PODCAST · arts
American Dish
by Helena Bottemiller Evich
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.
Episodes
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Rep. Chellie Pingree on why Democrats should work with MAHA
Seventy-three Republicans and 207 Democrats voted last April to successfully strip a pesticide liability shield out of the farm bill. The provision would have protected Bayer from billions in lawsuits over glyphosate and cancer, and ag interests fought hard to keep it in the legislation. Rep....
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Media roundtable: MAHA meets the midterms with Liz Essley Whyte, Chelsea Cirruzzo, and Marcia Brown
This week, we have a great media roundtable with Marcia Brown, who covers food and agriculture at Politico; Chelsea Cirruzzo, Washington correspondent at STAT; and Liz Essley Whyte, health policy reporter at the Wall Street Journal. All three have broken big MAHA-related stories this year, and...
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The decade-long fight to get SNAP online with Nick Green
A long list of investors said no to Nick Green and his co-founders as they were trying to get Thrive Market off the ground. They were rejected so many times they eventually turned to the people who understood the problem they were trying to solve: moms, wellness influencers, and anyone else whose...
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What the cyclospora outbreak tells us about food safety in America, with Bill Marler
It's been a rough summer for anyone paying attention to food safety in America. Every few days, it seems, we see new headlines about new recalls and foodborne illness outbreaks. And the media is paying a lot more attention to them on the heels of the big summer cyclospora outbreak tied to iceberg...
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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…
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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...
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The food industry's MAHA moment with Melissa Hockstad
HHS Secretary Kennedy says the food industry is poisoning us. The White House shares AI videos of him body slamming a Twinkie. And somehow, the trade group representing the companies making those ultra-processed foods — and thousands of other products Americans buy every day — has to figure out…
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Why infant formula is not a niche issue with Mallory Whitmore, The Formula Mom
Infant formula isn't some niche parenting topic. It's a public health issue, a food security issue, and in many ways an infrastructure issue. The 2022 infant formula crisis was one of the most alarming food system failures in recent memory. Shelves were suddenly empty. Parents were driving across...
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What we still don't know about ultra-processed foods with Julia Belluz & Kevin Hall
The American diet has become dominated by ultra-processed foods, but it’s taken a while for scientists to even begin to understand what this really means for our health. One of the researchers at the cutting edge of our nascent understanding is Kevin Hall. A physicist by training, Hall spent 21...
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FDA's food agenda, one year in with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary
The FDA is nearly a year into its MAHA era. The rhetoric has been bold — food dyes, ultra-processed foods, infant formula, GRAS reform. But what's actually happened? And what might still be coming? Helena got down to brass tacks with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary during a fireside chat on stage…
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Sam Kass on climate change and the Michelle Obama era
Sam Kass calls RFK Jr. "the greatest threat to public health this country has ever faced." He’s not joking. Sam led Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign, served as senior policy advisor in the Obama White House, and fought some of the most brutal food policy battles in recent memory. He knows…
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Inside the MAHA movement with Vani Hari
She says she hates politics. She's also been on the White House lawn with the FDA commissioner, helped pressure food companies to drop artificial dyes, and is now one of the most influential voices within the Make America Healthy Again movement. Vani Hari, better known as the Food Babe, built a...
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MAHA promised change. Marion Nestle isn't buying it.
The Trump administration says we're being poisoned by our food system. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talks about ultra-processed foods, pesticides, and corporate capture of our health agencies. It's rhetoric that in many ways sounds like it came straight from the progressive food movement....
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Welcome to American Dish
Everyone is suddenly talking about food policy. But this conversation has been building for a long time, and I've been closer to it than most. I'm Helena Bottemiller Evich, and I've spent years in congressional hallways, school cafeterias, and farm fields, covering the stories that people in…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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.
HOSTED BY
Helena Bottemiller Evich
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does American Dish have?
American Dish currently has 20 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is American Dish about?
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...
How often does American Dish release new episodes?
American Dish has 20 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to American Dish?
You can listen to American Dish on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts American Dish?
American Dish is created and hosted by Helena Bottemiller Evich.
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