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In Mississippi, incarcerated trusties cleaned chicken houses, fixed cars and installed flooring for the benefit of a local sheriff and his associates, a new investigation found. Steph Quinn, Mukta Joshi and Jerry Mitchell report for The New York Times:

The cycle of high-protein diet trends persists in the West, reshaping itself with new names, but carrying familiar implications — on our health, the planet animals and our culture — making it clear that the fixation on animal proteins comes at a meaty cost.

New research from Nectar shows which products are closest to "taste parity" — and which need more work. Frida Garza reports via Grist:

Cultivated meat is still a ways away from reaching grocery stores or restaurants near you, yet in the last year, three states — Florida, Alabama and Mississippi — have made it a crime to sell it. Could others be on the horizon? It might be too soon to tell, but we do know legislative efforts to stall alternative proteins are nothing new — and that suggests this trend may indeed continue Learn more: https://buff.ly/RiAsRzO

Robert F. Kennedy has promised to to revamp the food system with a plan to “reverse 80 years of farming policy.” But what exactly would it mean for the average American to eat like we did in the 1940s? Experts tell Sentient the reality was not as idyllic as Kennedy and his supporters might believe. It’s also not at all feasible, as it would require the U.S. to make drastic changes to the way we eat: Americans would have to eat much less meat. Jessica Scott-Reid explains: https://buff.ly/QGMHxJA

Today, checkoffs promote a wide range of foods — eggs and pork, and also watermelon and Hass avocados — but a growing number of critics, including farmers, are raising objections to the mandatory payment scheme. Some critics have even called for Elon Musk’s DOGE to curb checkoff programs, yet that kind of cut may not be popular, or legal. Since their beginnings in 1966, checkoffs have ballooned into a combined pot of almost $1 billion supervised by the United States Department of Agriculture but operated by commodity boards. Learn more: https://buff.ly/miLftVS

In February, the USDA terminated about 6,000 jobs. Following a judge’s order, many employees have been reinstated, but the Trump administration is moving forward with plans to reduce the federal workforce. Sky Chadde reports for Investigate Midwest:

The largest pork producer in America is owned by a Chinese company, and a lot of people don’t like that. Critics of the corporate acquisition that took place in 2013 argued that Smithfield Foods’ Chinese ownership was a national security threat. Now, a political action committee is building on that sentiment — warning that Congress is being lobbied by Smithfield and other pork industry groups to slip language into the Farm Bill to gut the animal welfare protections of California’s Proposition 12. But there are other major problems with the company that long predate any Chinese involvement. Seth Millstein explains: https://buff.ly/xBtLkHD

The egg industry in the United States is highly consolidated: 75% of egg-laying hens are raised on fewer than 350 factory farms. This consolidation has historically enabled eggs to be an extremely cheap commodity at the grocery store. Feed costs are low, and factory farms are highly efficient, churning out millions of eggs per month. But the true cost of these operations can be seen in their externalities: a lack of animal welfare, pollution and compromised worker safety. Learn more: https://buff.ly/nPV5YS5