The Food Policy Paradox: Why Freedom Won't Fix the American Diet or Make America Healthy Again

If you zoom in enough, you can actually find some overlap in the RFK Jr. ?? Graham Walker Venn diagram. It’s just a tiny sliver, but it’s there. It reads: the American diet.

We all want a healthier America: Healthier food choices, healthier food options, fewer fresh food deserts? Sign me up. Pizza sauce is not a vegetable for our school children. And I think most physicians agree — our health is tied to our food.

But here’s where the Venn diagram starts to break down. How do we achieve a healthier food system through RFK Jr.’s approach, which insists on minimal regulation and unfettered personal choice? His vision for food policy is all contradiction and no coherence.

Contradiction 1: Corporate Food System vs. Freedom

The American food industry is as profit-driven as it gets. Processed foods (73% of the US food supply ) are cheaper than fresh whole foods because of subsidies and economies of scale, not because they’re healthier. Does anyone really believe that PepsiCo, Nestlé, or Kraft Heinz will voluntarily agree to sell fewer of their products? Or that they’ll stop stuffing foods with sugar, sodium, and stabilizers without external pressure?

Making real, nutritional improvements in the food system requires more government intervention and regulation, not less. Are we to expect corporations to self-regulate out of the goodness of their hearts?

Contradiction 2: Raw Milk and Personal Choice

And then there’s the raw milk obsession. RFK Jr. has stated, “I only drink raw milk,” claiming it’s healthier and more natural. Yet milk products are the #1 cause of foodborne illness in the U.S. Studies show unpasteurized dairy accounts for 3% of milk consumption but causes 96% of illnesses linked to dairy products .

Sure, most people who drink raw milk will be fine—just like most people who don’t wear seat belts will avoid car accidents, or most drunk swimmers won’t drown.

This contradiction cuts to the heart of RFK Jr.’s stance: If food is intrinsically linked to health (and I believe it is), then who ensures people make healthier choices? If he wants people to have the freedom to drink raw milk, then surely they have the freedom to eat junk all day.

Contradiction 3: Subsidies and Systemic Change

“But Graham,” you cry, “the U.S. government subsidizes corn, and it's turned into high-fructose corn syrup and cheap meat feed!” And you’d be absolutely right. These subsidies, totaling $16 billion annually , disproportionately support commodity crops like corn, soybeans, and wheat, driving down the cost of processed foods while leaving fruits and vegetables comparatively expensive.

Redirecting subsidies to support broccoli, apples, or black beans is a fantastic idea in theory. But here’s the catch: those changes would drive up the cost of other products —?including America's favorite: meat —?and disrupt both small farmers and large agribusinesses. Combine that with RFK Jr.’s other ideas, like banning glyphosate herbicides or antibiotics in animal production—and food prices will skyrocket.

The result? People turn back to processed foods simply because they’re the cheapest option left.

While these systemic issues shape our food choices, there's another contradiction in how we approach solutions.

Contradiction 4: Physicians and the Blame Game

American's health is deeply tied to our food, but our food is deeply tied to the affordability and availability of foods, too.

Yet there’s another contradiction at play: the expectation that doctors are somehow responsible for —?or even able to — fix their patients’ dietary habits. Let me be absolutely crystal clear here: We would love for our patients to eat healthier and exercise more. No doctor thinks, "Let me make sure to gloss over nutritional advice so that I keep my patient coming back when they develop diabetes."

But the truth is, we don’t control what happens once they walk out of the ER or the office. We can counsel patients until we're blue in the face (in our 15 minute visits), but we too are working within a system that makes unhealthy choices cheap, easy, and ubiquitous. There is no pill we can prescribe that can overcome what happens during the rest of our patients' lives.

The Uncomfortable Truth

If Kennedy is serious about reforming the American food system, it’s going to require systemic changes. These changes — subsidy reform, stricter regulations on harmful chemicals, and policies that make fresh, whole foods affordable — are fundamentally at odds with the values of RFK Jr. and the president-elect.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: We can’t have it both ways. A safer, healthier food system demands oversight, structure, and yes—regulation. (And this is coming from me, the guy that complains about the frustrations with HIPAA and EMTALA all the time.) If there's some magical way around this that I'm missing, I'm totally down to hear it.

I want cheaper, healthier, less-processed, fresher food for myself and everyone in the United States. And making that vision a reality would save us trillions of dollars in other healthcare costs (hospital admissions, pharmaceutical spend), and more importantly would improve the quality of life and health span of all Americans.

I'm just not sure RFK Jr. has actually taken his ideas to the next level: implementation. The real question is whether we as a nation are ready to accept the trade-off between individual freedom and collective health. Or cheap, corporate processed junk and pricey, nutritionally-dense food. These values internally conflict, not align.

The health of the American public depends on our answer.

Header photo via https://x.com/margomartin/status/1858051015838216692