Lunchables, RFK Jr., And A New Era For Obesity
If demand for Lunchables hadn’t already plummeted, demand was going to come down soon.
The food and beverage giant behind “Lunchables” declared demand too low to continue sales in U.S. schools on Tuesday.
Pittsburgh-based Kraft-Heinz introduced two new packaged meals to the K-12 lineup last year within the standards of federal free and reduced-price school lunch programs.
“While many school administrators were excited to have these options, the demand did not meet our targets,” the company said in a statement appearing in the Associated Press. “This happens occasionally across our broad portfolio, especially as we explore sales channels. Lunchables products are not available in schools this year and we hope to revisit at a future date.”
According to the AP, Lunchables were pulled following a report from a consumer advocacy group showing the meals had higher levels of sodium and lead than rival products.
“Consumer Reports petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ban Lunchables and similar processed meal kits from schools,” the AP reported.
The announcement also happened to fall on the eve of a new presidential crusade to tackle childhood obesity and chronic disease. The bipartisan movement to “Make America Healthy Again” has put food manufacturers on edge over what they might expect from rare antagonists in the White House. In other words, if demand for Lunchables hadn’t already plummeted, demand was going to come down soon.
“The food industry is worrying over what Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ascendance in the Trump campaign means for the future,” reported the Wall Street Journal last week. “Kennedy, long a critic of processed foods, blames U.S. food companies and corruption among federal regulators for sickening Americans. In a recent video, Kennedy said that corporate interests have hijacked the nation’s dietary guidelines, fueling the dominance of ultra-processed foods in U.S. diets.”
Corporate food and pharmaceutical stocks tumbled Thursday when President-elect Donald Trump appointed Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Trump had previously promised Kennedy could “do pretty much what he wants” in the administration after the Democrat-turned-independent ended his presidential campaign and endorsed the Republican ticket.
“I happen to agree with a lot of things he says,” Trump said.
Kennedy has routinely condemned the corporate capture of federal agencies ostensibly dedicated to public health by blaming the food and pharmaceutical industries for engineering a sick care system instead of a true health care system. Big Pharma generates record profits with a pill for every ill fed by colossal food corporations manipulating ingredients in hyper-processed products to stimulate maximum food addiction.
“These foods consist primarily of processed sugar, ultra-processed grains, and seed oils,” Kennedy explained in his Trump endorsement speech, designed by “laboratory scientists” who “worked for the cigarette industry which purchased all the big food companies in the 1970s and 80s.”
Before the company merged with Heinz in 2015, Kraft was among the major food giants acquired by the tobacco industry in the 1980s. Philip Morris purchased the snack giant in 1988 after the cigarette manufacturer bought General Foods in 1985. The tobacco corporation owned Kraft through the innovation of the kids-marketed “Lunchables” until Philip Morris began to sell off the food subsidiary in 2001.
While school lunch programs fall under the purview of the Department of Agriculture, Kennedy takes the helm of the nation’s premier public health agency at a time when Americans are hungry for a change in course. With 6 in 10 Americans suffering from at least one chronic disease and 4 in 10 coping with at least two, Americans are too sick. Another study published Thursday meanwhile predicts nearly 260 million U.S. residents will be either overweight or obese by 2050, including 43 million children and adolescents. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), American adults at an otherwise healthy weight are already in the minority, and childhood obesity remains well beyond where Michelle Obama’s previous campaign left off.
If Kennedy’s appointment to HHS is indicative of where the Trump administration wants to go, there’s good reason to believe major reform is coming to the Agriculture Department as well. The department could probably start with finally limiting the amount of sugar served in school meals.
Links:
The Federalist: Big Pharma And Big Food Are Shaking In Their Boots At A Second Trump Era
The Federalist: Make French Fries Great Again
Washington Examiner: Kennedy fleshes out targets ahead of second Trump term
New York Post: Owning a dog can help you live longer — 4 ways they boost your health
New York Post: Smoking pot can increase cancer risk, speed up aging — and harm your future children
New York Times: As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Harms
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