In this episode, Helena and Theodore talk about the MAHA commission’s leaked strategy report. Turns out that there’s more talk than action. Also: a former FDA chief challenges RFK Jr. to put up or shut up on ultraprocessed foods. And finally – MAGA vs. MAHA.

In this episode, Theodore and Helena discuss why the (non-vaxx) ideas of the MAHA movement are popular, but the movement itself is less so.. That split presents a major problem for Democrats, who can’t resist the Trump administration when it’s pushing for things they want. Also, does Coke taste better with cane sugar or high-fructose corn syrup? The answer: they taste about the same, and people prefer Pepsi (as long as they don’t know what they’re drinking – then they like Coke).

In this episode, FERN contributor Lisa Morehouse reports on the Anderson Valley Grange Hall in California’s Mendocino County. She finds an organization, and a community, trying to adapt to a changing social landscape – and finding help at the Grange. “Whether it’s doing a holiday dinner or … hosting a local food bank, it’s a place where people can do what’s most natural to us, which is focus on our cooperative dynamics and community,” says Erich Jonas, a member of the Anderson Valley Grange. This episode was produced in partnership with “California Foodways” and KQED’s California Report Magazine podcast.

The major companies that produce and sell ultraprocessed foods are making big changes, or at least they are promising to. The Trump administration has celebrated “wins” over companies as varied as PepsiCo and Steak ‘n Shake. It’s not clear whether decisions from these companies to change their products – out with synthetic dyes and in with beef tallow – are coming from pressure at the federal level, new state laws, changes in the marketplace – or if anything meaningful is happening at all.

Helena and Theodore explain why Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski flipped to cast the deciding vote on Trump’s Big Beautiful Act: an exemption that rewards her state’s highest-in-the-nation SNAP error rates. They also take a look at how the law creates barriers to food assistance and healthcare, with paperwork, work requirements, and pushing administrative costs to the states. Finally, RFK Jr. has talked a big game about banning artificial dyes in foods – but it’s places like West Virginia that have taken action. Do people really want beet-flavored red M&M’s?

In 2024, the owners Mary Mahoney’s Old French House, an iconic restaurant in Biloxi, Mississippi, pleaded guilty to fraudulently selling more than 29 tons of fish between December 2013 and November 2019, claiming it was locally caught when in fact it was imported. Quality Poultry and Seafood—another iconic Gulf Coast business—had sold mislabeled fish to other restaurants, too. Eventually, both businesses had to forfeit more than a million dollars apiece. In this episode, a partnership with Gravy, a podcast from the Southern Foodways Alliance, reporter Boyce Upholt reports on how mislabeled, imported seafood has damaged local fishing fleets in places like Biloxi, which for more than a century has claimed to be the “seafood capital of the world.”

In the “Double Take,” Helena and Theodore have Trump whiplash on the threat of mass deportations in the food system. In “Forks and Knives,” the discussion turns to the historic cuts to food assistance for low-income Americans that are playing out as the “One, Big Beautiful Bill” makes its way through Congress. And for “Good Vibes,” the federal Dietary Guidelines may drop recommendations for how much Americans should drink. Glass clinking sound or MAHA mistake?

American food politics are a mess. The traditional forces driving policy in agriculture and nutrition have been wiped away, and ordinary people are struggling to figure out who is in charge, what they’re up to, and why. Every two weeks, Forked hosts Helena Bottemiller Evich of Food Fix and Theodore Ross FERN's Editor-in-chief cut through the confusion, providing context and analysis, hopefully leaving you feeling less… well, forked. New episodes every two weeks, from the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

In 1910, Black farmers owned as many as 16 million acres of American farmland. Today that figure has plummeted. Between 1910 and 1997, Black Americans lost an estimated 90 percent of their farmland to violent land theft and discrimination. In this episode, courtesy of the FoodPrint podcast “What you’re eating,” Jerusha Klemperer interviews Brea Baker, author of Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft And The Modern Movement For Black Land Ownership, who explored this history through her own family’s loss and resilience. 

The chemical industry is a cornerstone of modern American farming. It helps grow the food billions of people eat. It’s also causing vast environmental damage. In this episode of REAP/SOW, produced in collaboration with WWNO’s Sea Change podcast, you’re going to hear the story of synthetic fertilizer, and how this powerful concoction of chemicals has radically reshaped how we farm and what we eat – and how it’s poisoning communities, upending livelihoods, and choking the life out of a huge swath of the ocean. Reported by Garrett Hazelwood and Eric Schmid, hosted by WWNO’s Carlyle Calhoun and FERN’s Teresa Cotsirilos.