Nick Freudenberg and I wrote this op-ed for Civil Eats to start a discussion of what we think is a topic that needs it.

Can the Food Justice Movement and MAHA Find Common Ground? A cross-cutting food justice movement could improve our diets, food systems, and health.

By Marion Nestle and Nicholas Freudenberg

February 23, 2026

During the past year, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement attracted positive public and media attention and provoked widespread discussion of the importance of diet to health. As academics who have written about and participated in food-and-diet advocacy for several decades, we have rarely witnessed such spirited public debate about the connections between the well-being of the American population and the system that produces the food we eat.

The food justice movement, which  emerged from the social movements of the 1960s, has long focused on reforming the food system and improving diets. Organizations  such as HEAL Food Alliance, Community Food Advocates, Food Chain Workers Alliance, and the National Black Food and Justice Alliance have fought for broad goals such as building more collective power to improve food policies and systems, changing food and farming practices to reduce pollution and carbon emissions, and making healthier food choices available to people of color. Together with local campaigns, these national organizations have also worked to win more specific changes such as making school lunches healthier and free for all children and increasing job benefits for low-wage food workers.

While the food justice and MAHA movements hold many of the same goals, they differ deeply in other ways. We believe food-justice advocates could benefit from a clearer understanding of where their objectives and approaches overlap but also diverge from those of MAHA, as well as a more defined strategy for how to interact with the movement and decide which MAHA messages to amplify and which to subject to public debate.

“Successful movements build power by winning over new constituencies in working toward common goals; the potential for forging a shared action plan is worth pursuing.”

What do food justice advocates and MAHA supporters have in common? Both believe that the current U.S. food system and the diets it produces contribute to poor health, especially as compared to other countries. Both believe that the profit-seeking and market practices of food and beverage producers, fast food chains, and food marketers actively promote chronic disease, obesity, premature death, and preventable illness.

Both agree that food companies must change their marketing practices, especially to children, and limit chemicals, dyes, and additives in food products. Both also agree that improvements in the rules for school food and federal food assistance programs can lead to improvements in diets and health.

How do the movements differ? Whereas food-justice activists stress the need for collective and public action and make reducing inequities in healthy food access a top priority, MAHA followers emphasize the importance of individual and parental responsibility for diet and health, even for the disadvantaged. While the social justice side views profit-driven markets as a key cause of the nation’s food and health problems, most MAHA leaders (if not its rank-and-filers) endorse market-based solutions to food and health problems.

The two movements also disagree on what constitutes evidence for changing policy. MAHA distrusts established science and often rejects the scientific process that most independent researchers and food justice advocates believe constitutes the basis for policy. By relying on “mom influencers” rather than scientists, MAHA adherents show their belief in the power of narratives of personal experience. And by using  evidence gathered by non-mainstream investigators, they tap into public distrust of established science.

Fifteen years ago, the food writer Michael Pollan wrote that food movements of the day were a “big lumpy tent”  in which the various factions beneath it sometimes worked at cross-purposes. We recognize that this remains true for the food justice movement. It is also true for the MAHA movement.

Today’s MAHA movement includes activist parents fighting to improve school food and get rid of pesticides, wellness industry influencers and entrepreneurs like Calley and Casey Means, anti-vaxxers, and, of course, President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Its contributors include major corporations and right-wing leaders.

In 2024, the  largest contributor to the group’s super-PAC, the MAHA Alliance,  was Elon Musk and his SpaceX, together contributing $6 million—and this year the MAHA Center, headed by Tony Lyons, a major financial supporter of RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign, funded the controversial  Mike Tyson “Eat Real Food” Super Bowl ad for a reported $8 million. Whether the private interests of wellness entrepreneurs like the Means, and billionaires like Musk, will take precedence over the MAHA mom influencers remains to be seen.

This heterogeneity poses both an opportunity and a challenge to those seeking alliances, raising the question: Is it possible to build on commonalities given the deep differences and this era’s sectarianism and polarization? We believe the food justice movement should pursue this chance for new partnerships, despite the risks in this path. Successful movements build power by winning over new constituencies in working toward common goals; the potential for forging a shared action plan is worth pursuing. To do so, we suggest six actions for food-justice advocates.

1. Talk to MAHA activists.The groups should create forums and spaces where they can discuss commonalities and differences openly without insulting or disrespecting those who differ. Open discussion is a prerequisite for exploring the possibility of shared goals.
2. Argue with respect.We acknowledge the risks of attempting to work with and win over MAHA supporters. In some cases, we will have to agree to disagree. In others, we will forcefully debate in public settings. In all situations, we must not lose sight of common goals or conflicting values.  By listening carefully to MAHA arguments, food justice proponents can better understand its supporters’ worldviews and engage them in finding opportunities for joint action.
3. Develop a common agenda of legal and regulatory reforms. The two movements’ shared distrust of corporations—and the legal and political systems in which Big Business exerts undue influence—present important opportunities for winning public support. Can the two groups establish clear goals for legal and regulatory reforms in food, agriculture, pesticides, and other industries? These could include strategies to reduce theconflicts of interestthat enable corporations to profit from public harm and promote new evidence-based and public-serving transparency rules for businesses, universities, and government. One example—agreeing that government has the right to set policies to keep toxic substances out of our food supply and the duty to enforce these policies—would be a big step forward.
4. Provide a clear rationale for a focus on food equity. A food system that offers healthy food to the well-off but not others can never make America healthier. To enlist MAHA followers in making the entire food system more equitable will require winning their support for reducing current socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and gender inequities in access to healthy food and other basic human needs. It will require proposing they consider the “sum of us” argumentthat, for example, stronger food regulations and healthier supermarket food benefits all of us, not just the most disadvantaged.
5. Encourage MAHA followers to question the moral commitments and policies of MAGA and its leaders. The cruelty, corruption, disregard for science, and disdain for democracy that characterize MAGA leaders (but not necessarily MAHA followers) dismay Americans of varied political beliefs.

Last week, President Trump issued an executive order promoting production of glyphosate (Roundup), the widely used herbicide, claiming the weedkiller was needed to protect national economic and food security. Signaling the fragility of the MAHA/MAGA alliance, Vani Hari, an influential MAHA grassroots leader, told The Guardian, “This executive order reads like it was drafted in a chemical company boardroom. Calling it ‘national defense’ while expanding protections for toxic products is a dangerous misdirection. Real national security is protecting American families, farmers, and children.”

MAHA followers could also examine the conflicts of interests of their own wellness-industry aligned leaders. A MAHA/MAGA alliance is not inevitable. By finding specific and appealing ways to win over MAHA followers who genuinely want a healthier nation and food system, the food justice movement may help to build the political power needed for transformative changes.

6. Study successful MAHA initiatives. MAHA’s use of personal stories and narratives, its capture of public attention, its acceptance of internal differences in opinion, and its successes in rural communities are accomplishments worth emulating. MAHA has been strikingly effective in bringing public attention to our nation’s food system and food policies. Finding ways to capture the bully pulpit of public attention without ceding to the pulpits of bullies could provide lessons for other current political struggles. The food justice movement can extract relevant lessons from these experiences.

In our view, the prospect of a cross-cutting food justice movement that brings in new supporters and builds political power to win new measures to improve diets, food systems, and health is a risk worth exploring. At best, the food justice movement might open new doors for alliances between MAHA followers and activists in movements for environmental justice, women’s health, or universal health care.

Given the different worldviews of MAHA and food justice advocates, we are under no illusion that this process will inevitably or easily lead to meaningful changes in diet, food policy, or health. But we do believe that silence due to fear of criticism or conflict wins nothing. With eyes wide open, we invite others to join in the exploration of new principled alliances.

Ray Goldberg died last week at the age of 99.  He was still going pretty strong the last time I saw him last fall at the annual meeting of PAPSAC (Private and Public Scientific, Academic and Consumer Food Policy Group) at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Edmund O’Keeffe, photo

We were an unlikely pair to know each other for so long and to care about each other so deeply.

When I first met him in the early 1990s, Ray was professor of agribusiness (a term he coined) at the Harvard Business School, as representative of Big Ag as anyone could be.  When he invited me to participate in the newly formed PAPSAC, I could not imagine why he would want me there or why I should go.

Contrary to Ray’s recollection, I did not attend the first meeting. I would have had to pay my own expenses, which seemed outrageous given that so many of the participants were CEOs of multi-billion dollar companies and flew to Boston via private jet.

The second year, Ray said they would pay for my travel and persuaded me that the meeting would be worth attending.  Its purpose, he explained, was to bring food business leaders and consumer activists together to share views and to reach mutual understanding.

My interpretation: Ray thought that if we saw how caring the CEOs of agribusiness firms were about feeding the world, we would not object so much to what they did.  That never worked, but he kept on trying.  And I kept on attending, for more than 25 years.

My rationale:

• Ray was impossible to say no to.
• I could learn how agribusiness leaders thought about what they were doing.
• I could say what I thought in a presentation pretty much every year.

Two highlights:

• I witnessed the CEOs of Pioneer Hi-Bred and other agbiotech companies scream at the CEO of Monsanto for alienating the public about genetically modified crops and ruining their businesses.
• I attended the session when Ray had the bright idea of showing the film Food, Inc to the group (he thought they ought to see it).  This did not go over well, and I joined its director, Robby Kenner, in fielding audience attacks.

Despite what I consider to be a total contradiction between the profit goals of agribusiness and the goals of public healthl, Ray continued to insist that we all needed to listen to each other.

His sunny view of humanity is best illustrated by his book  Food Citizenship, which I wrote about in 2018 when it first came out.

The book consists of Ray’s interviews with dozens of PAPSAC participants, beginning with his interview with me.  [The interviews were videotaped and are  available at the Oxford University Press website.  The video of Ray’s interview with me is posted here.]

I always felt like a total outsider at this meeting, and was surprised to find myself at the core of Ray’s attempts to achieve mutual understanding among participants.

We could all use more of that.

As is clear from our interview and Ray’s response to my responses to his questions, we viewed the world of agribusiness very differently.

But I loved him, and will miss him.

• Transcript of the entire program
• Michael Pollan clip

We will act on– on David Kessler’s petition. And the questions that he’s asking are questions that FDA should’ve been asking a long, long time ago.

RFK Jr may have lied to the Senate about vaccines, but it is now evident that he also lied to his supporters about getting toxic chemicals out of the food supply.

Let’s start here: 

Well, it wasn’t his USDA (he’s Secretary of HHS), apparently.

Now we have President Trump’s executive order: PROMOTING THE NATIONAL DEFENSE BY ENSURING AN ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF ELEMENTAL PHOSPHORUS AND GLYPHOSATE-BASED HERBICIDES.

There is no direct one-for-one chemical alternative to glyphosate-based herbicides.  Lack of access to glyphosate-based herbicides would critically jeopardize agricultural productivity, adding pressure to the domestic food system, and may result in a transition of cropland to other uses due to low productivity.  Given the profit margins growers currently face, any major restrictions in access to glyphosate-based herbicides would result in economic losses for growers and make it untenable for them to meet growing food and feed demands.

Never mind the multiple independent research studies and judgment by cancer experts of the World Health Organization that glyphosate is potentially carcinogenic (see account in The New Lede).

Never mind that Bayer, which bought Monsanto and now owns glyphosate, just said it would put $7.5 billion into settling lawsuits over it.

Never mind that glyphosate is in everything, including bread.

Hypocrisy alert: RFK Jr now says he supports the president’s decision on glyphosate.

Resources

• The first piece of proposed legislation to overturn this, the ‘No Immunity for Glyphosate Act.’  Want to take bets on how far it gets?
• Fact sheet from the Center for Biological Diversity

And now, RFK Jr’s defense posted on X:

Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals. The U.S. represents 4% of the world’s population, yet we use roughly 25% of its pesticides. If these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what we are witnessing today. The consequences would be disastrous.

Disastrous for whom, exactly?

I subscribe to lots of food industry newsletters from the William Reed company, all of them written by top-notch reporters who cover topics thoroughly and accurately.  They write about things food companies need to know about.  I do too.  I find them invaluable.

For example: It would never have occurred to me to consider how the guidelines might affect forced labor in the food supply chain.

This collection of articles on the new dietary guidelines comes from FoodNavigator-USA.

• Why the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines need a ‘mulligan’ – and how to fix them: This isn’t a food fight, it’s a structural failure, according to experts who say the new US Dietary Guidelines need a reset, not another round of compromises… Read more
• ‘Highly-processed’ or ‘ultra-processed’? New dietary guidelines reignite a definitional food fight: The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans avoid the term “ultra-processed foods,” prompting both praise and criticism… Read more
• Ultra-processed food fears mount even as consumer understanding about it lags: Americans increasingly factor processing into food choices, but inconsistent definitions and tradeoffs around convenience and cost leave room for clearer communication, according to new IFIC research… Read more
• How the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines are shifting America’s plate – and sparking debate: The newest Dietary Guidelines emphasize whole foods, protein and animal fats – a shift praised by some experts as overdue, but others warn the report is retro and insufficient… Read more
• What ‘healthy’ means to Americans is changing, and so should marketing: Consumers want healthier food but struggle to trust nutrition information, creating both challenges and opportunities for brands, according to new data from the International Food Information Council… Read more
• How the Dietary Guidelines may shape product strategy and development:  The latest Dietary Guidelines may not reinvent the wheel, but they offer manufacturers a roadmap to balance nutrition, consumer preference and formulation strategy across sweeteners, grains and processed foods, according to one expert… Read more
• Federal diet guidelines accused of bowing to Big Meat:  Doctors and nutrition advocates say new Dietary Guidelines for Americans sideline science in favor of meat and dairy industry… Read more
• 2026 beef trends: How new Dietary Guidelines are shaping protein demand:  Dietary guidance, convenience-driven meals and emerging trends like beef tallow may open new avenues for innovation in beef… Read more
• US Dietary Guidelines sideline MyPlate in favor of inverted food pyramid:  The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans spotlight an inverted food pyramid, effectively sidelining MyPlate and sparking debate among nutrition experts and educators… Read more 
• Study finds dietary guidelines linked to forced labor risks in supply chain: Seafood, dairy and red meat carry a higher risk of forced labor, according to a new Tufts and University of Nottingham study that maps labor exploitation across popular US diets… Read more
  

Readers have asked—and expressed considerable frustration—that this blog does not accept comments.  An explanation seems in order.

When I started doing this blog in 2007, I took comments and enjoyed the back-and-forth with readers.

But: sometime in 2012, a troll appeared.  It (or they) posted exceptionally personal and exceptionally nasty comments several times throughout the day.  These disparaged my gender, age, and ethnicity.  They attempted to organize a campaign to get me fired from NYU (my dean at the time thought this was quite funny).

Their tone reminded me of the industry-funded and secretive Center for Consumer Freedom (I’ve written about this group previously) but I had no proof CCF was responsible, although I certainly had my suspicions.

Readers complained that the comments made civil conversation impossible, and asked me to delete them.

I consulted a cyber security expert, who noticed that all the messages, which appeared to come from a great many different people, all had almost identical IP addresses from a spam site in Putnam, Kansas.

If I wanted more information about who was responsible for them, I would need to pay the costs of investigation.

At that point, it was a easier to stop the comments than to have to monitor the site and delete the trolled ones.

So that’s why no comments.

I still get comments sent directly to my email address.  I can’t respond to all of them, but I do appreciate the ones that correct errors and raise interesting issues.

Thanks for reading.

A reader writes (my edit to preserve requested anonymity):

It’s been quite the undertaking to update what to tell patients and clients about the new DGA.  So many resources I’ve always referred to with MyPlate, eating patterns, and more are gone.  I am now having to replace them with other resources and recommendations from the American Heart Association, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and more.  We dietitians are supposed to be fully aligned with the 2025 DGA.  And what about nutrition textbooks?  My suggestion: “integrates the new 2025 DGA through an evidence based lens to foster critical thinking.”

Perfect!  I love “integrates the new 2025 DGA through an evidence based lens to foster critical thinking.”

That’s what we all need to be doing with students, patients, clients, colleagues, friends, and family.

Let’s hear it for critical thinking!

Resource

I’ve been sent a link to a webinar on precisely this topic.  I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet but I sure hope the speakers got into the weeds.

If you think food prices are increasing, you are right.

I’ve been sent an analysis from Trace One.

Trace One says “grocery prices rose 0.7% in December, the largest one-month increase since October 2022—underscoring how food costs remain a major pain point for households even as broader inflation cools.”

Some of its findings:

• Grocery inflation has outpaced broader inflation since the pandemic began.
• Beef products have seen the sharpest price increases.
• Average household grocery spending is nearing $700 per month nationally.

Comment

I’m kind of shocked by what food is costing these days.  In writing What to Eat Now, I could see that prices doubled since I wrote What to Eat in 2006.  BPut now they’ve gone up even more.  This is fine if income is going up too.

But what if it’s not?

And what if SNAP benefits are cut?

These are tough times.