MAHA’s War on Ultra-processed Foods Has Been Vindicated

By John Klar, Contributing Writer, The MAHA Report

(This opinion piece written by The MAHA Report writer, John Klar, originally appeared on December 10, 2025 in The Baltimore Sun; republished here with permission from the author and The Baltimore Sun.)

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been a pariah in the mainstream media for his audacity to challenge a cult-like reverence for mRNA and other vaccines. Yet the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement is much broader than vaccines, drawing support from those who favor healthier food, reducing America’s chronic disease epidemic and supporting local U.S. farms.

The medical journal The Lancet has just released three companion studies that vindicate this MAHA message.

Published on Nov. 18, the three studies collectively focus on the science, policies and politics of ultra-processed foods (UPF). This extensive examination of global food supplies and the rapid transition of human diets from traditional, whole foods prepared at home to pre-prepared, highly processed options confirms the resonant message of presidential candidate-turned-HHS-Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The first study focuses on the science of ultra-processed foods and human health by presenting three hypotheses: 1) ultra-processed foods are “globally displacing long-established diets,” 2) this deteriorates diet quality, “especially in relation to chronic disease prevention,” and 3) the result is an increase in diet-related chronic diseases. Unsurprisingly, the study concludes that “the totality of the evidence supports the thesis that displacement of long-established dietary patterns by ultra-processed foods is a key driver of the escalating global burden of multiple diet-related chronic diseases.” This is MAHA 101.

The second paper in The Lancet series presents a set of policies designed to reverse the unhealthy dietary transition from traditional to ultra-processed diets. Noting that policies to date have focused on reducing consumption of unhealthy foods, the paper identifies four “food policy domains” that motivate UPF production, marketing and consumption, and explores policy options for each to target large-scale food system areas in greatest need of change. The domains studied include “UPF products, UPF food environments, UPF manufacturers, fast-food corporations, and supermarket corporations, retailers and food supply chains.” This study also explores policies to protect and incentivize dietary patterns based on fresh and minimally processed foods, especially for low-income households worldwide.

The third paper is tellingly titled, “Towards unified global action on ultra-processed foods: understanding commercial determinants, countering corporate power, and mobilizing a public health response.” This analysis likens the sluggish policy response to the harmful impacts of UPFs on global public health to tobacco control efforts decades ago. The paper presents the global food crisis in three stages: 1) the UPF industry is a key driver of the problem due to the high profitability of UPFs, 2) protecting the public is stymied by the UPF industry’s coordinated corporate political activities to counter opposition and block regulation, and 3) possible strategies to counter this UPF monopolization of food supplies and distribution systems.

The Lancet’s comprehensive analysis explains how petroleum-based food colorings have so long contaminated American children’s breakfast cereals, and why Secretary Kennedy and his swelling MAHA movement have so much more to do than replace food dyes. The third study identifies direct lobbying and “infiltrating government agencies” as key factors allowing corporations to dominate food supplies with unhealthy, highly profitable products. That sounds exactly like the captured regulatory agencies that Kennedy is constantly calling out. No wonder the mainstream (corporate-controlled) media expends so much hyperbolic fuming over Kennedy’s brain worm and long-past heroin addiction.

Big Pharma is a playground schoolkid compared with the mafia-like power and domination of Big Food. The Lancet’s third paper exposes this food colossus, presenting key strategies for reclaiming free markets and healthy foods:

“Reducing the UPF industry’s power involves disrupting the ultra-processed business model and redistributing resources to other types of food producers; protecting food governance from corporate interference; and implementing robust conflict of interest safeguards in policy making, research, and professional practice. Mobilising a global response includes framing UPFs as a priority global health issue; building powerful global and country-level advocacy coalitions; generating legal, research, and communication capacities to empower advocacy and drive policy change; and ensuring a just transition to low-UPF diets.”

This captures the core tenets of the MAHA movement. However, there is no MAHA through HHS alone — the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the frontline agency charged with overseeing America’s food supplies. Thus far, Secretary Brooke Rollins has demonstrated support for Big Ag and the nation’s soy and corn farmers (the backbone of the “ultra-processed business model”), while organic and farm-to-school programs have been chopped under the second Trump administration. Secretary Rollins must “redistribute resources to other types of food producers” before there are no small family farms left to support. Industry capture of USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency will prevent Republicans from delivering on MAHA campaign promises, ceding potent political ground to Democrats for the 2026 midterms and beyond.

There is no stopping the bipartisan MAHA movement because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has struck a socio-political nerve. Millennials and Gen Z want grass-fed meats from antibiotic-free animals. Registered Republicans join Democrats across the country who want fewer chemicals and healthier foods for their children and families.

Uber drivers, blue-collar laborers and Moms Across America all want food free of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), yet the EPA just approved new PFAS pesticides. EPA spokeswoman Brigit Hirsch announced in a statement that “many fluorinated compounds registered or proposed for U.S. pesticidal use in recent years offer unique benefits for farmers, users and the public.” Industrial gaslighting via consumer-deaf regulators is a failed strategy that won’t cut it anymore: The public doesn’t desire the “unique benefits” of endocrine-disrupting forever chemicals accumulating in their daughters’ bodies.

America is now a net importer of, increasingly, ultra-processed foods. Force-feeding Americans nutrient-deficient, imitation foods from dubious Chinese factories at the behest of profit-raking multinational corporations and the World Economic Forum is no longer going to be accepted by voters. The Lancet’s three-study series echoes Kennedy’s campaign messaging and HHS stewardship: Eliminate corporate capture of federal agencies, support healthier whole-food diets and reverse the chronic disease epidemic in America by supplying fresh, whole foods to the nation’s public schools, hospitals, SNAP recipients and military personnel. That’s the grassroots-fed meat of the MAHA movement, and it will never accept industrial, plant-based imitation substitutes. Nor should it.

John Klar, a contributing writer to The MAHA Report on Substack, is a pastor, attorney and farmer. He’s the author of the book “Small Farm Republic: Why Conservatives Must Embrace Local Agriculture, Reject Climate Alarmism, and Lead an Environmental Revival.”