Could RFK Jr. loosen food industry’s grip on federal policy?

In their long slog to tame the big food lobby, Jerold Mande often had to assure his allies that the time would come when the grueling campaign to liberate America from its ruinous addiction to the cheaply-made, laboratory-engineered products known as ultraprocessed foods would finally catch fire.

That moment may finally be at hand, sparked by the unlikeliest of evangelists: A notorious conspiracy theorist and longtime critic of the public health establishment who also has it in for mass-produced foods engineered to be hyperpalatable, convenient, and profitable.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, might be an “imperfect messenger,” Mande acknowledges. But his campaign to “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) has already catapulted the issue to the forefront of the national conversation.