2026:  Sustained demand for protein continues to define the active and performance nutrition space. But where are the growth niches?… Read more

And it’s not just food.  Look what’s happening with drinks.

From coffee to soda: How protein is making waves in beverage innovation:  Drinks are a new frontier for protein innovation… Read more

And just because a product contains protein, doesn’t necessarily mean its healthy.

The new paradox: Protein vs processing:  Protein is the snack industry’s hottest claim but if the foods delivering it are still ultra-processed, the sector may be building its next health halo on shaky ground… Read more

Unusual sources of protein are not doing so well these days.

Insect protein’s reality check: High costs, failed ventures and slower-than-expected market growth temper early optimism.

But peptides—smaller chains of amino acids—are another craze, despite lack of evidence for their benefits.

Peptides Move From Fringe Biohacks to Functional Food Frontier:  As demand surges for targeted health solutions, Nuritas’ Nora Khaldi discusses how AI is transforming peptide discovery, and why food and beverage may be the industry’s next big play… Listen now

As always, I’m for getting protein from foods, largely plant sources.  Yes plant proteins sometimes are low in essential amino acids but the low ones differ among plant sources, so variety takes care of gaps: rice, wheat, and corn with beans, peanut butter sandwiches.  Easy.

The American Journal of Public Health has just published a series of papers on ultraprocessed foods to which I contributed this editorial.  These papers are released today as part of the launch of new initiative, FedUP! aimed at establishing policies to help reduce consumption of ultraprocessed foods and prevent their harm to health.

Press releases for the series and campaign are here and here (longer, more quotes).  

The other papers are on the AJPH webpage dedicated to this series; all are open access.

Here is the recording of the press conference.

Press coverage is here.

And here is my editorial.

The Politics of Ultraprocessed Foods: Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH

On January 7, 2026, the Trump administration’s Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) jointly released the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. For the first time since they were established in 1980, these called for “a dramatic reduction in highly processed foods laden with refined carbohydrates, added sugars, excess sodium, unhealthy fats, and chemical additives.” The actual guideline, one of eight, says “Limit highly processed foods, added sugars, & refined carbohydrates.” ¹

Although these statements do not use the term “ultraprocessed,” that is clearly what they mean. The guidelines are based on a commissioned scientific foundation report that refers repeatedly to ultraprocessed foods and cites major studies of their health effects.² Those studies, largely observational, used the Nova classification system to divide foods into four categories based on their degree of processing: unprocessed or minimally processed (Nova 1), processed culinary ingredients (Nova 2), processed (Nova 3), and ultraprocessed (Nova 4).³ The scientific foundation report notes three reasons for avoiding the Nova 4 term: no consensus definition of “ultraprocessed” exists, defining refined starches and sugars as Nova 2 underestimates dietary intake of Nova 4 foods, and the Nova system classifies some nutrient-dense foods as ultraprocessed. On this basis, the guidelines use “highly processed” as a euphemism.

Even so, the very mention of processing in the US dietary guidelines must be considered an important forward step. In advising limits on highly processed foods, HHS and USDA reversed the decision made by the Biden administration’s Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC). That committee judged the category of ultraprocessed to be too ambiguously defined, and the observational evidence for its harm to health too subject to error, to warrant an “eat less” recommendation.⁴ I view this decision as overly cautious. Yes, observational studies can only demonstrate association, not causation, but of more than 100 studies of ultraprocessed diets and health, nearly all found such diets to increase risks for chronic disease and overall mortality.³

Furthermore, the DGAC excluded consideration of the one exceptionally well-controlled randomized clinical trial available at the time. The participants in that study were housed in a metabolic ward—they could not lie or cheat about what they were eating—and given a diet of either minimally processed or nutritionally comparable ultraprocessed foods. The study results were unexpected and dramatic; the participants consumed an average of 500 calories a day more on the ultraprocessed diet, without realizing it.⁵ The DGAC eliminated this trial from consideration because it had set criteria for inclusion that required studies to last longer and involve more participants.⁶ I thought the DGAC should have made an exception for this trial; metabolic ward studies are enormously expensive and few human volunteers are willing to be locked in one for more than a few weeks.

At issue is the preponderance of research; scientists can interpret it differently. The Trump administration’s commissioned research review found “robust and consistent adverse associations between HPF [highly processed food] consumption and a broad range of chronic health outcomes, often in a dose–response fashion,” and concluded that “the current evidence base provides a strong rationale for immediate action at the individual, population, institutional, and policy levels.”⁷ Many researchers and nutrition professionals, including me, agree with this assessment.⁸

This guideline is new, but most of the other 2025 dietary guidelines are consistent with long-standing scientific consensus on the benefits of eating more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, and limiting intake of added sugars, sodium, and alcohol, although they call for greater restriction of sugars and less precise (vague) restriction of alcohol. The guidelines sharply diverge from consensus in recommending a doubling of protein—a euphemism for meat—and in not emphasizing plant foods more strongly. They promote greater intake of meat along with full-fat dairy, butter, and beef tallow, but inconsistently limit saturated fat to 10% of calories.¹

The agencies’ fact sheet makes the politics explicit; it uses the word “evangelizing.” Its major point: previous governments have lied to you about dietary risks, and you need to take personal responsibility for what you eat. In doing so, the guidelines reject concerns about health equity—and, therefore, policies that might address social determinants of health—as deserving of consideration.⁹ Despite promises that the guidelines would be free of conflicts of interest, four of the nine writers of the research reviews report financial ties to meat and dairy industry groups, and three more disclose ties to other food industries.³ The conflicted interests and emphasis on animal-based foods make these guidelines appear to have been captured by the meat and dairy industries.¹⁰

I cannot determine whether these guidelines were influenced more by corporate capture or by the personal ideologies of the agency secretaries; they, after all, selected the individuals who wrote the research reviews and are responsible for what the guidelines say. I also do not know how even “highly processed” made it into the guidelines in the face of what surely must have been intense food industry opposition. The food industry, joined by some nutrition scientists, much prefers guidelines based on nutrient content: sugar, salt, fat. Doing so permits the few frequently cited nutrient-dense Nova 4 products—some whole wheat breads, yogurts, and power bars, and plant-based meats—to be considered processed, not ultraprocessed.

Critics of the ultraprocessed concept endlessly invoke the same arguments: there is no scientific consensus on the meaning of the term, and the concept risks undermining “established, evidence-based nutrition strategies,” thereby shifting “the focus away from the most important thing about food which is the nutrition aspect.”¹¹ But thoughtful rebuttals to these arguments note that food misclassifications do not appear to change study conclusions; well-controlled clinical trials have now been repeated with similar, biologically plausible results; the mechanisms of action of ultraprocessed foods are under study; and even “healthy” ultraprocessed foods induce greater calorie consumption.²

Behind food industry arguments is the enormous profitability of ultraprocessed products. Indeed, the very purpose of ultraprocessing is profit maximization—using low-cost ingredients to create irresistible and long-lasting products—so much so that this goal is built into its Nova definition.^2,9 The food industry’s objection to the inclusion of processing as a consideration in dietary guidelines comes down to this: eating less is bad for business.

The call for limits on ultraprocessed foods may be groundbreaking in US dietary guidelines, but in 2015, Brazil issued guidelines that included advice to “Make natural or minimally processed foods the basis of your diet.”¹² Unlike US guidelines. these were based on the idea that healthy diets should derive from socially and environmentally sustainable food systems. This is a major conceptual difference from the US approach, which emphasizes personal responsibility above all others.

When individuals are deemed entirely responsible for their own dietary intake, government policies need focus only on education. If objections to the guidelines from the food industry have been mild so far, it is surely because its leaders know that education is not enough to change dietary behavior. They much prefer education to policies aimed at regulating product contents and marketing. But to really help people reduce intake of ultraprocessed foods, we need a wide range of policy options—taxes, subsidies, marketing, procurement, product placement¹³—aimed at making healthier foods more available, accessible, and affordable.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marion Nestle is with the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, New York University, New York, NY.

Correspondence

Correspondence should be sent to Marion Nestle, Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, New York University, New York NY 10003 (e-mail: marion.nestle@nyu.edu). Reprints can be ordered at http://www.ajph.org by clicking the “Reprints” link.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2026.308530

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Marion Nestle earns honoraria from lectures and royalties from books about the politics of food.

REFERENCES

1. US Dept of Health and Human Services and US Dept of Agriculture. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030.  Available at: https://cdn.realfood.gov/DGA.pdf.  Accessed April 4, 2026.
2. US Dept of Health and Human Services and US Dept of Agriculture. The scientific foundation for the dietary guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030. Available at: https://cdn.realfood.gov/Scientific%20Report.pdf. Accessed March 4, 2026.
3. MonteiroCA, LouzadaML, Steele-MartinezE, et al. Ultra-processed foods and human health: the main thesis and the evidence. Lancet. 2025;406(10520):2667–2684. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01565-X
4. US Dept of Health and Human Services and US Dept of Agriculture. Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. Dec 2024. Available at: https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/2025-advisory-committee-report. Accessed April 3, 2026.
5. HallKD, AyuketahA, BrychtaR, et al. Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: an inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake. Cell Metab. 2019;30(1):67–77.e3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008
6. LaMotteS. They’re up to 70% of the American diet. But the US has no policy on ultraprocessed foods. CNN Health. November 22, 2024. Available at: https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/22/health/ultraprocessed-food-us-dietary-guidelines-wellness. Accessed February 27, 2026.
7. GoranM. Appendix 4.1. In: U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services and U.S.Dept of Agriculture. Impact of highly processed foods on multiple health outcomes: umbrella review of prior meta-analysis.The Scientific Foundation for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans: Appendices. Jan 7, 2026. Available at: https://cdn.realfood.gov/Scientific%20Report%20Appendices.pdf. Accessed April 3, 2026.
8. BakerP, SlaterS, WhiteM, et al. Towards unified global action on ultra-processed foods: understanding commercial determinants, countering corporate power, and mobilising a public health response. Lancet. 2025;406(10520):2703–2726. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01567-3
9. US Dept of Health and Human Services and US Dept of Agriculture. Fact sheet: Trump administration resets US nutrition policy, puts real food back at the center of health. January 7, 2026. Available at: https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/fact-sheet-historic-reset-federal-nutrition-policy.html. Accessed February 27, 2026.
10. NevesFS, NilsonEAF, MendesLL, et al. The 2025–2030 US Dietary Guidelines: an analysis of scientific integrity and global health governance. Lancet Reg Health Am. 2026;56:101402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2026.101402
11. Food Navigator—Europe. Industry takes aim at Lancet’s deadly UPF report. November 20, 2025. Available at: https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/11/20/lancet-upf-report-sparks-industry-pushback-over-policy-and-evidence-gaps/#:~:text=Most%20question%20the%20scientific%20basis,clarity%20instead%20of%20damning%20reports. Accessed February 27, 2026.
12. Brazil Ministry of Health. Dietary guidelines for the Brazilian population. 2015. Available at: https://bvsms.saude.gov.br/bvs/publicacoes/dietary_guidelines_brazilian_population.pdf. Accessed February 27, 2026.
13. ScrinisG, PopkinBM, CorvalanC, et al. Policies to halt and reverse the rise in ultra-processed food production, marketing, and consumption. Lancet. 2025;406(10520):2685–2702. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01566-1