The American diet under Trump
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In his inaugural address, President Donald Trump said he wanted to end chronic illnesses. The promise is part of the Make America Healthy Again campaign pushed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump picked to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. It’s a powerful slogan. But experts warn that some of RFK Jr.’s proposals are based on conspiracy theories and false information instead of actions that could actually improve Americans’ health, like backing targeted reforms in the food industry. On the show today, Jessica Knurick, a registered dietitian who decodes nutrition and public health misinformation, joins the show to discuss the business of food, what processed foods actually are, how our food supply became full of them, and why chronic disease disproportionately impacts low-income communities. Plus, the policy solutions she would propose to improve Americans’ health.
Later, as the LA fires continue to burn, listeners share how they’re thinking about climate risk in their neck of the woods. Plus, a sober health journalist changes her mind about Dry January.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
- “RFK Jr. faces battles in quest to change America’s food” from The Washington Post
- “What Is MAHA?” from New York magazine
- “How RFK Jr.’s Pledge To Make America Eat Healthier Clashes With Trump” from Forbes
- “A Dietitian’s Guide to the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Movement” from Public Health Dad
- “Junk food turns public villain as power shifts in Washington” from CBS News
We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question. Leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART or email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone, I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us. |
| 0:12.2 | I'm Kai Rizdahl, Tuesday, January the 21st, 2025, as the date will tell you, we are day one now, |
| 0:19.0 | the first official full day of Trump 2. And what he is going to do |
| 0:24.3 | is already starting to become more clear. We're going to go, well, we're probably going to talk |
| 0:29.0 | about it a lot over the next four years. Today, though, we're going to talk about food, the American |
| 0:32.8 | food system, and what we eat. Yeah, because right now there is a lot of buzz, and I know that Trump is rolling out, |
| 0:41.3 | tons of things the Trump administration is doing a lot, and it can be overwhelming, |
| 0:44.9 | but we're going to pick one thing, as Kai said, because there's been a lot of buzz about our food system, |
| 0:50.4 | whether you're seeing headlines about seed oils, raw milk, chemicals in our food, especially with RFK Jr.'s presidential campaign centered on that, and now we're waiting to hear if he is going to get an actual set date for his confirmation hearing for running health and human services. |
| 1:07.9 | You know, so we may be heading into a new era of food policy in this country. |
| 1:12.2 | So here to make us smart about this is Dr. Jessica Nurek. |
| 1:15.3 | She's a registered dietitian with a PhD, hence that doctor, in physical activity, nutrition, and wellness. |
| 1:21.3 | And she unpacks nutrition and public health misinformation on social media. |
| 1:25.6 | You can find her at at Dr. Jessica Nurek. That's spelled |
| 1:29.9 | K-N-U-R-I-C-K. Welcome to the show, Jessica. Thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here. |
| 1:36.8 | Thank you. So why do you think food and its politics have become such a hot topic right now? |
| 1:48.3 | Well, I think that, I think that the Make America Healthy Again movement is obviously a major reason. And they've tapped into something |
| 1:52.4 | with that a lot of Americans are concerned about, which is our health. We, you know, we have, |
| 1:57.0 | we do have a chronic disease issue in our country, partially because we don't see |
| 2:01.2 | things like infectious disease issues anymore. So, so that's part of it. But certainly a lot of |
| 2:07.3 | chronic disease, I mean, over half of the country is living with at least one chronic health |
| 2:11.1 | condition like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes. And certainly a lot of those are the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marketplace, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Marketplace and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.