My head is spinning.

Many of the new President's actions are inhumane and terrifying, which makes thinking about the food system seem small. When people I know start to fear for their well-being, talking about food doesn’t seem so interesting.

But food is in our faces with the RFK confirmation hearings this week, so I’ll keep talking about it until it becomes irrelevant to other crises.

I’ve listened to parts of the RFK confirmation hearings, which included a lot of yelling, interrupting, tension, and tears.

Most of the 6+ hours were spent investigating RFK’s stance on vaccines and what changes he would try to implement if confirmed to be the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). I’ve read in multiple sources that RFK watered down his anti-vax stance and tried to distance himself, including a particularly tense exchange with Bernie Sanders about a company he founded selling anti-vax onesies, like this one that says “no vax, no problem.”

What continues to make my head spin is his stance on food. I wrote about the Make America Healthy Movement (MAHA) right after the election, and I continue to be surprised by his critique of Big Food and Big Ag. In my mind, companies like Monsanto help fund political campaigns to keep the status quo and keep making money even when it harms people’s health. It does surprise me to hear RFK talking about how “We have to offer farmers an off-ramp from chemically-intensive agriculture, which they don’t want to do…."

I even listened to a conservative radio show to better understand what was happening. I now see that his stance on food is closely related to his movement’s stance on vaccines, which is that it’s poisoning our kids. Beyond the mentions of vaccines as being potentially linked to a rise in Autism, RFK and his followers also talk about the pervasive use of glyphosate, a pesticide, that could also be the cause.

As write Stephanie McNeal put it:

Then, with terrifying speed, many of these “wellness mamas” went full QAnon. It kind of came out of nowhere, but also didn’t. The conspiracies grew in fertile ground. These were women who were holistic, earthy, and eschewed things like giving a kid with a fever a spoonful of Tylenol. They were into essential oils and probably weren’t thrilled about vaccines. This was a cohort who already had a vague mistrust of the government, were reading with alarm about things like ultra-processed foods, and were growing more and more convinced that chemicals and microplastics were seeping into their children’s skin and eyes and bone marrow and slowly sending them to an early grave. Most of all they were worried, as all mothers are perennially, that the choices they were making would hurt their children.

So if you’re like me and when you hear RFK talk about the toxins in our food, diet-related disease, the lax rules of GRAS (generally regarded as safe), and the dependence on chemicals in our food supply and you find yourself nodding along - which can cause confusion and discomfort- let me tell you where I have landed and why our views are not the same.

Yes, the food system is broken, and yes there are chemicals in our food and skyrocketing numbers of diet-related diseases, but I now see RFK and the MAHA claims as selfish in their nature, as they are not talking about humanity at large or the planet or other species where so much of the suffering lies, they are talking about themselves and their families and shielding their kids from the big bad government that could make their kids sick and is forcing them to vaccinate. When I really thought about it, their arguments reminded me of how the treatment of black people was rationalized during the Jim Crow Era: “We must protect our kids and wives” type of racist narrative.

RFK’s arguments are not why I believe the food system is broken. Like most things under capitalism, the food system is broken because it is founded on exploitation. Without stripping the soils, polluting without restrictions, underpaying agricultural workers for backbreaking work in the heat, and pumping our food with subsidized corn syrup to bring down prices and make more money for companies while making the food so addictive that the majority of the population is hooked on it, the food system doesn’t work.

So yes, RFK touches on some of these points, but we are not the same. When I push for a better food system, it’s not just because of the “poisoning of our children.” It’s bigger than that.

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Gems of the Week ✨

• Support trans Girl Scouts. Thank you

  Erin Reed
  for the list of places to support. I made these Samoas Banana Bark to celebrate them.

• We had a great event at Farm to People with John Ng, the founder of Hudson Valley Fisheries. If you eat fish and haven’t tried their products, order with your next Farm to People box. Anyone can use code DANIELLE25 for $25 off. 

• I went to an All Fours book club. IYKYK. And if you don’t know, and you are curious, please read

  Miranda July
  ’s book All Fours, I can’t stop thinking about it.

• I am growing my own mushrooms with my GUS ceramic mushroom planter. Now, what should I cook?

• Interview Boss - if you are looking for a job like many of you know I am, I find this podcast to be super helpful. I just listened to an episode on ChatGPT.

Baked Quinoa and Black Bean Falafel ✨

I made these black bean and quinoa falafel this week, and they were good and insanely filling. If you need a lunch that will last for hours, prep these in advance and eat with tzatziki, pickled onions, and roasted cauliflower as we did.

I’m Hosting an Event! ✨

If you live near NYC and want to be part of a small dinner with astrologer Catherine McQ, please come! Link to RSVP here.