Ultra-processed foods - RFK on 60 Minutes video Feb 2026

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A Rare Political Alignment (00:27): HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kesler have formed an unlikely alliance to target "ultraprocessed foods," identifying a 1958 government classification called GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) as a primary source of America’s health crisis.[1]
The Scale of the Crisis (00:50): Over half of adult calories and 60% of children’s diets in the U.S. now consist of ultraprocessed foods. Dr. Kesler notes that 70% of Americans are now overweight or obese, resulting in the "greatest increase in chronic disease in our history," including type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease.
The Tobacco Industry Parallel (01:53): Dr. Kesler, who previously took on Big Tobacco, compares the food industry's methods to nicotine manipulation. He argues that these "hyper-palatable" foods are engineered to target brain reward circuits, causing addiction and overriding the body's natural sense of fullness.[1]
The "GRAS" Loophole (04:00): Kennedy highlights that the GRAS exemption allows food companies to self-verify the safety of new ingredients without government oversight.[2] Consequently, while Europe has roughly 400 legal food ingredients, the U.S. has between 4,000 and 10,000, many of which the FDA has never independently reviewed.[3]
Metabolic Havoc (05:35): The segment explains how refined carbohydrates and starches (like maltodextrin and corn syrup) are absorbed so rapidly that they cause "metabolic havoc," leading to fat accumulation in organs and fueling cardiometabolic disease.
Subsidizing Disease (09:58): Author Michael Pollan explains that federal farm subsidies through the Farm Bill specifically support commodity corn and soybeans—the raw ingredients for ultraprocessed foods.[2] He argues that taxpayers are essentially "supporting both sides" by subsidizing the cause of type 2 diabetes while simultaneously paying for its healthcare costs.
Industry and Economic Defense (08:48): The Consumer Brands Association argues there is no "agreed-upon scientific definition" of ultraprocessed foods and maintains that companies adhere to rigorous FDA safety standards.[1][2] Furthermore, there are concerns that removing subsidies would spike food prices, disproportionately affecting those in "food deserts."
Future Policy Actions (12:15): RFK Jr. states that while the administration may not "regulate" ultraprocessed foods out of existence, they intend to close the GRAS loophole and ensure the public is fully informed about the safety and nutritional content of what they consume.

Transcript

(00:02) Today, an increasing number of Americans across the political spectrum, from Make America Healthy Again activists to everyday shoppers, are voicing concern about the health impact of ultra-processed foods, those boxed and wrapped in plastic, ready-to-eat items lining grocery store shelves. Leading the charge are two men who disagree on pretty much everything else about public health.
(00:27) Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. David Kesler, the former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration. The two men have found common ground over a common culprit, a 67-year-old government classification for substances in our food. It's called grass or generally recognized as safe.
(00:50) Kennedy and Kesler say it has allowed big food companies to use ingredients without a full government safety review and flood the market with ultra-processed foods that now make up 50% of our calories and 60% of our children's diets. Over the last 40 years, the United States has been exposed to something that our biology was never intended to handle.
(01:19) energy-dense, highly palatable, rapidly absorbable, ultraprocessed foods that have altered our metabolism and have resulted in the greatest increase in chronic disease in our history. Type two diabetes, pre-diabetes, hypertension, abnormal lipids, fatty liver, heart attacks, stroke, heart failure, from our food, from our food.
(01:53) David Kesler was commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration during the 1990s when he helped expose how the tobacco companies manipulated nicotine levels to hook consumers. >> I am here to provide you with actual instances of nicotine control and manipulation in the tobacco industry. if you raise your right hand.
(02:17) >> He was a driving force in bringing tobacco executives before Congress and turning public attention to the industry. He's now aiming to do the same with the food industry in terms of a public health crisis. How does this compare with tobacco? >> It's as large if not larger. >> It's that significant.
(02:42) The scale of this affects everybody. Understand? Not everybody smoked. Look at the number of people who consume ultra-processed food. It touches all of us. 70% of Americans are either obese or overweight. And [clears throat] it's not because they got indolent or because we became lazy or because we suddenly developed giant appetites.
(03:09) It's because we're being given food that is low in nutrition [clears throat] and high in calories and it's making it's destroying our health. I see it when I go across the country. We met with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last month after he issued new dietary guidelines that for the first time advise against highly processed foods.
(03:34) You have said that these ultra-processed foods are poisoning us. I I I think many Americans would be surprised to hear that. >> And we're seeing in our population people who are um who are obscenely obese and at the same time malnourished. >> Who wants us? >> Kennedy says that's largely because we don't know the health consequences of what we are eating.
(04:00) Thanks to the grass exemption enacted by Congress in 1958 that allows food companies to independently verify the safety of their ingredients with no government oversight if they are generally recognized by experts as safe. Pending White House approval, he intends to close that back door. That loophole was hijacked by the industry and it was used to add thousands upon thousands of new ingredients into our food supply.
(04:33) In Europe, there's only 400 legal ingredients. This agency does not know how many ingredients there are in American food. >> We do not know. >> They do not know. The estimates are between 4,000 and 10,000. We have no idea what they are. How do we know what is safe to eat? >> There is no way for any American to know if a product is safe if it is ultraprocessed.
(05:00) For his part, David Kesler is petitioning Kennedy to go further and outright revoke the grass status for dozens of processed refined carbohydrates, sweeteners, and starches such as corn syrup and malttodextrin unless the companies can prove they are safe and not fueling obesity. They took starch, right? those cheap, easy calories and they converted those into a whole paniply of ingredients that it was able to reassemble and those products are so rapidly absorbed in our system that they caused metabolic havoc.
(05:35) They target the brain reward circuits to keep us coming back for more. They they trigger overeating. They deprive us of any sense of fullness. >> What we all call empty calories. Those calories are not just empty. they're ending up in your liver and that fat in your liver is going to migrate into other organs and it's at the cause of cardioabolic disease.
(06:01) >> Kesler, a pediatrician, filed his petition with the FDA after zeroing in on grass ingredients listed in plain sight on the backs of packaged foods. >> Pick up any one of these products. You ever you ever look at the ingredient label? A lot of them are things I can't even pronounce. >> Right.
(06:22) Is that food? Corn syrup, corn solids, maltodextrin, dextrose, xylose, high fructose corn syrup. And then these ingredients were subjected to industrial processing so that our system can't handle it. We will act on on David Kesler's petition and the questions that he's asking are questions that FDA should have been asking a long long time ago.
(06:53) Kennedy told us he will use gold standard science to review grass ingredients, but his credibility on that score has been widely called into question because of his history of vaccine skepticism and his agency's revision of the childhood vaccine schedule. Are you concerned at all that your stance on vaccines might make people reluctant to support you on ultraprocessed foods? >> My stance on vaccines is the same.
(07:20) People should have good science and they should have choice. >> Some doctors worry that the new immunization schedule so confusion and will lead some Americans not to vaccinate their children. people who want to get those vaccines can get them and they can get them fully insured. >> The secretary and I, you know, we disagree on a number of issues.
(07:47) I mean, in the strongest possible terms when it comes to vaccines, I disagree. But if he's willing to take action on these ultraprocessed foods, I will be the first one to applaud that. If you don't trust him on vaccines, why trust him when it comes to ultraprocessed foods? I don't think it's a question of trust, Bill. I mean, this country is ill. I'm a doc.
(08:19) I care about the public health of this country, and if we can make progress on that, let's do that. >> The impact on children has been particularly alarming. In December, San Francisco City Attorney David Chu filed a landmark lawsuit against 10 manufacturers of ultrarocessed foods, alleging that like the tobacco companies, they knowingly engineered and marketed addictive, dangerous products while hiding the risks and causing a public health crisis.
(08:48) The Consumer Brands Association, one of the largest trade groups representing the food industry, declined to respond to us about the lawsuit. but in a statement to 60 Minutes said, "There's no agreed upon scientific definition of ultrarocessed foods, and companies adhere to the rigorous evidence-based safety standards and nutrition policy established by the FDA to deliver safe, affordable, and convenient products that consumers depend on every day.
(09:18) >> The granddaddy >> Oreos. We met with food author Michael Pollen, who for decades has been warning about inexpensive factory processed food. >> Granola bars, those look very healthy. All of these would qualify as ultraprocessed foods even though they're very different. This, you know, we have a snack food, couple snack foods.
(09:37) >> Nature Valley, >> I would argue because of the number of uh ingredients in it. So, there's a lot of sugar in here, >> but but this is sold as >> Yeah. Healthy health food. >> You know what it is? Holland commends Kennedy for shining a light on ultra-processed foods. He ties their ubiquity to longstanding federal farm subsidies.
(09:58) >> We subsidize as taxpayers through the farm bill the least healthy calories in the diet. Most of which goes to people farming corn and soybeans. >> What's wrong with corn and soybeans? >> When you hear corn and soy, you think food. This is not corn on the cob. This is commodity corn. It's not this sweet corn we eat in the summer.
(10:18) >> You can't you can't eat it. In fact, it's all starch, big cobs. You'd break your teeth on it. And then soy, which is not in the form we grow it as a commodity, is not edomami. Um you can't eat it. These are raw ingredients for processed foods and animal feed. >> So the government is subsidizing crops that are making us unhealthy.
(10:42) >> Yes. Yeah. put in one way to look at it is we are supporting both sides in the war on type 2 diabetes. We are we're subsidizing the high fructose corn syrup that's contributing to causing it and then we're paying for the health care costs. I mean it makes no sense at all. In a statement, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest general farm organization in the US, told us, "A healthy diet relies on a variety of nutrient-dense foods and a balance of healthy fats, carbohydrates, protein, and fiber, some of which can come from
(11:18) shelf stable foods. Why are there not subsidies to produce more of the healthy foods? >> Cheap food is the goal of all governments. If you were to remove these corn subsidies, there's concern that the price of corn would raise and that would be a problem for the whole food industry, which of course is a very powerful lobby and would be a problem for the consumer conceivably >> when you're taking on ultrarocessed foods.
(11:48) You're also taking on powerful industries, big egg, big food. What makes you believe you will prevail? My belief that I will prevail is because we have the president behind us. >> But the president has shown himself to be pretty much against regulations. So why would he support regulating ultraprocessed foods? >> Well, I'm not saying that we're going to regulate ultraprocessed food.
(12:15) Our job is to make sure that everybody understands what they're getting to have an informed public. There are Americans who live in so-called food deserts with little access to whole foods and these are foods that many of them can't afford anyway. So, how do you speak to that American? >> We are laser focused on making all of these foods affordable and accessible to every American.
(12:41) The Consumer Brands Association told us the grass process enables companies to innovate to meet consumer demand and that food companies adhere to FDA science and risk-based evaluation of ingredients before and after they are in the marketplace. David Kesler says that's not enough. >> We change how this country views tobacco. We need to change how this country views these ultra-processed foods.
(13:10) >> Would you like to see the CEOs of big food companies come before Congress and raise their hand and be questioned like the tobacco industry was? >> I'd like them to understand the consequences of what they are doing and to do something about it. Michael Pollen's food rules to live by. >> If you can't pronounce the ingredients, it's not food.

Ultra-processed foods - RFK on 60 Minutes video Feb 2026

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