American Dish

Helena Bottemiller Evich
  • 5.0 (24)
  • Food

From Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” to Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, America is in the midst of a food and nutrition policy awakening. Why are diet-related disease rates so high in the U.S.? What are the potential solutions? What does the science say? Award-winning journalist Helena Bottemiller Evich cuts through the noise to help us understand what’s really happening with our food system and our plates.

  1. 1d ago

    What's on the tray in America's prisons with Daniel Rosen and Leslie Soble

    HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. often talks about reforming prison food in the same breath as school food, a genuinely unusual thing for a top health official to say. At the same time, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has quietly put out requests for information about outsourcing food service to the same private companies that serve colleges, elementary schools, and military bases. Are these two positions aligned? What would it take to actually improve food served in prisons? Why does it matter? We dive into all of it with two of the country’s top experts in prison food. Daniel Rosen co-founded the Carceral Nutrition Project after six years incarcerated in Virginia and Washington, D.C. Leslie Soble is a folklorist and ethnographer whose research became Eating Behind Bars: Ending the Hidden Punishment of Food in Prison, which just won a James Beard Award (Soble is also a founding board member of the Carceral Nutrition Project). Together, Rosen and Soble lay out what's actually on the tray, who's profiting from it, and why the whole "you did the crime, you do the time" doesn't actually make sense when you consider how to feed incarcerated people. Highlights: Prison and jail systems spend $1.50 to $2 a day feeding someone, a fraction of what the federal school lunch reimbursement coversThe wild imbalance between healthcare and food spending in correctional facilitiesHow privatization works (about a third of prison food service is outsourced)The science connecting better nutrition to lower violence in correctional facilitiesWhat the Trump administration is/isn’t doing to reform prison foodWhat national standards for prison food could actually look like Where to find Daniel Rosen and Leslie Soble: Carceral Nutrition Project Eating Behind Bars: Ending the Hidden Punishment of Food in Prison Additional Reading: "Private Food, Public Harm" — the CSPI/Carceral Nutrition Project report on privatized prison food service Gesch et al. (2002) Gesch, C.B., Hammond, S.M., Hampson, S.E., Eves, A., & Crowder, M.J. "Influence of supplementary vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids on the antisocial behaviour of young adult prisoners." British Journal of Psychiatry, 181, 22–28. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.181.1.22 Zaalberg et al. (2010) Zaalberg, A., Nijman, H., Bulten, E., Stroosma, L., & van der Staak, C. "Effects of nutritional supplements on aggression, rule-breaking, and psychopathology among young adult prisoners." Aggressive Behavior, 36(2), 117–126. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20335 Schoenthaler & Bier (2000) Schoenthaler, S.J., & Bier, I.D. "The effect of vitamin-mineral supplementation on juvenile delinquency among American schoolchildren." Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 6(1), 7–17. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2000.6.7 Schoenthaler sugar studies (1980s) Schoenthaler, S.J. (1983). "The Alabama Diet-Behavior Program." International Journal of Biosocial Research, 5(2), 79–87. (Pre-DOI era; search via Google Scholar) Systematic review: dietary/nutritional interventions on behaviour and mental health of prisoners (2024) — 933 studies screened, 11 included; found consistent ~30% reductions in violence across intervention types. Australian pilot RCT on dietary supplementation and aggression in adult male prisoners (2020) — feasibility study for a larger omega-3/multivitamin RCT; prisoners below the 6% omega-3 index threshold were 4.3× more likely to have elevated aggression scores. Omega-3 multi-centre RCT protocol (2021) — pre-registered protocol for a large-scale replication of the Gesch/Zaalberg findings. Gut microbiota and mental health in new inmates (2022, PubMed) — inmates showed higher anxiety/depression scores and markedly shifted microbiome structure vs. controls; SCFA-producing genera depleted. Gut microbiome in impulsively violent female convicts (2021, Karger) Nutritional criminology: ultra-processed food and health/justice (2024, PMC) Crime and Nourishment: UPF, brain, and behavior — narrative review (MDPI) Is prison food really food? (2023, Health & Justice) — documents sodium/sugar-heavy, UPF-dominant prison diets and links to diabetes, mental health, and behavior. Nutrition associated with violent and criminal behaviors (2025, PMC) Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix. Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

  2. Jul 22

    Lessons from a 13-year old lobbying for gluten labeling, with Jon and Jax Bari

    At the 2023 HHS Food Is Medicine Summit, one item on the buffet was considered safe for 10-year-old Jax Bari to eat: an apple. Everything else was a gamble because gluten isn't required on food labels in the U.S. the way it is in 87 other countries. For someone with celiac disease, that disclosure means a whole lot — a tiny bit of gluten can mean days of vomiting, diarrhea and severe pain. Jax is now 13, and he's still on a mission to convince Washington that gluten labeling should be mandatory. He and his dad, Jon Bari, founded the non-profit Celiac Journey, and have spent the past several years lobbying both the Biden and Trump administrations. They’ve filed a citizen petition with the FDA, met with lawmakers, and even cornered the FDA commissioner in an elevator — all in pursuit of one specific ask: add gluten to the FDA's list of major food allergens. Highlights: – Jax's advocacy started with a second-grade persuasive-letter assignment addressed to David Muir, which turned into national ABC News coverage and a White House invitation. – The FDA's January 2026 request for information on gluten labeling drew more than 6,000 public comments, with about 99.5% in support. – Per Jon Bari: The opposition includes the Consumer Brands Association and, more surprisingly, the Celiac Disease Foundation itself, which is funded by General Mills, the largest oat seller in the U.S. – Three possible paths forward are now on the table: Secretary Kennedy's existing rulemaking authority, a potential executive order, or new legislation, including the bipartisan Faster Act and the separately introduced Celiac Safety Act. Where to find Jon and Jax Bari: Celiac Journey Instagram: @celiacjourney Instagram: @glutenfreefinds_pa Mentioned in this episode: FDA Request for Information on gluten labeling (Federal Register) Celiac Safety Act of 2026, H.R. 9048 (Congress.gov) "The great sesame debacle" — Food Fix Jax Bari's David Muir/ABC News "World News Tonight" segment Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix. Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

  3. Jul 8

    Inside the race to understand America’s growing food allergy epidemic with Ilana Golant

    Ten percent of Americans are estimated to have food allergies — and that’s probably an undercount. The government hasn't updated its population data in nearly a decade, so the real figure could be more like 12 or even 15 percent. Despite the scale of food allergies, food allergy research gets a small fraction of the funding devoted to comparable chronic diseases — and the gap has stayed remarkably persistent even as public and political attention has increased. Ilana Golant, founder and CEO of the non-profit Food Allergy Fund, is on a mission to close this gap. Food allergies are common, so why are they being funded like a rare disease? Food Allergy Fund advocates for more federal research funding and also directly funds microbiome research, drug repurposing trials, and work to develop new AI diagnostic tools for allergy testing, among other research. Ilana didn't come to this work through a traditional public health career path — she came to it as a mom and also as a patient with food allergies. Highlights: – Why 75 percent of food allergy kids under 12 now have multiple food allergies, and what happened to "the peanut-allergic kid" – The funding gap between food allergies and comparable chronic diseases, broken down per patient – What early allergen introduction did and didn't do to change allergy rates for children – Inside the Food Allergy Fund's drug repurposing program and cutting edge microbiome research – Why so many food allergy clinical trials are now running in Australia instead of the U.S. – The growing problem of unlabeled allergens hiding in medications – How the sesame labeling law backfired, and ended up putting sesame in more foods, not fewer – Alpha-gal syndrome, ticks creeping into city parks, and the rise of adult-onset food allergies Where to find Ilana Golant: Food Allergy Fund website Food Allergy Fund on Instagram Mentioned in this episode: The ADINA Act Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix. Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

  4. Jun 24

    Why millions of people are dropping from SNAP and what comes next, with Gina Plata-Nino

    More than 4 million people have dropped out of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the past year — an unprecedented drop that hasn’t gotten much attention in the media. As SNAP Director at the Food Research and Action Center, Gina Plata-Nino is tracking all of this very closely. FRAC fought hard against the $187 billion in SNAP cuts Congress passed through reconciliation last July. That legislation made it much harder (and in some cases impossible) for certain individuals to access SNAP and left states staring down billions in new costs they weren't expecting to carry. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has stopped measuring food insecurity rates. New data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York indicates hunger levels are higher today than at the peak of the pandemic. Gina came to this work from the ground up — through legal aid in Massachusetts, representing clients who couldn't navigate a benefits system so complex it sometimes requires a lawyer to navigate it. She ultimately landed as a senior advisor in the Biden White House where she helped build the national strategy on hunger, nutrition, and health. Now she's at FRAC, fighting to protect access to SNAP, a program that helps feed nearly 37 million people. Highlights: – Who uses SNAP, and what the program's average recipient earns per month – The reconciliation law passed last July (the biggest cuts to SNAP in history) and how states are scrambling to prepare – Why Arizona's SNAP participation has dropped nearly 50% – Why some states may stop running SNAP entirely – What the FNS relocation to regional hubs — now renamed the Food and Nutrition Administration — means for the 16 nutrition programs that serve one in four Americans – SNAP restrictions: how half the states now have waivers to ban certain products, and why FRAC believes the evaluations are inadequate – New York Fed data showing hunger now exceeds pandemic-era levels, and why USDA's decision to stop measuring food insecurity makes this even more alarming Where to find Gina Plata-Nino: On LinkedIn FRAC.org Gina's work at FRAC Mentioned in this episode: FRAC statement opposing FNS/FNA relocation New York Fed: More people are going hungry now than at the height of the pandemic (NPR) FRAC: Shifting the Burden — How Reconciliation Reshapes SNAP and Strains State Budgets FRAC: Food security supplement and why it is needed FRAC: Backgrounder on quality control and payment error rates Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix. Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

  5. Jun 10

    Media roundtable: Covering MAHA with Tal Kopan, Deena Shanker, and Lisa Held

    This episode is something a little different: a roundtable with three journalists who've been deep in this moment in food policy, talking frankly about what they're seeing as MAHA's promises meet the reality of governing in Washington. Tal Kopan, deputy Washington bureau chief for The Boston Globe, has been reporting on the politics and also the money behind MAHA. Deena Shanker covers food for Bloomberg Businessweek and recently wrote about MAHA's school lunch ambitions colliding with funding cuts. Lisa Held is a senior reporter at Civil Eats, where she runs the Food Policy Tracker and just finished a four-part investigative series on what USDA cuts have meant for small farms and local food systems. We go behind the scenes on what it’s like to cover MAHA in this moment — and what comes next. Highlights: – How food dyes became the issue that pulled MAHA into the mainstream – The political and financial infrastructure being built behind MAHA, and what it suggests about Kennedy's long-term ambitions – Why MAHA's vision for school meals is running headlong into the administration's own budget cuts – What USDA's cuts to local food programs mean for small farms, and why those cuts are seen as anti-MAHA – The tension between MAHA as a federal policy driver versus MAHA as a growing grassroots movement at the state level – What reporters are watching next: Iowa's governor's race, Vani Hari's next political move, and whether MAHA survives its own contradictions Where to find our guests: Tal Kopan's reporting at The Boston Globe | @TalKopan on X | @TalKopan on Bluesky Deena Shanker's reporting at Bloomberg | @deenashanker.bsky.social on Bluesky | LinkedIn Lisa Held's reporting at Civil Eats | @lisaelaineh on X | Civil Eats Food Policy Tracker | @lisaelaineh on Instagram Mentioned in this episode: Meet Tony Lyons, the man building RFK Jr.'s MAHA empire — Tal Kopan, The Boston Globe Group that supports RFK Jr. wants to change media messages on public health — Tal Kopan, The Boston Globe MAHA's Hopes for Healthier School Lunches Collide With Trump's Spending Cuts — Deena Shanker, Bloomberg Losing Ground: How Trump Is Setting Back Local Food and Small Farms — Lisa Held, Civil Eats This USDA Program Transformed Food Systems. It's Gone. — Lisa Held, Civil Eats USDA Cuts Dismantled a Program Helping Local Food Economies — Lisa Held, Civil Eats Trump's USDA Revamped the Climate-Smart Program in a Blow to Many Small Farms — Lisa Held, Civil Eats MAHA candidate beats Trump's pick in Iowa Republican primary for governor — PBS News Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix. Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

  6. May 27

    Meet the billionaire trying to clean up the food supply: Todd Wagner.

    Todd Wagner, a tech billionaire and Hollywood mogul best known for co-founding Broadcast.com with Mark Cuban, isn’t particularly well known in food world — but he’s increasingly having a big impact. Wagner first got interested in American food policy after noticing his migraines would all but disappear when he traveled to Europe. He did some research and realized that the U.S. was letting thousands of food additives onto the market without regulatory oversight. In 2023, Wagner and film producer Lori McCreary launched FoodFight USA, a non-partisan non-profit aimed at cleaning up the U.S. food supply. Since then, Wagner and his team have played an integral role in passing historic state food additive bans and are also pressing Washington to revamp food additive oversight nationwide. In this conversation, Wagner shares some behind-the-scenes details from meeting with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He sees the fight against ultra-processed foods as similar to the fight against Big Tobacco: long, messy, and ultimately winnable. Highlights: – The inside story of urging Governor Newsom to sign the California Food Safety Act – What GRAS actually is, why Wagner calls it the linchpin of America's food crisis, and why no other country has an equivalent – The fight over New York's GRAS disclosure bill and what it would actually require of food companies – Why Wagner thinks the Big Tobacco playbook maps almost perfectly onto ultra-processed foods – Using AI to triage tens of thousands of food chemicals for post-market safety review – Front-of-pack labeling, the black octagon, and why warning labels matter even if they can't fix everything – The "real cost" of a can of Coke: subsidies, SNAP, downstream healthcare, and margin-stacking against smaller, healthier brands Where to find Todd Wagner: Food Fight USA Food Fight USA on Instagram Food Fight USA on X Mentioned in this episode: California Food Safety Act New York Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act Yuka food scanning app Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (documentary) Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix. Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

  7. May 13

    What Big Food wants in the ultra-processed foods debate, with Rocco Renaldi

    The debate about ultra-processed foods is loud in America right now, but zoom out, and it's everywhere. Governments around the world are trying to figure out what to do about diet-related disease, and the food and beverage industry is under pressure at every turn. Rocco Renaldi is secretary general of the International Food and Beverage Alliance, the group that brings together some of the world's biggest multinational food companies — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Mondelēz — for coordinated action on nutrition and public health. He's also an executive at Edelman and is based in Brussels, which gives him a vantage point on these debates that we don’t hear as much stateside. Highlights: – Why the industry sees the UPF debate as a threat to the work already done on product reformulation – What the science does and doesn't tell us about processing as a health risk – Whether a workable, science-based UPF definition is even possible, and who's likely to define it first – How voluntary commitments like global trans fat elimination and salt reduction are going – What MAHA and RFK Jr.'s rhetoric look like from Brussels – GLP-1 drugs as a market force versus warning labels as a policy tool Where to find Rocco Renaldi: International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA) Mentioned in this episode: NOVA food classification system — the processing-based framework at the center of the UPF debate What we still don't know about ultra-processed foods with Julia Belluz & Kevin Hall — my earlier conversation with the NIH researcher who studied ultra-processed foods in controlled settings California's work on UPF definitions in school meals — the state's ongoing effort to restrict the most harmful ultra-processed foods from school food programs Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix. Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

  8. Apr 29

    Nora LaTorre on why school lunch is the biggest lever for children's health

    Schools are the largest restaurant chain in America, bigger than Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's combined. Nearly 100,000 locations, 30 million kids, and roughly 7 billion meals a year. Right now, the lion’s share of the calories served through this system are ultra-processed at a time when there’s growing concern about chronic diseases among children. Nora LaTorre is the CEO of Eat Real, a nonprofit that's transforming school meals scale — certifying school districts against doctor-developed standards and helping food service leaders pivot to fresher, more local, more scratch-cooked food. Since 2019, the organization has grown from one district in one state to more than a million kids across 21 states. This expansion has put LaTorre and her organization at the center of an active debate about what the future of school meals should look like in the U.S. Highlights: – How Eat Real's certification model works and what the two-year journey looks like for school districts – Why better food means more kids eat school lunch (which means more revenue) – The story behind California's AB 1264, which passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support – LaTorre’s take on how federal preemption is a serious threat to food policy progress – What the MAHA moment means for school food – What parents can do to support change at their local school – The infrastructure gap: transforming school food nationally could require tens of billions in kitchen investment Where to find Nora LaTorre: Eat Real Parent resources at eatreal.org/parents Follow Nora on Instagram (@nourishedwithnora) and LinkedIn Mentioned in this episode: AB 1264 — California's school food bill Stay in touch: Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix. Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube. Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

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From Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” to Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, America is in the midst of a food and nutrition policy awakening. Why are diet-related disease rates so high in the U.S.? What are the potential solutions? What does the science say? Award-winning journalist Helena Bottemiller Evich cuts through the noise to help us understand what’s really happening with our food system and our plates.

Information

  • Creator
    Helena Bottemiller Evich
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    16
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Helena Bottemiller Evich
  • Show Website
    American Dish

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