Bernie Sanders is taking on ultra-processed foods — with RFK Jr.'s MAHA movement as an unlikely ally
Bernie Sanders is taking on ultra-processed food in his final weeks leading the Senate health panel.
Sanders wants the US to catch up with other countries, which have cigarette-style warning labels for food.
He sees a potential opportunity to work with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on this.
In his final weeks leading the Senate health committee, Sen. Bernie Sanders is taking on "big food."
Sanders led a hearing Thursday to interrogate how ultra-processed foods affect our bodies and how they are regulated. He is campaigning for legislation that would require warning labels on the packaging of ultra-processed foods — a step other countries took years ago.
Speaking to Business Insider on Tuesday, Sanders said he sees warning labels as a necessary first step to influence food manufacturers in America to make healthier products, especially for kids.
"When a parent goes out shopping, they need to know that there are products that are just not healthy for their kids," Sanders said. "In the United States, we have not reached that stage. Other countries are doing a lot better than we are."
Obesity has more than tripled among children since the 1970s, per CDC data. Research suggests ultra-processed foods play a significant role, though it's not clear why. Foods high in added sugars, fats, and sodium make up a majority of the calories that many Americans consume and may drive people to eat more.
"Our kids are not healthy enough," Sanders said.
Major food companies have said new labels would be expensive to produce and the cost would be passed onto consumers. Some argue mandatory warning labels would violate their right to free speech. They say we should stick with the current system: a voluntary policy in which companies can put health warnings on the product packaging if they see fit.
A shift may be coming, in part driven by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's pick for secretary of Health and Human Services, who has promised to "make America healthy again" and clean up the US food system. Kennedy's message has resonated with voters as consumer demand grows for healthier food — more natural, more transparent, less processed.
Food giants are nervous about Kennedy's reign, Jerold Mande, the CEO of the advocacy group Nourish Science and a senior member of the USDA during the Obama administration, told Business Insider.
"Having worked on this for decades, the level of response from companies has exceeded anything I've seen" since Michelle Obama's healthy eating campaign, Mande said. "They're deeply concerned that this is going to be a change."
Sanders said he's ready to ride the MAHA wave if that's what it would take to clean up American diets.
The pitch: Bring the US up to speed with other countries
Sixteen countries — including most Latin American countries, Canada, Iran, Sri Lanka, and Singapore — have mandatory, front-of-package warning labels.
Sanders cited the US's southern neighbor Mexico as inspiration. During our interview, he pulled up a photo of two bottles of Coca-Cola, one sold in the US and the other in Mexico. The Mexican bottle includes large, black, octagonal boxes that say "excess sugars," "excess calories," and "caffeine warning, not recommended for children."
"That's kind of common sense," Sanders said. "I think if most parents knew that there were 10 or 15 teaspoons of sugar in this drink, I suspect many parents would say, 'Sorry, Joe, you can't have that.' It would put pressure on the industry to start producing healthier products."
The Coca-Cola Company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the American Beverage Association said the industry has taken voluntary steps to curb sugar for kids, such as not advertising to children and removing full-calorie products from schools.
Research conducted in these countries has found the labels do have an impact — if the front-of-package labeling is clear.
In Chile, which has black boxes on food packaging similar to Mexico's, people dramatically reduced the amount of sugar-, fat-, and sodium-heavy products they bought after labels were included. Companies have also reformulated their products in the country to avoid warning labels by cutting sugar, fat, and sodium levels.
Katherine Miller, the founder of the nutrition advocacy group Table 81, told Business Insider it would be difficult for the US to mandate similar requirements.
"I mean, there are 20 different pieces of the federal government that regulate our eggs," Miller said. "How do we really think we're going to get front-of-the-label, the front-of-the-package labeling in a short period of time that will align the scientific community, the food systems community, the health community, and corporations? That doesn't feel realistic."
The US is already testing out new food labels that flag bad ingredients
The Food and Drug Administration has designed two options for what these new labels could look like on the front of food and drinks.
One version would flag a product as "high in" sugar, sodium, or fat if it exceeds 20% of the daily recommended limit. Another version would use a color-coded system to grade the levels of sugar, sodium, and fat in the product ("low" for under 5%, "high" for over 20%, "medium" for anything in between).
The agency has spent months testing both options in focus groups.
Sanders said it doesn't go far enough.
He's proposed legislation that would force food companies to put a stop sign on anything ultra-processed or high in sugar, similar to cigarettes.
Sanders — who said he is as "guilty as anybody else" when it comes to eating and snacking — acknowledged how difficult it is to make healthy choices and how easy it is to accidentally ingest copious amounts of fat, sodium, or sugar.
"Some years ago, I was thirsty and I picked up a bottle of something, it was a juice, and I gulped it down as usual," Sanders recalled in the interview. "A little while later, my stomach, I really felt very queasy. I looked at the label and I saw the amount of sugar that was in it."
It was a lot higher than he expected from a quick glance at the bottle.
"The industry has done a very good job in selling us products that are cheap to produce, that make us unhealthy. And that's something Congress has got to deal with," he said.
The problem: A game of whack-a-mole with food companies
The argument against front-of-package labeling, from a health perspective, is that it could delay more concrete action.
It could also lead to unexpected consequences, Mande said.
When Mande helped design the original Nutrition Facts panel in the 1990s, the goal was to lower people's fat intake. A flurry of new research had recently come out linking fatty foods to heart disease.
Food manufacturers complied, cutting fat from their products — but often swapped it for something else. Take SnackWell's, a now-defunct diet cookie brand that seemed to offer the pleasure of a sweet treat without the consequences. The problem was that the brand replaced fat with refined carbohydrates, which have been linked to developing diabetes.
"We didn't anticipate the harm it would cause," Mande said. He said that the FDA needs to crack down on ingredients that are linked to poor health outcomes, even if brands deem them safe.
Sanders said front-of-package labeling is the best card we have to play right now.
"I think it's one thing that you've got to do," he said. "It would put pressure on the industry to start producing healthier products."
Next step: Teeing up RFK Jr.
The Senate hearing saw more bipartisan agreement than advocates expected.
"Not one senator defended the food industry. Big food is in big tobacco territory," Mande said.
Still, it comes at an inflection point. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf is on his way out, and his nominated successor, Marty Makary, hasn't talked about his position on front-of-package labels.
Plus, it's unclear if Makary would have the funds to take any action since Kennedy has said he would gut the FDA if he's confirmed as HHS secretary. (Kennedy did not respond to a request for a comment.)
Sanders hoped the discussion would harness the buzz around Kennedy's MAHA movement to make warning labels a policy priority.
"When Kennedy talks about an unhealthy society, he's right. The amount of chronic illness that we have is just extraordinary," Sanders said.
"Anybody with a brain in his or her head wants to deal with this issue, to get to the cause of the problem," he said. "I think processed food and the kind of sugar and salt that we have in products that our kids and adults are ingesting is an important part of addressing that crisis."
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