Realfoodology - RFK JR, The Obama Administration, School Lunch Programs + GMO Labeling | Solo

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

EP. 226:  In today’s solo episode, I’m exploring some hot-button topics surrounding RFK Jr. and the Obama administration, especially in relation to food policy. I’ll unpack the criticism currently surrounding RFK Jr. and share why I’ve been a long-time fan of his environmental and health activism. Then, we’ll examine the Obama administration’s handling of GMOs, school lunch programs, and processed foods. While many praise the Obamas for their efforts to improve public health, I’ll reveal the lesser-known policies that may have hindered true progress, especially when it comes to our food system. Tune in for a closer look at the intersection of politics, food, and health. Sponsored By:  Organifi Go to www.organifi.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 20% Off ARMRA Collostrum  Get 15% off your first order at tryarmra.com/realfoodology BIOptimizers MagBreakthrough Get 10% off at bioptimizers.com/realfoodology with code REALFOODOLOGY Cured Nutrition Go to www.curednutrition.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 20% off Paleovalley Save at 15% at paleovalley.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY LMNT Get your free Sample Pack with any LMNT drink mix purchase at drinklmnt.com/realfoodology Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Introduction  00:04:25 - RFK Jr’s credentials and history  00:08:25 - The Obama admin and GMOs 00:12:05 - Mandatory GMO labeling  00:15:31 - GMOs vs Bioengineered food  00:20:29 - School lunch & the tomato paste debate 00:23:19 - Processed foods & Let’s Move 00:27:29 - Diversified foods 00:30:36 - Ingredients in children’s food 00:35:49 - Sodexo & the U.S. government  00:38:39 - Lunch program funding and diseases Check Out Courtney:  LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. Today's episode is a solo one, and we're going to dive into all things Obama. Now, the reason why I'm doing this is because I have been seeing a lot of talk online. There's a lot of criticism right now happening for RFK Jr. And actually, I want to dive a little bit into what RFK Jr. has done in his career, because I don't think a lot of people know everything that he's done. I've personally been following his work for about eight years now. I've been a huge fan of his because of all of the advocacy and environmental activism work that he has done for us. But I don't

think a lot of people know this because I think a lot of people are just seeing the criticism online more recently. So we're going to dive into that. And then also the reason that I'm going to talk about the Obama administration and all the things that went down regarding our food and GMOs and the school lunch program is because I'm seeing a lot of people say online while they're criticizing RFK that the Obamas did a lot for our health. And I know a lot about actually what happened during the Obama administration, especially when it comes to GMOs. And I am not trying to single out one president in particular, but I'm talking about him in particular because I know a lot of what went down because I was paying attention during this time. I actually voted for Obama both terms. Oh, well, actually I voted for him one term. I had the intention of voting for him for the other term, but I was on tour and don't love admitting this, but I didn't vote that time because I was on tour and I was out of town and I didn't, I was young and I didn't know how to do a ballot and vote when I was out of town and not in my city on the day of election.

But anyways, this is another story for another day. But just wanted to say if I get any criticisms back, the reason I'm specifically going after Obama is because there are a lot of things that happened. I'm not saying that any other president hasn't also done things and pass certain things into law and reverse certain policies that go against our food and our well-being and our health. I'm just specifically going over the Obama administration because I know a lot of what happened during that time. So let's get into it. The holidays are here and we all know what that means. It's a time of joy, but also stress between shopping for gifts, hosting family and juggling endless parties. The pressure can start to feel overwhelming, but here's the good news. There's a simple way to keep your calm this season. Let me tell you about magnesium breakthrough from bioptimizers. This is not your typical magnesium supplement. It's a powerful

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Now here's the best part. I worked out a special deal for my listeners. You can get 15% off your first order at tryarmred.com slash realfoodology or just enter realfoodology at checkout. That's T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A.com slash realfoodology. So let's first talk about RFK Jr. and all the things that he has done for our health. So I think a lot of people forget that he was once the environmental activist's golden child. I mean, in 1999, he was named one of Time Magazine's heroes for the planet. He was praised in places like The New Yorker, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the New York Times, and he did a lot of work for

our environment actually. My favorite part of his story is he was actually part of the legal team in a significant case against Monsanto, the agrochemical company that is literally poisoning us because they're spraying glyphosate on our crops. And they also created something, oh, called Agent Orange. He was a part of the litigation team and he got a $290 million payout for a plaintiff who got cancer from Monsanto's herbicide Roundup. He has won significant legal victories against corporations like DuPont for contaminating our water supplies with the chemical C8. C8 is a PFOA. It's a man-made chemical that belongs to the group of substances called PFASs, otherwise known as forever chemicals, which we've talked a lot about on this podcast. These chemicals are called forever

chemicals because they are extremely persistent in the environment and they don't break down. And they're linked to cancer, developmental delays in children, reduced birth weight, infertility, endocrine disruption, and thyroid disease. RFK Jr. also took on Smithfield Foods over pollution from hog farms. He was aiming to protect local environments and communities from industrial agricultural runoff. And he's advocated for those people that were getting poisoned by the agricultural runoff, these communities that were living near these hog farms. In fact, he has a history of environmental activism. He was most notably known for fighting against General Electric when they were dumping PCPs, otherwise known as polychlorinated biphenyls, into the Hudson River, which ultimately ended in its cleanup. RFK Jr. is pushing back against big pharma and big agriculture. He's trying to reduce their

harmful effects on our health and the environment. He isn't afraid to challenge how things are usually done, especially when big companies have too much to say in health and environmental rules. People have to understand that the reason why he's being attacked right now is because he is going after the very agencies that are profiting off of us being poisoned and staying sick. They have a lot of money. They also own the majority of our publications of our mainstream media. So when you see these hit pieces against him, just remember that back in the late nineties, he was the golden child and everybody was praising him for all the things that I just talked about. And now they are coming for him because he's coming for their

paychecks. It's plain and simple. It's really easy to see. And shouldn't we support somebody who calls out this overreach demanding more honesty and safety and how public health is managed like why are we not all in support of this he is actively trying to protect us from these corporations that are trying to poison us and I don't think it's this whole nefarious thing I don't think everybody's all trying to kill us but I believe that these corporations are making a lot of money doing the things that they're doing right now. And there's a lot of policies and a lot of lobbyists in Washington that are protecting these companies over, they're protecting the profits of these companies over human health.

His fight is for making these industries and government agencies more honest and responsible. How anybody can fight against that, I don't know. I'll leave it at that. But I'm a huge advocate for RFK Jr. and the work that he's doing. And I'm so excited to see what he's going to get done, hopefully as the head of the HHS. So we will find out if he actually gets voted in by the US Senate, but on to other things. So again, I am not trying to target Obama. I am just simply laying out the facts because I've been seeing so many people online advocating for Obama and saying, oh, Obama did so much for our food and he was, you know, in charge of the school lunch program. And I've been seeing all this stuff. So I wanted to lay out exactly what he did wrong during his presidency that actually did not protect us. In fact,

he was protecting the very companies that now RFK is trying to protect us from. So Obama had appointed Michael Taylor, who had previously worked for Monsanto, the freaking devil, as the FDA's deputy commissioner for foods in 2009. Taylor had a history with Monsanto. He served as vice president for public policy, which was absolutely a conflict of interest. And this appointment could and did skew regulatory decisions in favor of GMO crops and genetically engineered organisms since Monsanto is a major player in this field. And we'll see more of this because I'm going to talk more about the GMOs because this was a big part of his administration. In fact, I remember voting for him because he was campaigning during his 2007 campaign and was pledging to support the mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods.

More on that in a second. Obama's administration's approach to GMO regulation was too lax. The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service under Obama deregulated certain GMO crops like alfalfa, which was favoring the biotech companies over consumer rights and environmental concerns. There was also the Monsanto Protection Act signed into law in 2013. It was officially named the Farmer Assurance Provision, and it allowed the sale of genetically modified crops, even if their safety was challenged in court, which it was being challenged. And its passage was essentially a handout to Monsanto and other biotech companies, which it was being challenged. And its passage was essentially a handout to Monsanto and other biotech companies. So it was supporting these companies that wanted

to profit off of these genetically modified foods, even though there were great concerns, and for good reason, over the effects of human health of these crops, the effects on human health. There was also the Food Safety Modernization Act, also known as FSMA, which was intended to improve food safety, but this act was overly favorable to large food companies because the high compliance costs, they disproportionately affected small farmers and producers, ultimately pushing them out of business or into compliance with regulations that were favoring the industrialized agriculture system. Now, GMO labeling is a really big one. I mentioned this a second ago. This is the reason I voted for Obama. I remember in 2011, he was pledging in his campaign to support the mandatory labeling of

genetically modified foods because at that time time the public was demanding transparency about what is in their food. Throughout much of his presidency, despite the promise, the administration did not actively push for mandatory GMO labeling at the federal level. Instead, the regulatory approach leaned towards voluntary labeling, which those of us who were paying attention to this were not stoked. I remember signing so many petitions, calling so many senators, sending so many emails. I was really upset about this. I was super vocal about it on my blog and my Instagram back in the day in Real Foodology. This was way back in the day. And I felt like I was just screaming into a void because most people didn't even know what GMOs were. Also, I was very frustrated with Obama because he had promised to label GMOs and then he did not support the mandatory GMO labeling until very late in his term.

And even then, it was in the form of a compromise that favored the biotech companies that we were looking for protection from. The labeling law that was eventually signed did not require traditional label changes and it allowed for these QR codes. And maybe some of y'all listening will remember this. We were all super upset about it because we wanted transparent labeling. We wanted somebody to pick up a food product, be able to read on the back that it contains GMOs. And what they started doing is they were putting these QR codes on the back and this locked transparency for the consumers because first of all, who's scanning these, right? Like people didn't even really know what GMOs were back then. And I don't think people are going to pick up something and scan it. There was also some pushback saying that people didn't have access to phones, couldn't scan in.

And so they didn't have the ability to read and to read what was on the label, to figure out what was on the label of their food because they weren't able to scan it. So there was a lot of criticism for this back then. And there was something called the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015. And critics started calling it the D.A.R.K. Act, which stands for Denying Americans the Right to Know. If y'all remember this, shout out to the real ones, because we were shouting about the D.A.R.K. Act back in 2015. And this act was later replaced by the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, and it was signed into law in 2016. The bill was introduced to establish a national standard for

labeling of bioengineered foods, essentially preempting state laws that required labeling of genetically modified organisms, otherwise known as GMOs. So like I said, it was officially named the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, but critics called it the Dark Act. So we were calling it the Dark Act because of its impact on consumer transparency. It also overrode state level GMO labeling laws. So like for example, in Vermont, Vermont mandated clear on package labeling of GMO foods. And when the dark act came out, this actually overrid that y'all. When I say that we were fighting for our lives for these freaking labels back in the day, it was, it was almost impossible. If you remember this time period, we were fighting so hard just

to get it labeled in, in the EU. for example, it says on all food packaging, if something contains genetically modified organisms or GMOs, it's on the labels. And that's what we were asking for. We were like, please, we just want to know if we're consuming these GMOs. We want people to have transparency to know if they are consuming these foods. And these biotech companies were fighting like hell to not disclose this to the public. What does that tell you? So on one end of the spectrum, they're telling us it's totally safe. It's totally fine to consume. These are great. These are healthy. In fact, they're going to feed the world and they are going to push us forward as a

society. And we're going to have more access to safe and affordable foods. But then on the other end, they're fighting us like hell to even label them. So what is it? Are they safe and are they great for us and super healthy? Or do we need to hide them and hide from the general public when they're consuming these foods? So it was a huge battle for a long time. Finally, we won with this National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard. However, as of 2024, this is what the act reads essentially. So food products containing bioengineered ingredients must carry a disclosure. However, the term bioengineered is used instead of GMO. And the reason why they did this, it's so insidious.

So bio in the EU actually stands for organic. So if you've ever been to Europe and you go to a grocery store and things are labeled bio, that means that you're buying something that's organic. Now here in the United States, instead of labeling it GMOs, which is what we call them, everybody knows them as GMOs. Now this label has required that food companies only need to write on there that it contains bioengineered ingredients. And the reason why they did that is to make it confusing. It's confusing to the general public. So now if a company contains bioengineered

food ingredients, it has to say it on the back. You may recognize that if you pick up something like Cheerios and you read the back of the label and it says. So companies can disclose a couple different ways. They can use text on the label saying bioengineered or contains bioengineered food ingredient. They can also use a symbol that's designated by the USDA for bioengineered foods, or they can also have a digital link or QR code. To be honest, I don't even know if those are still being used because I haven't seen them, but I don't want to say definitively that they're not, but I haven't seen it. I've only seen the labeling on there. So these are all the things that happened during the Obama administration. And even though he ran on his campaign saying that he was going to require mandatory labeling of GMO foods, he did not. And it did not happen until much later. And we had to fight like hell just to get this on the label.

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about Michelle Obama. If y'all follow me on Instagram, you may remember I posted this in my stories recently that people like to praise Michelle Obama for her let's move campaign and for her school lunch program and for making Americans healthier, specifically children. And I'm here to tell you guys, I'm sorry, but she sold the American public out to large food corporations and I brought the receipts. So let's go into the school lunch program first. So under the Obama administration, the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act was championed by Michelle Obama. And it all started with good intention. It aimed to improve school lunches. But there were some aspects that were problematic and school lunches have arguably gotten worse.

Now, my biggest issue with the policies is they didn't go far enough in reducing the use of low quality processed foods in schools. And we're going to go into this further in a second, because I'm going to talk about the specific companies that are contracted with the school lunch program. And a lot of the foods, these like hyper processed, highly palatable food like products that they're using in the school lunches, they often contain ingredients from commodity crops that receive significant federal subsidies, indirectly supporting large agribusiness, agricultural business. Some of y'all might remember the tomato paste debate in 2011. So there was big controversy. Congress effectively blocked this Obama era proposal by the U.S.

Department of Agriculture to change how tomato paste was counted in school lunches. So they were counting, well, they still do. I'll explain this more in a second, but essentially they were counting tomato paste on the pizza as a vegetable in school lunches. So before this, two tablespoons of tomato paste on a pizza slice would count as a vegetable serving. The USDA wanted to increase this amount to align more closely with other vegetable servings and Congress intervened to keep the existing standard, which allowed pizza with a minimal amount of tomato paste to meet vegetable requirements. Now, currently while pizza can still be served in school lunches, it must be accompanied with other vegetables.

So I'm assuming now maybe they put vegetables on top of the pizza to meet the nutritional guidelines. And the sauce in the pizza contributes to the vegetable requirement, but the pizza alone doesn't fulfill it. But the tomato paste on the pizza, so if kids get a hyper-processed pizza that has like 80 ingredients in it, oh, but it has tomato sauce in it. That constitutes as a vegetable serving for these children. The influence of the food industry in shaping these policies have not been health focused. They have been industry focused. So let's dive more into that. When Michelle Obama, maybe some of y'all will remember this. When she first started talking about wanting

to clean up our food system, she was talking about additives. She was talking about the harmful ingredients that are in our food supply. And she was saying that we needed to stop eating so much processed food. She was talking about getting the preservatives out and was talking about big food companies. Now, if you guys remember, she changed her tune pretty quickly. And the reason why was because these big food companies came in and they were like, no, no, no, no, we're not going after the food. We can't be going after the food. I don't know if you all remember, but there was also a study that came out around that time that was funded by Coca-Cola and because Coca-Cola and other soda companies were coming under heat for

the rising obesity rates, specifically in children. And there was a study that came out saying that, no, soda does not contribute to obesity. What are you crazy? It's actually that Americans and children are not moving enough. So the Let's Move campaign was officially launched by Michelle Obama. And instead of her going after the food companies that do not have human health in mind, but they are actually more concerned about profits. Now these companies could continue to sell us these food like products and these crappy foods. And now we can just focus on Americans are actually just not moving enough. So this is where the Let's Move campaign was born.

Let's not focus on what we're feeding kids so food companies can continue to prey on them. Let's instead tell them that they're not exercising enough. Sounds great. And it sounds like a great national campaign for Subway, Mars Incorporated. Let's pull this up here. So let's see who sponsored Let's Move. Whole Foods Market. That's a great one. Walmart. Walmart sells some great products, but they also sell a lot of hyper-processed, ultra-processed foods. Sodexo. We're going to go more into Sodexo in a minute.

Subway. Who thinks that Subway is creating healthy foods for us? Dannon. Well, Dannon yogurts are loaded with sugar and other ingredients. And then Mars food. Oh, what does Mars food make? Let's look this up. Mars food makes many brands of food, including chocolate candies and other confectionery. M&Ms, Twix, Snickers, Skittles, Orbit Chewing Gum, Dove, Ben's Original, the rice products, Dolmio, which is a tomato sauce company, which that's probably what is going on their pizzas. Okay. So some of the other sponsors of let's move the school nutrition association, the American culinary Federation, cooking matters, the United

States department of agriculture, the culinary trust, the partnership for a healthier America and Cornell university. So let's dive into some of these. Now I could go into all of the sponsors of all of these companies, but I'm just going to talk about some of the more notable ones. So one of the Let's Move partners is the School Nutrition Association, otherwise known as SNA. So let's look at where the SNA gets some of their funding. Oh, Diversified Foods Inc. and J&J Snack Foods. Okay. They also get from the School Nutrition Foundation, also known as SNF. So let's dive a little more into Diversified Foods and J&J Snack Foods. J&J Snack Foods is a corporation that makes

a variety of snack foods and drinks, including soft pretzels, frozen beverages, frozen juice treats and desserts, stuffed sandwiches like burritos and other handheld sandwiches, probably like similar to the Uncrustables, churros, funnel cakes, cookies, bakery goods, fruit bars, biscuits and dumplings. Wow, that all sounds like a bunch of really healthy, nutritious foods for growing bodies, doesn't it? Now let's look at Diversified Foods, which is another one of the SNA's funding groups. Diversified Foods distributes and licenses a number of brands, including Hershey's, Dairy Pure, True Moo, and Marcel's. Okay. So True Moo, let's look, let's look a little more into True Moo, shall we? The ingredients in True Moo milk vary by flavor. Now you have to remember that yes, they, they are probably giving them plain milk, but what child in their right mind, if given an opportunity between

plain milk and chocolate milk or another flavored milk is going to choose the plain milk. So let's look at the ingredients of the flavored true milk milks, milk, liquid sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, salt, carrageenan, which has very questionable links to stomach upset and possible cancer, natural flavors, and vitamin D. Other ingredients may include nonfat milk, Jell-O gum, vitamin A, palmitate, excuse me, citric acid, and red number 40. Red number 40. Now that's an interesting one. That's one that has been banned in places like the UK because they found a direct link to hyperactivity in children. That's interesting. There's also really concerning connections to red 40 and cancer. Gee, I wonder why almost 50%

of our children are obese and they're having a hard time focusing. It couldn't possibly be the sugar that we're loading them up with and the food dies. Couldn't possibly be that. No way. Now let's talk about the National School Lunch Program. The National School Lunch Program or the NSLP is a federally assisted program that provides free or low cost lunches to children in public and non-private schools. Now that's amazing, right? This is great. We, we know that there's a lot of children in this country that their only meals are the meals that they are getting at school. That's absolutely heartbreaking. Honestly, we should do better for these kids. And where do these companies get their food from? Big food companies like Tyson and Kraft. In fact,

if you guys remember Heinz, Heinz Kraft just got Lunchables into our school lunch program this year through none other than the NSLP. Now I just read an article maybe a week ago that they're actually taking the Lunchables out because they did not do well because shortly afterwards, there was a consumer report that came out showing really high levels of lead in our Lunchables. Now, thank God they found the lead because otherwise they would have probably still fed our kids the Lunchables despite the fact that their ingredients look like this. Okay. This, I mean, this label is too long for me to read out in its entirety so I would encourage you all to just go look it up go google it but let's talk about a couple of these really quickly oh my god this ingredient label is so long may contain bioengineered ingredients that's an

interesting one we talked about that earlier um I, I mean, this isn't food. Hold on y'all. I'm, I'm struggling with the, I had a hard time finding the ingredient label in the first place. I've been Googling this. And then also the way that it is zooming in, it's, I'm having a hard time reading the whole thing. Um, one of the first ingredients is sugar, modified cornstarch. I mean, the problem is, is y'all, this just isn't real food. Like these aren't real food ingredients. It has canola oil shortening. Oh, that's interesting. Shortening. Remember when we replaced butter with shortening and then heart attacks went up? Shortening that's made of canola oil and or fractioned palm oil and or soybean oil.

Oh, soybean oil. The one that a recent study found that it actually reduces oxytocin in the brain. Oxytocin being our love hormone. Yeah, that's not concerning at all. Contains wheat and soy, most likely genetically engineered. Also high levels of glyphosate because we know that glyphosate is being sprayed on soy and wheat. So you get the point. So children are getting these Lunchables in the school lunch program for lunch. And you have to remember that some of these children, the only meals that they get are the meals that are being fed at school. So some of these children are not even getting home cooked meals. They're getting all of these hyper processed, highly palatable

food like products that, that have insanely long ingredient labels of like 50 to 80 different ingredients. We don't even know what all these ingredients are doing in these little bodies or adult bodies as well. But all these different additives and preservatives and genetically modified engineered ingredients and glyphosate, we don't even know what all of these different ingredients are doing in our bodies when they're mixed together. But we know it's not good. When you look at the obesity rates, 50% of our children are overweight or obese. 74% of young adults between the ages of 17 and 24 are ineligible for military

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best. Whether you're an athlete fasting or just following a low carb or paleo diet element has your back, But here's something exciting for you. Right now, you can enjoy Element's limited edition chocolate medley. Imagine sipping on chocolate mint or chocolate chai on a chilly day, just mix it with hot water, and you've got a delicious and cozy drink. I love adding half of a stick of chocolate mint to my morning coffee for a minty mocha that kicks off my day just right. Every fall and winter, I get so excited about this chocolate medley from Element because it is just the best. It is like a salty, sugar-free

hot chocolate. And for my winter warriors out there, whether you're skiing, snowboarding, or just shoveling snow, don't forget to hydrate. The chocolate medley is perfect for all your cold weather activities. All you have to do is add hot water to the packet. Sometimes I like to add a little bit of steamed coconut milk and it is just divine. Now here's the best part. If you go to drink element.com slash real foodology, you can receive a free element sample pack with any order. That's D R I N K L M N T.com slash real foodology. So why wait? Get your hydration game on point with Element and feel the difference. Okay, so let's go back to the deep diving of the funding. Okay, so I had mentioned earlier Sodexo as one of the sponsors. So let's talk about Sodexo a little bit. I remember Sodexo from

my registered dietitian days. I never finished the program and y'all probably know that story by now. I've told it a million times, but I do remember Sodexo from that time period. So Sodexo has many partners, including Amazon, Kroger, and oh, PepsiCo. That's interesting. The U.S. government, Sodexo has an eight-year contract with the U.S. government to provide food services to 51 Marine Corps mess halls that's nice our government our military our Marine Corps are also getting this um they are also funded by AstraZeneca Sodexo and AstraZeneca have a global partnership to deliver sustainable experiences in the workplace. Okay. So Sodexo, Sodexo works with

Snap while getting money from PepsiCo. And guess what one of the top purchases made with Snap is? So Snap is the federal aid program that helps people with hunger and poverty buy food, otherwise known as food stamps. And do you want to know what one of the number one top items purchased with SNAP is? Soft drinks, sodas. Soft drinks are one of the top items purchased with food stamps or otherwise known as SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program. In fact, food stamp recipients spend a significant portion of their allotments on junk food. And Sodexo is one of the sponsors of, you guessed it, the Let's Move program. So I want to end this with something that somebody who follows me sent me a message who works in a school. And they said, I love you for sharing all this. They actually used to home make most of the food. The school

had about 2000 kids and the kids had options. Now they cannot, meaning they like the lunch ladies cannot make anything from scratch. It's all pre-made frozen shit and are required to take a vegetable that they end up throwing away. So food waste is increased because these kids are not wanting to eat these like gross, soggy broccoli florets that they're probably giving them that were frozen and they're probably disgusting. So they end up throwing it away and they get three ounces of protein per serving that is usually soy based. If you guys remember in New York, Mayor Adams required meatless Mondays to happen in school. So now these kids are getting less protein and a lot of them is soy based and their cafeteria is literally run by a corporation Sodexo. It's

truly a tragedy. And I really hope that RFK will overhaul all of this. So do y'all remember when Jamie Oliver went into our school lunches with the lunch ladies and he was showing them really simple recipes to make because they were all, this was back in, God, when was that? I want to say it was maybe like 2011, 2012. So you can only imagine in 2024, it's gotten so much worse. But back then they were getting these huge bags of chicken nuggets and French fries and just cutting them open, throwing them in the fryer, and then serving that to children in the school lunch programs. This is horrifying. Y'all, we have a public health crisis in this country. More than half of our children are overweight or obese. Kids now have fatty liver disease. This is a disease that like 50 years ago didn't even exist. Fatty liver disease back in the

day used to only show up in alcoholics. And now we have to come up with a new term for it. And that's out non-alcoholic fatty liver disease because so many people, including children are now, now getting fatty liver disease from the food that they're eating because they're not eating real food anymore. And they're not getting it from the alcohol. They're getting it from the food. So now it's called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. We have a really big problem in this country and it starts with the children. We know that nutrition starts when you're young. They have young developing bodies. They have young developing immune systems, young developing brains,

and we are not even feeding them real food. We're feeding them these food-like products from packages. And it all comes back to funding. Large corporations like Tyson and Lunchables, Kraft Heinz, they have these contracts with these school lunch programs that are federally funded so that now these large food corporations are getting into our school systems and feeding our children things like Froot Loops and General Mills cereals and the Lunchables. And it's just completely unacceptable. So I wanted to take the time to outline everything that the Obamas did. Unfortunately, I used to be a really big fan of Michelle Obama and Barack Obama, but I was very, very upset with what happened with the Let's Move campaign. And I've seen so many people say, oh, Michelle Obama is doing, you know, did amazing things for the American

food system. And no, the honest truth is y'all, Michelle Obama sold us out to large food corporations. And it's, and it shows when we look at who sponsored Let's Move, as I already outlined in the episode. So that is the truth of what happened with our food industry. And that is why I'm hoping that moving forward, we will have better options and we can hopefully feed our children better food. And also, y'all, this isn't just happening in the food system or in the, in the school lunch program. This is also happening in nursing homes. So to our elderly, it's also happening in our hospitals. It's why whenever we go to hospitals, everybody's getting fed these horrible food-like products because these food companies have contracts with the hospitals. It's also happening with our

military. So everyone in these federally assisted programs are all getting fed food-like products. They're not getting fed real food and it is absolutely atrocious and something needs to change in this country. Well, that's all for today's episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it and let me know, write me on Instagram, send me a message. If you want to also tag the episode, tag me at real foodology and share it with all your friends and family. Thanks. Love you guys. Thank you so much for listening to the real foodology podcast. This is a wellness loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube.

As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.