CHAPTER 6
THE POWER OF FOOD INDUSTRY LOBBYISTS
Many of Big Food’s tactics, like the widespread marketing of ultraprocessed foods, are plain and easy to see. You cannot watch television, flip open a magazine, or drive down a highway without seeing an ad for Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, or Burger King. But the dirty politics of food often play out behind closed doors in the halls of Congress, far from public view. As we saw in the SNAP hearing in the last chapter, government lobbying is arguably the food industry’s most effective strategy. Armies of high-powered lobbyists have long occupied Capitol Hill to promote the interests of Big Food, pushing multibillion-dollar efforts to influence our laws, politicians, and government programs and agencies.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
The voices heard by our legislators are those of industry, not citizens. Lobbyists for Big Food, Big Ag, and Big Pharma spent $500 million on influencing the 2014 Farm Bill alone. Hundreds of millions more in the past decade were spent in lobbying across the whole government to influence food and agriculture policies.
Food industry lobbying occurs at every level of government, from city halls and state capitols to the halls of Congress, the White House, the USDA, and the FDA, and extends globally. The lobbyists’ goal is to protect the food industry’s profits at all costs. Much like Big Pharma, Big Oil, and other large and powerful industries, Big Food and Big Ag have what the vast majority of Americans do not: deep pockets and access to the highest levels of government. And they use those to capture the agencies and lawmakers that are supposed to regulate them.
Lobbyists and food companies accomplish this in many ways. They shower politicians with campaign contributions, a practice that studies have shown directly influences legislation, causing lawmakers to alter the wording of bills or add lucrative earmarks (banned since 2010) that favor their donors.1 Lobbyists invite politicians to lavish receptions and give them expensive gifts, like golf outings, Super Bowl tickets, and pricey concert seats. (While there have been restrictions on the gifts that politicians can accept since 1995, lobbyists often find and exploit many loopholes.) One analysis found that in a single year, Utah lobbyists gave state lawmakers more than a quarter million dollars in gifts, including vacation trips to Florida, tickets to Utah Jazz games, and Billy Joel concert seats.2 In some cases they gave lawmakers American Express gift cards.
Another lobbying tactic involves the use of PACs, or political action committees, and super PACs, which pool money from companies and large donors to fund candidates and political parties. They also buy ads supporting their candidates and attacking their opponents. Super PACs have fundamentally altered the landscape of money in politics. Thanks to a Supreme Court ruling in 2010—called Citizens United v. FEC—there are very few limits to their financial donations. This gives corporations or wealthy individuals inordinate power to influence elections.
Through super PACs, corporations and special interest groups are now free to inject unlimited amounts of money into public discourse with limited public disclosure. As Congressman Tim Ryan from Ohio described it to me, “Nobody knows where the money comes from. It’s dark money. You can literally write millions of dollars’ worth of campaign donations to these super PACs, and no one will ever know who you are.” This applies to both Democrats and Republicans.
The lawmakers can return the favor by writing legislation and implementing policies that benefit their donors. If the owner of a large coal company donates $15 million to a super PAC, the lawmakers who benefit from that money can ease environmental regulations that benefit the coal industry, boosting profits. Same goes for benefits to unions from their donations. It is not transactional, or a quid pro quo, but the intent of the donations is clear.
THE REVOLVING DOOR
Many corporate lobbyists share a similar background. They are often former politicians and political aides who have an inside track into their former agencies and the clubby chambers of Congress. Even worse is the revolving-door phenomenon, where lobbyists and government officials cycle back and forth between jobs in the industry and jobs in the government. It is a practice that industry insiders take advantage of to pull strings for corporations and special interests. When President Obama was in office, he took steps to clamp down on the practice. In 2009 he signed an executive order forbidding lobbyists from working for agencies that they had lobbied at any point in the previous two years. It was known as the “cooling off” rule, and it became the centerpiece of what his White House called “the most sweeping ethics reform in history.” Although the intent was good, the Obama administration also hired many industry lobbyists.3
When President Trump took the reins, despite vehemently promising to “drain the swamp” on the campaign trail, his administration ignored the cooling-off rule in some cases and in other cases simply issued waivers that allowed lobbyists to jump straight from their firms to the government agencies they had lobbied only days or weeks earlier. A report from the government watchdog group Public Citizen found that at least 133 registered lobbyists were appointed to government positions in the Trump administration’s first six months. At least 60 of them had been active in the two years prior to being appointed, and 36 had lobbied agencies and issues that were directly related to their new government roles. Some were required to sign ethics “pledges” that turned out to be vague and largely unenforced. For instance, Trump’s FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, joined the board of Pfizer just months after stepping down from his government post. A win for Big Pharma, a liability for the average citizen.
One agency where the revolving door has had a striking impact is the USDA. The agency hired a sugar lobbyist named Kailee Tkacz to work as an adviser on its 2020 Dietary Guidelines.4 Immediately prior to joining the agency, Tkacz was a lobbyist for the Corn Refiners Association, which represents the biggest producers of high-fructose corn syrup. Prior to that she was a lobbyist for the Snack Food Association (now SNAC International), nicknamed Washington’s voice for sugar, fat, and salt because its members include such companies as Kraft and Frito-Lay. Even though Tkacz had a blatant conflict of interest that should have disqualified her, the White House permitted her appointment, saying she was “uniquely qualified to assist the Secretary of Agriculture and his senior leadership team in issuing the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.”5
A short time later, the agency plucked three other lobbyists from the food industry to help shape policy:
Maggie Lyons was hired to advise the head of the USDA and other senior officials on SNAP, WIC, and the school lunch program—the very issues she lobbied the agency on while working for the National Grocers Association only a few months earlier.6
Brooke Appleton, a corn and wheat lobbyist who spent years lobbying the USDA on elements of the Farm Bill, was hired by the agency to advise it on elements of the 2018 Farm Bill.7
Kristi Boswell had lobbied Congress on behalf of the Farm Bureau in support of legislation that would have made it easier for agribusinesses to deny health care coverage to seasonal farmworkers. Boswell was hired by the USDA to work on the same issues that she lobbied on: regulations involving seasonal farmworkers.8
The food industry contends that hiring lobbyists for government positions makes political sense because lobbyists often have unique insights and expertise on obscure regulatory issues. To some extent that might be true. But it’s also naïve to believe that a former sugar lobbyist would advocate for sugar restrictions in the dietary guidelines. Or that a lobbyist who spent years opposing mandatory health care coverage for seasonal farmworkers would suddenly fight to protect farmworkers’ rights. Not to mention that these men and women know that, once they leave their government roles, they can walk through Washington’s revolving door and immediately return to their lucrative lobbying positions.
PROTECTING PROFITS IN THE SHADOWS
Louis Brandeis, the Supreme Court justice, famously said that sunlight was the greatest disinfectant. Publicity, he argued, can be a powerful remedy for social injustice. Though he wrote those words more than a century ago, they remain as true today as they were then—and they are the reason food industry lobbyists are so careful to do the bulk of their work out of the public eye. In 2017, more than 11,500 lobbyists registered with the federal government. That’s 21 lobbyists for every single member of Congress. Some of the biggest corporations, like Walmart, have as many as 100 lobbyists working for them at any given time.9 But even that is just the tip of the iceberg. Studies show that thousands of unregistered lobbyists—so-called shadow lobbyists—work off the books thanks to obscure loopholes and lax enforcement. James Thurber, a professor at American University who studies the issue, has found that the true number of lobbyists working in Washington is around 100,000.10 This estimate may be debatable, nonetheless it is a big number. That is enough lobbyists to fill two Yankee Stadiums or enough to have 187 lobbyists for every member of Congress. The amount spent on lobbying is staggering, about $3.4 billion a year in 2018.11
It should not surprise you to learn that many of the biggest names in the food industry deploy sophisticated lobbying operations to protect their profits. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit that tracks special interest spending, the food companies and trade groups that lobby the government the most are Coke, Pepsi, Monsanto, the American Beverage Association, Nestlé, General Mills, McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, the candy and dairy industries, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), who collectively spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars to influence lawmakers.
Although the Big Food companies claim to be good stewards of public health, the real reason they spend so much money in Washington is so they can block policies that hurt their bottom lines and promote policies that make them money. Food corporations have to answer to their shareholders. Unfortunately, because their products are frequently toxic, it just so happens that more often than not they end up taking a position that undermines public health. An analysis of their lobbying tactics found that 97 percent of the time the soda industry took positions antagonistic to public health, opposing limits to marketing junk food to kids or for better child nutrition.12
What exactly is Big Food lobbying against? Here are just a few examples.
Protections from Dangerous Chemicals
In 2009, the American Beverage Association filed eighty different lobbying reports related to twenty-four bills in Congress. Among the legislation it sought to influence was the Ban Poisonous Additives (BPA) Act of 2009, which would have ended the use of bisphenol-A (commonly known as BPA) in children’s food and drink containers. BPA, a synthetic hormone that imitates estrogen in the body, has been linked to cancer, obesity, and heart disease.13 Why would anyone want to keep these chemicals in children’s food and beverage containers? It’s simple: For many in the food industry, including soft drink companies, profit trumps public health and replacing BPA costs money. The American Beverage Association filed more than a dozen lobbying reports documenting its efforts to scuttle the BPA Act. They were ultimately successful. The bill failed, never making it out of committee for a vote.14 While some states have banned the use of BPA, the FDA still declares it safe.
Fast-Food Lawsuits
Tobacco companies have been sued for giving people lung cancer. Oil companies have been sued for polluting the environment. Fast-food companies do not want to be sued for making people fat, sick, and diabetic. For more than a decade, they have spent millions trying to get politicians to pass laws shielding them from obesity-related lawsuits. As of 2018, at least twenty-six states have passed these so-called Commonsense Consumption measures, which are better known as “cheeseburger laws.”15
Federal lawmakers have tried to enact them too. The biggest proponent of these measures was Ric Keller, a Republican congressman from Florida who sponsored two separate bills protecting fast-food makers from obesity-related lawsuits.16 The Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act passed in the House but not in the Senate. Why would Keller sponsor these ridiculous bills? It could be the fact that he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from a PAC representing McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King. He also took roughly $60,000 from Darden Restaurants, the parent company of Olive Garden, as well as $50,000 from the National Beer Wholesalers Association and more than $30,000 from the National Restaurant Association, which represents Taco Bell, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Domino’s Pizza. While fast-food lawsuits might strike some as frivolous, there is a reason Big Food companies are so desperate to stop them. As Michele Simon, a public health lawyer and food industry expert, argued in her book Appetite for Profit, the food industry is terrified of forced disclosure: “What scares food companies even more than costly jury verdicts is the prospect of the discovery process—when lawyers are allowed access to the defendant’s documents and other inside information—unearthing damning information about dishonest industry practices. This in turn, can open the door to a plethora of new government regulation. An avalanche of damning documents discovered through litigation against the tobacco industry revealed so much information that an entire research group at the University of California is currently dedicated to its study. The food industry has learned from tobacco that litigation is a powerful public interest tool.”17 The buried information includes acknowledgment of the addictive nature of processed food, the specific and deliberate targeting of children, minorities, and the poor, and the strategic manipulation of science and scientists to influence policy and public opinion, among other revealing information.
GMO Label Transparency
When it comes to your health, nothing is more important than what you put in your mouth. As I always say: Food isn’t just calories; it’s information. That’s why the more we know about our food—what’s in it, where it’s from, and how it was grown or raised—the better. But the food industry would rather keep you in the dark. The most damaging result of Big Food’s battle against transparency was a bill passed in 2016 that limited your right to know whether GMOs lurk in your food. This is an issue that should be concerning to everyone. Genetically modified crops were sold to us with great promise: The technology was supposed to make crops immune to weed killers and pests, leading to an abundance of foods that would solve the problem of world hunger. We were told that genetically engineered crops would require fewer pesticides and herbicides and produce higher yields. But none of that has turned out to be true.
Studies have found that genetically modifying crops has little or no benefit to crop yields. At the same time, genetically engineered crops are undoubtedly bad for the environment (see Chapter 15). They’ve fueled the spread of herbicide-resistant superweeds on more than 60 million acres of American farmland, leading farmers to increase their use of toxic weed killers like Monsanto’s Roundup, the most widely used pesticide in the world and a known carcinogen.18 These toxins leach into the ground, contaminate rivers and streams, and taint our food supply. Genetically modified plants are the most pesticide- and herbicide-laden crops—and shockingly, an estimated three-quarters of the food in our supermarkets contain them.
At least sixty-four countries have laws mandating GMO labeling, including the twenty-eight nations of the European Union and most other developed countries including China and Russia, not generally known for consumer protections or transparency.19
For a while, the United States was headed in that direction as well. In 2014, Vermont became the first state to pass a law mandating labels on GMO foods. Then Maine and Connecticut followed suit. The measures were so popular that GMO-labeling initiatives were added to statewide ballots across the country, supported by grassroots advocates. Then Big Food got involved and quashed the movement.
The industry complained that labeling GMO foods would increase their production costs, leading to higher prices for consumers. It didn’t matter that independent studies refuted this claim.20 Big Food turned to its allies in Congress and spearheaded a bill overturning state laws requiring GMO labeling, commonly referred to by opponents as the DARK Act, for Denying Americans the Right to Know.
Big Food poured a shocking amount of money into this bill, underscoring just how terrifying it found GMO labeling. An analysis by the Environmental Working Group found that food companies spent more than $50 million lobbying for the legislation in the first half of 2015 alone.21 That is money they could have easily spent on better labeling and better ingredients in their products!
It’s no surprise that some of the biggest spenders were companies that depend heavily on high-fructose corn syrup, vegetable oils, and other GMO ingredients. Six companies—Coke, Pepsi, Kraft, Kellogg’s, Land O’Lakes, and General Mills—spent at least $12.6 million lobbying against GMO labeling laws. Meanwhile the GMA hired thirty-two lobbyists and spent more than $10 million lobbying against the measures. Ultimately, the Environmental Working Group analysis found that the food and biotech industries together spent a combined $143 million lobbying against GMO labeling between 2013 and 2015. They also launched a widespread public campaign to influence public opinion—paying for billboards, radio and television commercials, social media ads, flyers, and other materials to mislead Americans into thinking that GMO labels would hurt their pocketbooks.
The industry’s exorbitant campaign did not fool the public. One New York Times survey found that three-quarters of Americans expressed concern about GMO ingredients in their food and 93 percent favored labeling them.22 But the industry used its political clout to subvert the will of the people. The DARK Act nullified labeling laws in Vermont and other states. Instead of mandating clear GMO identifiers on all packages containing them, it made labeling voluntary. It also gave food companies convenient options. They were told they could slap a barcode on packages that consumers could scan to find out if an item contains GMOs or an 800 number that consumers could call. While the food industry portrayed this as a compromise, it put an enormous burden on consumers. How many shoppers are going to walk through the supermarket scanning every single item they pick up, or making phone calls to find out if the dozens of groceries in their shopping carts contain GMOs? And what about poor and elderly people in rural areas who may not have access to the digital technology required?
The DARK Act deprives Americans of what should be easily accessible information about their food. But the law isn’t written in stone. With enough pressure on politicians and the Big Food companies they’re beholden to, Americans who want truth and transparency on food labels can overturn it.
DARK MONEY PROPAGANDA THROUGH FAKE GRASSROOTS EFFORTS
An earlier battle over GMO labeling illustrates one of the most insidious ways that Big Food controls public opinion, through benevolently named front groups that pretend to promote the interests of citizens and the science.
Long before the DARK Act was signed into law, food activists like Chris and Leah McManus, a couple of organic-loving vegans from northwest Washington, were doing their part to push for strong GMO labeling laws. Early one Friday morning in the summer of 2012, Chris and Leah walked into the Washington State Capitol building in Olympia with a petition for a statewide referendum. They wanted to launch a state law requiring that all genetically modified foods carry a clear and easy-to-read GMO label.
The couple had a groundswell of grassroots support: About 350,000 people across the state had signed their petition. Supporters of the referendum, called Initiative 522, included some of Washington’s most recognizable icons, like the fishmongers who toss freshly caught salmon and halibut at Seattle’s famous Pike Place Fish Market, who were worried about genetically modified farmed salmon escaping and interbreeding with wild salmon.
Initiative 522 also attracted the attention of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. Most people have never heard of the GMA, the food industry’s largest and oldest lobbying group, but they most certainly know its 300 or so member companies. They include food industry titans like General Mills, Hershey’s, Kellogg’s, Procter & Gamble, Welch’s, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, H.J. Heinz, and Kraft. The GMA is a major player in DC.
In fact, a senior executive at one of the largest food companies in the world told me that the GMA aggressively obstructs any regulation or legislation that can improve the food system. That is why Nestlé, Unilever, Danone, and Mars quit the GMA and started the Sustainable Food Policy Alliance to improve the food system. What they do remains to be seen, but it was a big statement for them to leave GMA and a step in the right direction resulting from consumer demand for different food and different polices.
Between 2005 and 2016, the GMA spent roughly $50 million lobbying the federal government. At the top of the group’s agenda in 2012 was GMO labeling. In a speech that year to the American Soybean Association, Pamela Bailey, the GMA’s president at the time, called it “the single-highest priority for GMA this year.”23 The food industry hated the idea of a labeling requirement. Almost every processed-food maker would have to slap GMO labels on most of their products. General Mills would have to put it on packages of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Honey Nut Cheerios. Coke and Pepsi would have to put it on their soft drinks. Kellogg’s would be forced to put it on their frozen waffles, Pop-Tarts, and cornflakes. Even Welch’s fruit juice would have to carry a GMO label.
The GMA was prepared to stop the Washington State initiative at all costs. The board members hatched a plan to fund an aggressive “No on 522” campaign to discredit the GMO labeling measure, using television, print, radio, and Internet ads to call it unscientific, costly, and confusing. The resulting ads were blatantly misleading, claiming that “farmers, food producers and scientists” were against the labeling initiative, making it appear to the public that there was grassroots opposition to GMO labeling. This tactic is known as astroturfing, and it has a long and notorious history. Perfected by tobacco companies, astroturfing involves creating fake grassroots campaigns against policies and regulations to dupe the public.
There was one problem for the GMA, though: Because it was trying to influence the outcome of an election ballot initiative, it was required under campaign finance laws to disclose that it was funding the “No on 522” campaign. But it’s hard to convince Americans that farmers are raising their pitchforks against GMO labeling when your ad has a disclaimer that it was paid for by Coke and Pepsi.
The GMA and its member companies knew this tactic could backfire because they had already used it to discredit a similar labeling initiative in California earlier that year: Prop 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, spending more than $30 million on a misinformation campaign. Though Prop 37 narrowly failed at the polls, the ensuing media coverage cast the food companies and their tactics in a harsh light, and heavy pushback from consumers and health advocates soon followed, including threats of boycotts.24 At a board meeting in January 2013, Pamela Bailey lamented to the board that although their astroturf campaign in California was successful, it carried the costs of heavy criticism and shrinking consumer confidence in all the brands that were involved. That was something they had to avoid in future battles.25
Louis Finkel, a GMA staff member, said they would need to develop a covert strategy that shielded the companies from the kind of pushback they got after the mudslinging in California. He suggested a “multiple use fund”—a war chest—that the individual corporations could pour their money into. The reason for the fund was twofold. First, it would provide a long-term pot of money that the GMA could draw from to attack the patchwork of state measures. And second, the companies could use it to skirt campaign finance laws.
Altogether the GMA member companies spent more than $15 million on “No on 522”:
Pepsi dumped almost $3 million into the war chest.
Coke and Nestlé each poured $1.7 million into it.
General Mills contributed a million dollars, as did Conagra Brands, and so on.
Only this time, because the GMA was acting as a front for the companies, the companies were able to bankroll the “No on 522” campaign without disclosing their direct roles in it. In a particularly brazen sign of the con they pulled, the GMA coached its member companies on what to say if any journalists asked them whether they were paying for the campaign. Internal documents show that the companies were instructed to simply tell reporters “No”—a flagrant lie. The GMA warned the companies not to say much more than that because “it will lead the press and or NGO groups right where we don’t want them to go—meaning, ‘are you assessing your members, or do you have a “secret” fund of some kind?’”26
In mid-2013, as the campaign blanketed the Washington State airwaves with attacks on the labeling measure, the GMA’s plan seemed to be working flawlessly. Except for one major problem: It was illegal. The state’s attorney general, Bob Ferguson, noticed that the campaign was identical to Big Food tactics employed in other states. As Washington voters prepared to cast their ballots, Ferguson filed a restraining order in October 2013, demanding that the GMA publicly disclose who was funding the campaign.
In November, the initiative narrowly failed, with 51 percent of voters opposing it and 49 percent supporting it—the same slim margin that took down the California proposition. Big Food and its deep pockets once again made the difference, and in the process helped to set a new record for money spent against a Washington State initiative.
When Ferguson and his office dug deeper and began to uncover the extent of Big Food’s deception, they filed a lawsuit against the GMA alleging gross campaign finance violations in an attempt to mislead the public. In a case that featured some dramatic and tense moments, the GMA employed a strategy that could best be summed up as deny, deny, deny. Finkel and Bailey both testified that their intentions were not to hide the sources of the money, that shielding the member companies from public scrutiny was not their goal, and that they had no intention of violating the law. Unfortunately for them, the judge presiding over the case didn’t see it that way. In her decision, Judge Anne Hirsch lashed out at Bailey and Finkel for their behavior and said it was simply not believable that they believed all along that their scheme was legal. “The totality of the record establishes under a preponderance of the evidence,” the judge wrote, “that GMA intentionally violated Washington State public campaign finance laws.”27
And, boy, did they pay for it. Judge Hirsch slapped the GMA with a record-setting penalty, ordering the group to pay an astounding $18 million for knowingly breaking the law to conceal the identities of the corporations behind its astroturf campaign. It was the largest campaign-finance penalty in American history, and several million more than the $14.6 million penalty that the attorney general had requested. On top of that, the GMA was ordered to pay the state’s legal fees too.28 The penalty was later reduced by an appeals court to $6 million, but the Washington attorney general said in 2018 that he would fight that decision. It was a good day for the law and for integrity, and a bad day for Big Food and its playbook of dirty tricks. “It’s one of my happiest days as attorney general,” Ferguson told reporters. “GMA’s conduct was just so egregious.”29
Still, what’s a few million in fines compared to hundreds of billions in profit? They lost the lawsuit but won the battle anyway. There are no GMO labels in Washington State.
FOOD FIX: FIGHT THE FOOD LOBBYISTS WITH REAL GRASSROOTS EFFORTS AND LOBBY REFORM
Synthetic hormones in food and beverage containers. Obesogenic chemicals in fast food. Roundup in your morning oatmeal. These may seem like health hazards to you and me, but to Big Food they are business as usual. These practices are big moneymakers, which is why the food industry is willing to spend billions lobbying against regulations designed to rein them in.
We often think of ourselves as being at the mercy of big corporations. But the reality is that they answer to us, not the other way around. When we disapprove of their practices, we can force them to change by voting with our dollars. We need to support and invest in companies that are socially, environmentally, and nutritionally responsible. And we should effectively boycott companies that are doing the opposite. Companies can only sell what consumers will buy.
Think this kind of public pressure won’t work? Plenty of grassroots efforts have spurred food industry changes. Though we’ve seen a few examples of how Big Food has overcome attempts at GMO labeling laws, they are a great example of how public sentiment can be as important as legislation. Some big companies saw the writing on the wall when Vermont’s law was on the verge of taking effect in 2016 and decided to accommodate consumers instead of fighting them. Several big companies, led by Campbell Soup Company, announced that they would start disclosing GMO ingredients on all their packages nationwide—not just in Vermont. Ben & Jerry’s said it would switch to using only non-GMO ingredients, and companies like General Mills said they would seek Non-GMO Project certifications on some of their products. Many of these companies received widespread praise from non-GMO activists and applause from consumers. Walk into any big supermarket and you will now see that a lot of companies use GMO labels that go above and beyond what the law requires. Even better, more and more companies are deciding to avoid GMOs entirely. They recognize not only that it’s better for their products and the environment, but that it’s also a smart business move.
Other giant food corporations are also evolving in response to grassroots consumer campaigns. Take a look at the dairy industry. Sales of cows’ milk have been plunging for years over concerns about hormones, antibiotics, animal welfare, and the environmental impact of dairy farms. Plant-based beverages like almond, coconut, and cashew milk have quickly become a billion-dollar industry as consumers reach for more ethical and sustainable alternatives. But almond milk may not be a great alternative to regeneratively raised dairy cows. The large almond orchards are draining the aquifers in the San Joaquin Valley in California and require large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer (problems addressed in Part 5). While some in the dairy industry have attacked plant-based milks, others have recognized the demand for them and capitalized on the trend. In 2016, Danone, one of the world’s largest dairy companies, announced a deal to buy the WhiteWave Foods company—the makers of Silk nut milks, Vega protein, and other popular plant-based dairy substitutes—for about $12 billion. The acquisition allowed Danone to build up its plant-based portfolio.30
Meanwhile Cargill, Tyson, and a host of other global beef and poultry producers have invested millions in companies that are bringing animal-free “clean meat” products to market, like Memphis Meats and Beyond Meat. Nestlé acquired Sweet Earth Foods, the makers of Harmless Ham and Benevolent Bacon, and Unilever and Walmart are pushing further into the so-called meatless meat market. These products aren’t aimed at vegans. They’re aimed at meat eaters who are concerned that their hamburgers and chicken wings come with a hefty carbon footprint and a big dose of hormones and antibiotics. The market for alternative meat grew to almost $5 billion in 2018 alone.31 But plant-based meat alternatives like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are not the perfect solution. They are highly processed foods whose raw materials are grown through extractive, not regenerative, agriculture.32
Let’s all work together to send a message to Big Food.
FOOD FIX: WHAT YOU CAN DO
1. Donate to campaigns with integrity. We need to get money out of politics by reversing Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to give near unlimited financial contributions to candidates and parties through super PACs in anonymous ways, often called dark money.33 Just 132 Americans have given 60 percent of the money to super PACs. This is 0.00042 percent of the population that is driving the candidates they choose and who will likely get elected. Just 11 donors have given $1 billion (or one-fifth of all donations) to super PACs since they were established in 2010.34 Most of the rest of the funding for candidates comes from 0.05 percent of Americans. (For more information, Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig has mapped out this problem in great detail in his book America, Compromised.)
This system allows very few, very rich Americans to influence government and policy. The antidote is for more Americans to vote for candidates willing to act with integrity and change the policies needed to fix our broken system. And for more Americans to donate small amounts of money. If each of us gave $10, we would raise more than $3 billion for elections. It matters.
Shop at non-GMO retailers. One of my favorites is Thrive Market, an online retailer that sells natural, organic foods and products at discounted prices. I have personally invested in Thrive to support affordable access to whole foods through online purchases. Thrive is the largest seller of exclusively non-GMO foods. Compared to other retailers, their products are affordable, often at 25 to 50 percent off the retail price. Plus, when you sign up for a Thrive membership, the company donates a free membership to a family in need. In 2016, after a large advocacy campaign, a USDA pilot program explored the opportunity to use food stamps to shop at Thrive Market and other online food providers. Check them out at www.thrivemarket.com.
Look for the Non-GMO Project verified seal. The Non-GMO Project is a nonprofit that tests and verifies products to ensure they don’t contain GMOs. It also audits companies and requires that they adhere to rigorous standards to avoid GMO contamination. Support companies that are doing the right thing by choosing products that have the Non-GMO Project seal on their labels. I recommend going to their website, nongmoproject.org, to search their database of retailers in your region. As of 2019 they had more than 14,200 registered retailers across the country!
Look for the USDA organic seal. The USDA oversees the National Organic Program, which certifies organic products and makes sure they are free of GMOs. Organic producers who receive the seal are prohibited from using GMO seeds or giving their animals GMO feed. Their farms are inspected every year, and they are not allowed to use chemical fertilizers, synthetic substances, and irradiation. Nor are they allowed to use artificial colors, preservatives, or flavoring. Buying products that carry the USDA organic seal is one of the best ways to steer clear of GMOs while sending a message to Big Food to change its practices. Look for the seal when you buy fresh produce, meat, and other foods.
3. Use refillable containers. One way to avoid BPA and protect the environment at the same time is to minimize your use of plastic containers. Choose reusable glass and stainless steel containers instead. Plastic containers are bad for your health and bad for the environment. They are made with BPA, BPS (bisphenol-S), and other synthetic chemicals that can leach into your food. Some of these containers can be recycled, but often they end up in landfills or they work their way into rivers, streams, and parks.
Thanks to public awareness campaigns, companies are beginning to address the problem. In 2019, two dozen of the world’s biggest brands announced that they’re going to start offering their products in reusable glass and stainless steel containers. Through the project, called Loop, companies like Unilever, Quaker Oats, Tropicana, Procter & Gamble, and others will be using this more sustainable and BPA-free packaging for many of their bestselling products. The way it works is that the products will be delivered to consumers in a reusable tote. When the containers are empty, you put them back in the tote, and a UPS driver will pick them up—at no extra cost.
These kinds of innovative strategies are exactly what we need from big brands. In the meantime, try to minimize your use of plastics. Use glass food-storage containers, reusable glass or metal water bottles, and other containers that are better for your health and the environment.35
4. Buy locally sourced meat. So how do you avoid meat that originated in countries where tainted meat is a problem? The easiest thing to do is to shop at stores that go beyond the lax federal requirements. Whole Foods, for example, requires country-of-origin labels on all its meat products. One grocery chain, New Seasons Market, even identifies the state or region where the meat originated, along with the name of the farm it came from.36 I also recommend using the following sources to buy locally raised meat.
Eatwild maintains a directory of US, Canadian, and international farms and ranches that you can use to find grass-fed, pastured meat and dairy products in your area: www.eatwild.com.
LocalHarvest is probably the leading website when it comes to finding local food. Use their database to find meat, fruits, vegetables, dairy, and other foods that were grown or raised in your local area: www.localharvest.org.
Firsthand Foods is a wholesale meat business that provides locally sourced beef, pork, lamb, and other meats to consumers. They work with a network of small-scale, pasture-based livestock producers that follows strict standards. Check out their website, firsthandfoods.com, and sign up for a monthly delivery of fresh, pasture-raised products.
American Grassfed Association has a directory of 100 percent grass-finished meat producers: www.americangrassfed.org/aga-membership/producer-members/.
5. Engage your representatives to shift nutrition and agriculture policies to ones that promote health and regenerative, sustainable agriculture. And support strict new rules on lobbying and corporate responsibility. We have to better regulate corporate lobbyists. Since there is no money to be made in lobbying for health and nutrition, we must use politics and vote for major changes. When I went to Congress to lobby for incorporating lifestyle medicine into the Affordable Care Act, senators, congressmen, and others asked us what lobby group we were from. We said none. We are representing patients and the science. They were perplexed. It costs me thousands in airfare and hotels, but I felt a different voice needed to be heard.
FOOD FIX: SHUT THE REVOLVING DOOR AND ENFORCE LOBBYING RESTRICTIONS
The federal government can start by making the lobbying system more transparent. The more we know, the more we can change. Right now, lobbyists are held to weak disclosure laws. They’re required to file quarterly reports listing their clients, their compensation, and the agencies or branches of government that they’re targeting. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics does an excellent job of tracking this information and making it available to the public online. But the disclosure system doesn’t go far enough. All it tells us is that corporations spend a ton of money lobbying the government, which we already knew.
The public deserves to know, in a timely manner, exactly who in the government is being lobbied and why. Some research groups like the Brookings Institution have proposed a better system that would involve the federal government creating an online portal where every piece of legislation is posted before it is voted on or signed into law. There, under each bill, lobbyists would be required to state who their clients are, which members of Congress or agencies they lobbied, and their positions on that bill or its amendments. This site could also serve as a forum for the public to weigh in on proposed legislation. The Library of Congress had a website where it made legislation available online, called the THOMAS system (http://thomas.loc.gov), that has become Congress.gov. Now we just need to update this system to make it more democratic and useful for the public.37
Government can and should be a tremendous force for good, not for powerful special interest groups and their well-connected lobbyists. That’s why the revolving door between industry and the government should be closed and locked for good. For starters:
Elected and appointed government officials should be banned from becoming lobbyists when they leave office, or at least face an extensive “cooling-off” period of five years or longer.
At the same time, people who worked as corporate lobbyists should be restricted from taking jobs in the federal government. If you worked as a lobbyist for the sugar industry or McDonald’s, you should not be allowed to take a job at the USDA as an adviser on the Dietary Guidelines. If you worked for the FDA, you should be banned from taking a corporate job in the fast-food or pharmaceutical industry lobbying the very agency you just left. The FDA commissioner example mentioned earlier is only the most recent and egregious.
A windfall tax could be imposed on excessive lobbying to clamp down on any one corporation’s or union’s ability to spend unlimited sums of money lobbying against the greater good of society. While highly controversial, Elizabeth Warren has proposed a tax of 35 percent on lobbying expenditures between half a million and one million dollars, 60 percent between $1 and $5 million, and 75 percent on expenditures over $5 million.
Enforcing the restrictions and closing loopholes that permit personal gifts to public officials.
While changing the lobbying laws and regulations may seem far out of our realm of influence, we can vote with our dollars on the local level and pressure our senators and congressmen to support reform at the national level. Let’s speak up and put an end to the politics of bad food.