260. Calley Means & Kyle Diamantas: On MAHA, Food Dye Reform, GRAS Loopholes & US Food Crisis

One year in, and the MAHA movement has already flipped the food pyramid, removed red dyes, initiated SNAP reform, and is now pushing hospitals to stop serving diabetic patients sugary drinks, but most Americans have no idea how much has changed. I brought Kyle Diamantas and Calley Means back to The Ultimate Human Podcast to give you a real, unfiltered look at what’s happening inside the FDA and HHS right now, what the wins actually look like from inside the building, and why this is a 10-year generational movement, not a one-year miracle. CLICK HERE TO BECOME GARY'S VIP!: https://bit.ly/4ai0Xwg Get Calley & Casey Means’s book, “Good Energy”: https://bit.ly/4sp5xQZ Connect with Calley Means Website: https://bit.ly/4cv4Fp4 Instagram: https://bit.ly/4ebYebH Facebook: https://bit.ly/4bYb7Vs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4tEsaSw X: https://bit.ly/4cyxQYg LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4vk0QdS Connect with Kyle Diamantas Website: https://bit.ly/4cxBUIj X: https://bit.ly/41TyGJ1 LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4dCn703 Thank you to our partners A-GAME: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: http://bit.ly/4kek1ij AION: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4h6KHAD AIRES: "ULTIMATE20 " FOR 20% OFF: https://bit.ly/4a3Duze BAJA GOLD: "ULTIMATE10" FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa BODYHEALTH: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV COLD LIFE: THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp CYMBIOTIKA: "ULTIMATE10" FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4tjyluP GENETIC METHYLATION TEST (UK ONLY): https://bit.ly/48QJJrk GENETIC TEST (USA ONLY): ⁠https://bit.ly/3Yg1Uk9 GOPUFF: GET YOUR FAVORITE SNACK!: https://bit.ly/4obIFDC H2TABS: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4hMNdgg HEALF: 10% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/41HJg6S PEPTUAL: “TUH10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4mKxgcn SNOOZE: LET’S GET TO SLEEP!: https://bit.ly/4pt1T6V WHOOP: JOIN & GET 1 FREE MONTH!: https://bit.ly/3VQ0nzW Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST: YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 Connect with Gary Brecka Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo X: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2 Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU Merch: https://bit.ly/4aBpOM1 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/47ejrws Ask Gary: https://bit.ly/3PEAJuG Timestamps 00:00 ​Intro of Show 05:07 Kyle Diamantas’ Role in FDA (and Pillars) 12:49 Shifting the Generational Challenges 17:17 Big Wins from the MAHA Movement 25:05 GRAS Reform Guidelines: Definition and Impact 36:58 More Accomplishments from the MAHA Movement 43:10 Operation Stork Speed Initiatives 51:09 Media vs. Trump and Kennedy 55:51 How Can People Support the MAHA Movement? Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not provide medical advice. It is not intended for diagnosing or treating any health condition. Always consult a licensed healthcare professional before making health or wellness decisions. Gary Brecka is the owner of Ultimate Human, LLC which operates The Ultimate Human podcast and promotes certain third-party products used by Gary Brecka in his personal health and wellness protocols and daily life and for which Ultimate Human LLC and / or Gary Brecka directly or indirectly holds an economic interest or receives compensation. Accordingly, statements made by Gary Brecka and others (including on The Ultimate Human podcast) may be considered. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  It is absolutely disgraceful what hospitals are serving patients. And we have asked a simple question to hospitals, which is, why is the government paying you trillions of dollars to serve food that is fueling the chronic diseases?

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Part of it is just the lack of education that some in the healthcare space don't have when it comes to nutrition.

• 0:20Gary Brecka?

  I don't subscribe to the theory that there's an evil wizard behind the curtain that is intentionally trying to make people sick.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  What people might call big food is also largely partnering with us on this. They want that level of oversight and reform.

• 0:32Speaker 00

  The political coalition that Bobby Kennedy and President Trump put together allow us to ask common sense questions, and it allows Kyle to call the food industry to the table.

• 0:41Gary Brecka?

  And these movements don't turn that fast, so it's important for people to understand that the momentum is moving in the direction of the American people.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  The Maha argument is that this is not an issue of rejiggering Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates to solve what's happening to American health. There's something deeply cultural here. It's very multifaceted, and we've opened up that conversation.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  That view of keeping the food supply safe behind the curtain that no one hears about is the most important job we have in FDA.

• 1:06Gary Brecka?

  What has transpired since early 2025? And where are we going with this?

• 1:10Speaker 00

  The most revolutionary thing everyone can do is...

• 1:25Gary Brecka?

  I want you to buckle up for this one, because today I'm sitting across from two people who are inside the machine, and they're tearing it apart from the inside out. Kyle Diamantas is the head of Human Foods at the US FDA. Callie Means is at HHS, leading the Make America Healthy Again agenda. And what they're about to tell you is going to make you furious, and then it's going to give you hope. Did you know that over 90% of novel food additives in this country were never reviewed by the FDA? That there's a 65-year-old loophole that lets food companies skip safety testing entirely? That the same chocolate bar on your shelf was found to contain undisclosed Viagra and Cialis? These are the people fighting to end it. And in just 15 months, they've already ripped artificial dyes out of kids' food, pulled soda

• 2:10Gary Brecka?

  From government food programs and overhauled hospital nutrition. This is the most important food safety conversation happening in America right now. Stay right here. Hey guys, welcome back to the ultimate human podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecka, where we go down the road of everything. Anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today I'm sitting back down with two of my favorite, favorite guests from the government. Because I want to talk about where we started and where we are. And maybe even where we're going in the world of food. The US FDA, Health and Human Services. I want to talk about Bobby's agenda, where it's succeeding, where there's some snags. And what you could do to help this movement succeed. Because remember, it's not just up to our government.

• 2:55Gary Brecka?

  It's up to us. Consumer spending and behavior will drive corporate behavior. There's only so much you can do from the regulatory environment and from the top down. But if we cooperate and make a cooperative sandwich, we can squeeze out highly processed foods. And we can make a real impact in this country. So thank you guys for coming back to the ultimate human podcast. Kyle Diamantas and Callie Means. You both become really good friends of mine. You know, over the past few years, I'm deeply appreciative of the work that you're making. Because when you, when you leave the private sector and you parachute into, you know, public sector life. That's got to be just a major transition. You know, going from in front of the curtain to behind the curtain. And I wonder if you both would just talk about that dichotomy for a minute.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to start, Gary. Thanks for having us, by the way. It's great to officially be on. We had, it's my second appearance on the podcast.

• 3:47Gary Brecka?

  We lost your audio.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  We lost the audio of the first appearance. So this is officially my first appearance.

• 3:51Gary Brecka?

  We were hacked by the Russians.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  That I think that's, I think that's right. It is a change. I can tell you, I spent my entire career in private practice as my first stint in the government. And it's, I'll start by saying it's an honor. It's a real honor and privilege to be able to serve the administration and serve the American people. And it's, it's certainly different. You know, there's a lot of rules, a lot of responsibilities, a lot of regulations and a lot of processes. And maybe that's something that, that I didn't appreciate is the amount of processes to make sure that we get things right. And do things the right way. You know, a lot of people have a perception that when you come into the government or a new administration comes in. You can just turn the tide overnight, take action.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  You know, but there's a lot of laws, regulations, something called the Administrative Procedures Act. There's a lot of things that have to be done, boxes checked. And so, you know, these things take time to do. We're seeing that, we're experiencing that. And really, that's by design, right? I mean, that's the way the system has been designed. And so, these things do play out over a number of years. They take time to do important things. But, you know, and we're doing them. We're doing things not because they're easy, but because they are hard and they do take time. And we're really committed to making sure we do these things right.

• 5:05Gary Brecka?

  I really appreciate that. And maybe if you could just elucidate, you know, specifically what your role is that the USFDA is head of human foods. Because, you know, some people might see that title and feel like it's a little nebulous. But what is, what is your role? And what are your duties and objectives in that, in that position?

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's got a vast remit. The FDA regulates about 80% of the US food supply. USDA has about 20%. So they're, they're regulating beef, poultry, similar products, whereas everything else comes to the FDA, including fish, packaged food, dairy, all other products. And so it's a vast remit. And within that, we sort of operate in what I like to call three pillars. So we have a microbiological food safety pillar, a nutrition pillar, and a food chemical pillar. And so, you know, the microbiological food pillar, that's where you, you know, you open your internet browser and you see something's been recalled.

• 5:59Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Right? There's, you know, whether it's some contamination, a bacteria, there's a lot of work. In fact, that work is almost exclusively behind the scenes. You hear a lot in the media about our work on nutrition and food chemical safety. But the reality is our work in microbiological food safety is about 55 to 60% of our budget.

• 6:19Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  And about 55 to 60% of our people.

• 6:21Gary Brecka?

  And this is just keeping food safe?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Keeping food safe. We've got eight labs across the country. We've, we do about 30,000 regulatory samples a year, over 500 recalls a year, 20 to 30 major nationwide outbreaks that we investigate with CDC a year. And so really, that Or that that that view of keeping the food supply safe behind the curtain that no one hears about is the most important job we have in FDA. But that's just one of three pillars for us. The other nutrition, right? That includes our Office of Critical Foods, which is where infant formula is. It's where all of our labeling work happens out of. We have an office for labeling. And then our third pillar is food chemical safety. And that's focused on pre-market and

• 7:06Speaker 01

  post-market work. So pre-market side would be grass generally recognized as safe and submissions to the FDA or food additive submissions, color additive submissions. And then our post-market office is also in that pillar. And so historically, when it comes to looking at chemicals and additives in the food supply, FDA was really reactive. We never had a systematic process for post-market review. We were really only looking at things if there was a citizen's petition.

• 7:32Gary Brecka?

  An outbreak.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  An outbreak, a number of adverse event reports, congressional inquiries. Then we might look at an ingredient that's already in the food supply. Traditionally, it's been that once it was in, it was sort of in. And there was not a process for FDA to really systematically reevaluate those things. So we've created a new systematic post-market review framework in FDA.

• 7:53Gary Brecka?

  It's huge.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Under this administration, under President Trump and Secretary Kennedy. And I think that that will be a legacy item for this administration is really being able to stand up that post-market office and have that robust framework in place to really assess and review chemicals. Many of which may have been introduced 30, 40, 50 years ago. And you have to make sure that's science-based, that it's robust, that it's subject to public comment and engagement.

• 8:17Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  And that's that's something we're really proud of at FDA.

• 8:21Gary Brecka?

  I think this proactive approach is something that, you know, maybe a lot of the citizens aren't even aware is going on. You know, I remember when I was in the mortality space, we used to have these things that would show up in medical records called anchor diagnoses. And what it meant was if a physician at some point in your medical history diagnosed you with hypothyroid or hypertension or any number of conditions, and it made it into the record, what happened was every doctor that you saw thereafter accepted that diagnosis and carried it And very often, when they would go back and review these diagnoses, they would say, they actually got this wrong. You didn't have rheumatoid. You didn't have the right sed rates or RA factors, or you actually didn't have this Hashimoto's. You had mildly elevated

• 9:06Gary Brecka?

  antibodies that didn't qualify for this diagnosis. And I feel like this is the same thing, not just accepting what's been in the record because it's in the record, and this sort of nebulous definition of grass, but now actually going back and doing a systematic review. To me, that is such a proactive approach, and it shows that this administration is not only wanting to make systemic change, they actually want to look at how the system has behaved up to this point and make corrections. And to me, that is so pro-American consumer, and I really congratulate you guys for that.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Well, I appreciate it, Gary. And I will say, what people might call big food is also largely partnering with us on this. They want that level of oversight and reform. They want to be engaged in these processes. These companies have been following the law, law that our predecessors put in place. These ingredients are lawful, right? They've been lawfully permitted in the food supply. And so, big food, and I use quotation marks there, I think has been a great partner to this administration. They've led on things like dye reform. Walmart has, they're a great value brand, one of their house brands, the largest single food company in the world. I think they did 27 billion last year in sales, which is larger than many of the

• 10:28Speaker 01

  household brands combined. They made a commitment at the end of last year to remove 30 different additives from that brand. That's the dyes, it's several preservatives, sweeteners, a number of ingredients. And so, to your intro point, companies are responsive to consumers. Consumers make their voices heard with their wallet, and the big food companies are responsive to those consumers even more so than they are to what we preach or what we try to do from a regulatory standpoint. So I think that the consumer momentum We'll continue to drive change in the food space, maybe more so than any other space that we regulated FDA.

• 11:05Gary Brecka?

  That's so good, man. And Kelly, rewinding the clock a little bit, before you were ever on my radar screen, my wife comes into the kitchen one day and she's like, babe, have you seen this Tucker Carlson interview with Casey and Kelly Means? And I was like, no, who's Casey? Who are Casey and Kelly Means? And she was like, it's literally the best podcast I've ever seen. You gotta watch this. These guys are so in your wheelhouse. And I watched that Tucker Carlson podcast. And here I am on the Ultimate Human Podcast, recommending that you watch another podcast. But if you haven't seen that Tucker Carlson interview, it really laid the foundation for the level of corruption in our food supply and our nutritional research. It really laid the foundation for me for how intentional

• 11:49Gary Brecka?

  a lot of this activity had been. And I found it fascinating, you know, your sister, Stanford-trained surgeon, you coming from the political side of the spectrum, and sort of you both having this epiphany, which was manifested in this book, which I would recommend that you read, and I'm going to put a link to it in the show notes. And it shifted my entire mindset on how and why we got to where we are. And now you've moved from the private sector into the public sector, largely because I believe that you feel like you had a calling and you want to make an impact. And I would love to talk about what has transpired since early 2025 to today. And what are some of the big wins that have occurred over the last

• 12:34Gary Brecka?

  year? And where are we going with this agenda?

• 12:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, on that podcast back a year and a half ago, I never expected I would be moving to DC and going all in. The reason I had to do it is because I think we are still in the moment of a generational opportunity.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  It is impossible to describe how accustomed DC is to protecting the status quo. And as Kyle said, it's not one individual evil person, but there are trillions and trillions of dollars that are current system fuels. And there's so much inertia in DC to keep that system the way it is. And there's such a lack of common sense in DC to not step back and ask common sense questions like, why don't we have safety testing on our food? And we don't. We do not have appropriate safety testing of our food today due to the perversion of the grass loophole. It's almost the assumption DC is the food industry doesn't have to do safety studies. Common sense questions like, well, we spent $120 billion on SNAP.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  We spend tens of billions of dollars to procure meals for our schools and our military. Why is 70% of the food that we procure for children ultra-processed food? Why is that? Is that the right thing to do for children's health now that we're going bankrupt with Medicaid costs? You know, it flows to that 80% of kids on SNAP are on Medicaid. Does this make sense?

• 13:58Gary Brecka?

  80% of the kids on SNAP are on Medicaid?

• 14:00Speaker 00

  What we're doing with the hundreds of billions of dollars of incentives for ultra-processed food is we are poisoning our children's mitochondria. We're fueling inflammation. We're fueling insulin resistance. What we have to understand, one year into Maha, is what I tried to say on Tucker, what Bobby Kennedy has tried to say, I think what a lot of voters have been awakened on, is just true. Our incentives are broken. And the reason we're in such a generational moment, and I see this every day at the White House, is that the political coalition that Bobby Kennedy and President Trump put together allow us to ask common sense questions. And it allows Kyle to call the food industry to the table. And I have to agree with Kyle. I am very inspired by what's happened in the past year with these conversations with the food companies.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  Because we do, we sit them down at the White House, and we don't point fingers. We talk 10 years from now. And we say, do we all agree that we need to be eating less ultra-processed food in 10 years? Yes. Do we agree that it doesn't make much sense that SNAP, the top item on SNAP, food stamps is soda, and this third item is? Potato chips and we're fueling disease. Does anyone disagree with that? And that's a problem. No, nobody disagrees with that. Do we agree that we should have improved safety studies of our food? Yes. So we actually, everyone agrees, everyone we talk to is a parent, is a human being. These, the things are impossible to disagree with. You know, the challenge is the, the short to medium term. How do we change that? And we're engaging in those conversations. And this has always been the master strategy and the plan.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  And this is not to make an excuse, but these are generational long-term issues. This is going to be a 10-year journey. But what we have done in the first year is absolutely extraordinary. Taking soda and candy off SNAP in the majority of US states. Flipping the food pyramid upside down. And this, this, I don't think people understand how important this was and how much work it took from Kyle's team and the whole team from Secretary Kennedy to put real food at the top of the pyramid. That goes directly into government procurement guidelines. Until this year, the US government of the United States has never said real food is healthier than ultra-processed food. Until this year, with, you know, skyrocketing rates of diabetes and obesity, the United States government has never took a strong line on added sugar, particularly recommending added sugar for kids. They've done that for the first time. And then refined carbohydrates, refined carbohydrates have never been called out

• 16:13Speaker 00

  in a US dietary document. So when, so, so, so, so I think that's having a force. I was just on a plane last, yesterday. The flight attendant said that the amount of soda that they're serving has gone down 50%. That everyone's ordering sparkling water.

• 16:30Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Snacking has gone down by some measures 9% just in the past year. Americans are actually waking up radically changing their diets. They're buying more beans, they're buying more whole food protein. They're buying more beef, they're buying more fruits and vegetables. All that's going up, snacking's going down. So there is something happening.

• 16:45Gary Brecka?

  Alcohol consumption going down.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  And I think that's from the messaging. Whether you're liberal or Democrat, whether you're liberal or conservative, whether you don't like President Trump and Bobby Kennedy or like them. I think we can all agree there's something happening in this country. I think that's been fueled by this union of President Trump and RFK. And I think what we've done with the food pyramid, with the food dies, with grass reform, with looking at school lunches, baby formula, revamping those, which Kyle's working on. I mean, it is a unprecedented level of success. And I think it sets up, you know, in the coming years to just do more and more.

• 17:17Gary Brecka?

  And if we were to sort of stretch out the the year from early 2025 to to today, what are some things that that the American public had latch on to to say, OK, we are making progress. What you just said is is very impactful. But at a government level, where are the big wins for Maha and the agenda with the with the government? The, you know, grass reform, we've we removed black box warnings from female hormone therapy. We got rid of the red dyes, made SNAP reform. And but we're not stopping there. No. Right. So we've got three more years, you know, with this administration and and with your with your 10 years. And hopefully Bobby will outlast that three years because

• 18:01Gary Brecka?

  my understanding is he actually wants to stay on and and make a meaningful impact for a longer period of time. One of the things I will say, being affiliated with the Maha campaign and being on the Maha calls every week, attending a lot of these big legislative whims in in different states, is that people are beginning to recognize that they also have a role, you know, because it's more than just government regulatory guidelines going from the top down. So consumers can't just sit back and hope that things happen. Like you said, consumer spending drives corporate behavior. But even showing up to some of these hearings, we're going over to, you know, can we talk about the announcement today? Yep.

• 18:43Gary Brecka?

  OK, great. Because my wife did a post about a year ago. I have a best friend of mine from from college who sadly passed of stage four colon cancer. He caught it very, very late. And this was a very, you know, personal journey for me. And I remember we were sitting in the ICU in the oncology area of Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, you know, top medical institution. And, you know, they brought in the tray of food and it was, you know, pureed applesauce, Jell-O, which actually still had the red dye for, was being phased out. There was a certain period of time till they could have gotten it out. And and it was like a Seagram's ginger ale. So 52 grams of sugar, no protein, no, no fats, like no nutrition.

• 19:30Gary Brecka?

  And Sage, my wife, did a post about it and it went very viral and people were really upset about it. And from that day to today, to me, is a landmark change coming from our government. Because today, can you talk a little bit about what Bobby's going to be announcing at the hospital?

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, this, this announcement is an example of what Kyle's team and Secretary Kenny's team throughout the government is doing. So, we ask, you ask about Almohaha framework, we ask, where is government spending money and how can we influence and nudge the system into a better direction? So, we've talked about school lunches, we've talked about military food. Hospitals are a big one. So, hospitals are dependent on Medicare, Medicaid funding. Their, their, their lifeblood is government funding. And if you go to, every patient knows, as you've talked about, I was at Stanford Hospital with my mom, the Mayo Clinic with my mom, they served her Coca-Cola and she was a diabetic, dying of a metabolic condition from cancer. It is absolutely disgraceful

• 20:30Speaker 00

  what hospitals are serving patients. And we have asked a simple question to hospitals, which is, why is the government paying you trillions of dollars, over a trillion dollars, almost two? Why are we paying you this to serve food that is fueling the chronic diseases that 90% of those payments are going to? 90% of healthcare spending, of the government healthcare spending, goes to treating metabolic, chronic diseases that are highly tied to ultra-processed food and highly processed food, sugary drinks, refined carbohydrates, fried food. It's what hospitals are serving. So, what can happen? CMS can issue conditions of participation. They can

• 21:15Speaker 00

  write letters saying what we expect for paying these trillion-dollar-plus of government money. And for the first time, the government is issuing a letter to hospitals, saying, if you're going to take government money, you cannot be serving diabetic and obese patients sugary drinks. Cut down and eliminate the refined carbohydrates, serve whole grains, and, and, and cut, you look at the food, it's all fried. Inflammatory food, let's get whole food protein. So it took the principles of the dietary guidelines and we're pushing that in hospitals. And the hospitals are billing Medicare and Medicaid up to $400 per day for food, the government. So this is not an affordability issue. This is just a common sense issue.

• 21:57Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  And frankly, as Kyle said, and I credit the hospital CEOs, they've come to us and he said, this is ridiculous. They've actually welcomed it and we're working with them on voluntary commitments for just general food that they serve at the hospitals. Hospitals are the largest employer in the United States. More Americans are employed in the healthcare hospital system than any other industry.

• 22:16Gary Brecka?

  So we see this trickle into the cafeterias.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, it trickles into healthcare workers being sicker than the average American. And that's, that's tens of millions of people. So, so, so this is a very important act for patient health, but also just general American public health. Because tens of millions of Americans are eating at hospitals every day.

• 22:34Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  And to your point, Gary, these are the sickest among us and, and they're getting terrible nutrition in many cases.

• 22:40Gary Brecka?

  And they're captive too, like they don't have a choice.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  They don't have a choice.

• 22:43Gary Brecka?

  Being at Disney World.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, there's a lot of sick people that go to the hospital. They don't have loved ones there that can bring them a home cooked meal. They're forced to eat what's delivered to them. And part of it, you know, your story about, about Sages Post and part of it is just the lack of education that some in the healthcare space don't have when it comes to nutrition. That's another area that Secretary Kennedy and the administration has been focused on is nutritional education in medical schools. But today's announcement by Florida, which is a voluntary commitment that they're making to sort of take the lead on this program, is to get foods into the hospitals here, spearheaded by Nicholas Children's Hospital, right here in Miami, that will focus on matching the dietary guidelines. So the foods served in the hospitals here in Florida that are making this pledge will meet the heightened standards of the dietary guidelines.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  That's focused on more fresh fruits and vegetables, more whole foods, proteins, whole grains, minimization of things like sugars and ultra processed food. So a massive win for these hospitals and for patients in Florida.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  Well, Kyle, it, it, it just makes a great point about how we think about things. So we have the letter to nudge on the macro incentives. Then we had hospitals in Florida. Step up, they're doing local food procurement. They're doing really interesting food as medicine things, better, better food at the hospitals. You know, as this momentum happens, we have really interesting conversations and these public, private partnerships along with taking a firm stand and work on money should go, it's, it's having a huge impact. It's exactly what's happened where we nudge on the dyes, but then Walmart comes calling, Target comes calling. And they, they know this is the right thing to do and they're making voluntary commitments. That's the flywheel that we're trying to create.

• 24:17Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, I'm really happy to hear that too, the actual level of, of corporate cooperation that you're getting because I, I, you know, I don't subscribe to the theory that there's, you know, an evil wizard behind the curtain that is intentionally trying to make people sick.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  These are not hostile actors.

• 24:31Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, they're not hostile actors and they're, they're working the system, right? I mean, they are playing by the rules, the existing rules, the rules needed to change, which you're changing them. And it's no different than, than, than a professional sports, you know, somebody pulls off this amazing play and scores a touchdown or a goal and you go, how are they able to do that? Well, it's within the rules, you know, and, and, and these corporations are navigating this. And they're just driving trucks through the hole, holes in, in, in the regulatory environment. And the fact that you are reevaluating those, closing some of those, expanding other areas, this is what's in the best interest of the American people. I, I want to shift to talking about the grass guidelines because I think generally regarded as safe is something that most Americans don't capture an understanding of.

• 25:16Gary Brecka?

  Can you give us a little bit of context on what are they? And what, what are some of the positive changes that you're making in grass guidelines? And, and why should, why should American people care about that?

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, grass is a really complicated subject that goes back to 1958. Okay, so if you go back to 1958, we were at a time not totally dissimilar from now where there were concerns among the American people about a number of incidents that had happened where people have gotten sick or died because of additives that were found in food. And so Congress said, we need to address this. So we're going to pass this new law, these food additive amendments, as they're called, which is going to require any new food additive. It's going to enter the food supply to file a formal approval, a petition, a food additive petition with FDA for formal review and approval. Can't go to market until FDA has reviewed

• 26:08Speaker 01

  it and approved it. The problem is that that same law, the 1958 food additive amendments, had an exception in there that said if you're generally recognized as safe or grass, you don't have to go through that food additive petition process, right? And at the time, go back to 1958, Gary, we did not have the complex supply of ingredients that we now have with all sorts of manipulations and precision changes to ingredients that we have now, right? At the time, Congress was thinking about things like salt, vinegar, pepper, flour. Those were the grass ingredients that had been in the food supply, generally recognized as safe among qualified experts. And so unfortunately, that exception, which

• 26:52Speaker 01

  was intended to be an exception, became the tail that wags the dog and became a pathway that some would say has been exploited for now, you know, seven decades or close to seven decades. And there's been different iterations that FDA has taken to try to regulate these substances. There was a period under Nixon where FDA was affirming these and codifying grass substances in statute. There were other ways. Most recently, there's been a voluntary grass process that a lot of companies use where they can voluntarily come in and ask FDA to give what we would call like a no questions letter, a good day letter, basically saying we agree with their conclusion that it's generally recognized

• 27:33Speaker 01

  as safe. But the statute and regulatory framework has permitted this process to continue on. And it's something that this administration, the Secretary of Kennedy, has been very passionate about. You know, we are in an interagency process to try to change how FDA regulates grass substances. And so that's something that's been under deliberation, literally since, I believe, last March, maybe May. It's an absolute priority for this administration. The work continues. And, you know, we're hopeful that, that one way or another, we'll Meaningful change when it comes to grass standards here soon.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think when we think about these issues at the White House, this is not a new regulation. I would characterize this as fixing the perversion and corporate capture of an existing regulation. It is not right, and no American would think it's right, that over 90% of new ingredients in the food supply, which we can't pronounce, which are totally novel compounds, are designated by industry as generally recognized as safe, which then means that the FDA does not have a record of that ingredient being added in the food supply and has no record of safety studies whatsoever. It's a perversion of the regulation.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  So I'll give you an example, Gary. There's an ingredient called tariflower, which

• 28:52Gary Brecka?

  Already sounds that bad.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I believe it comes from some South American plant. And we had no record of this. We all of a sudden got a number of adverse event complaints, around 400 of them with a lot of reports of basically gallbladders exploding or failing. And we do investigations and we're trying to do trace back, trace forward, understand what's happening. What did these people eat? What's is there a common food they eat? We identified a frozen product and we look at the ingredient list and and ultimately we see this this ingredient, tariflower, that we had never heard of before at FDA because it didn't come through a formal process. It was a self-crafted ingredient. And so we had no record of this. I would like to think that had there been a requirement that they bring that to FDA

• 29:38Speaker 01

  through an approval process, that we wouldn't have allowed it on market because we would have we would have seen the potential dangers that this product, this ingredient ultimately posed. And so in this case, these illnesses and injuries were totally preventable, but we didn't know about the ingredient in advance. And so that's that's sort of a prime example of some of the downfalls here. Now, now, grass is incredibly complex. There's a lot to it. There's other machinations of it that we're working through. There's impacts on things like dietary supplements we're thinking about. There are codified substances. There's a really complex array of ways that ingredients can actually get into the market today.

• 30:19Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  And so, and so there's a lot going on in that space and we're really working hard through the process.

• 30:24Gary Brecka?

  You know, I woke up this morning and there was, um, uh, opened my phone, I was looking at the news and there was a, an FDA recall on a chocolate company. And, um, and they had these different iterations of chocolate and one was like euphoria, another one was sexual and, and they, and they actually found the Dallaphyll and Saldanaphyll.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 30:43Gary Brecka?

  Um, pharmaceutical compounds in the chocolate, which, which would be under the brand names Cialis and Viagra. It wasn't Cialis and Viagra, it was Dallaphyll and, and Saldanaphyll, but the erectile dysfunction drugs. And, um, people were having these hypocystolic episodes where their blood pressure would drop. I mean, cause they're vasodilators. So there you are thinking that you're going to have, you know, a nice bar of dark chocolate. Um, you had some polyphenols, um, and it's the sexual version. You're like, hey, why not? Uh, and, and, you know, you, you experience this rapid drop in blood pressure. So you, you have the, you have the bad actors, which, um, wasn't even on the label, by the way. So, you know, hats off to the FDA, uh, for this, but I was just, my, my, my head just exploded.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  You'd be surprised how often we see that. Whether it's chocolate or some of these supplements sold in gas stations.

• 31:35Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  We see that a lot where an API, an active pharmaceutical ingredient is, is placed in some of these products.

• 31:40Gary Brecka?

  And it's nowhere on the label.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:41Gary Brecka?

  I mean, so, because, you know, there, there are a lot of contraindications to those drugs.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:46Gary Brecka?

  Um, and, uh, they're prescribed for a reason. And, you know, you're, imagine that you're getting a prescription drug compound from, you know, just a whole food product that, you know, you're taking to enjoy your life. And it wasn't, uh, uh, and I, I feel like there's the errors of omission and then there's the errors of commission, right? I mean, nobody has errors and commission insurance, right? The commissive errors are the, are the ones where you intentionally, you are well aware of what's going on. You put it in there anyway, delete it from the label and you.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:20Gary Brecka?

  You know, and, and so, I mean, again, hats off, uh, to the FDA for catching that, for recalling that, and then for holding them responsible for that.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I would say on, when it comes to grass, just to round out the discussion, you know, most of the food industry would like to see grass reform. You know, these are companies that, that, that by and large. Believe FDA is the premier authority in the space and FDA review of an ingredient, they believe is good for their own business, right? So you think about a large cereal company, for example, if they want to innovate and put a new ingredient in their food supply, they've got to buy that on a multi-year contract in large volumes, right? So they want to buy an ingredient that's been through FDA's review process. Very few of them will actually buy at significant scale a self-grasped ingredient.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  And so when you talk about large food companies and the companies we're talking to overwhelmingly supportive of grass reform because they understand that having that additional level of transparency is actually not only good for consumers, but good for industry as well.

• 33:25Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, I mean, it can, the people that are going to play by the rules and do things right and elevate their manufacturing to meet these standards or exceed these standards, you know, they're the ones that are going to thrive. And I don't think anyone is against big companies making a lot of money. They employ a lot of people, they pay a lot of taxes, they feed the system. We want to see the most profitable, most impactful companies in the world be companies that are in service to humanity, that care about the ingredients that go into the people that they serve.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  We're building a bridge. And I think it's not government regulation building that bridge. Americans are demanding a change to our food system. It's existential to our country. What we're reflecting is the voter market impulses that have been reflected through the Maha movement. We have to improve this. And, you know, one last thing I'd add to the grass, and again, this isn't pointing fingers, but I think this is just stating facts of where we are. But, but I think most Americans would agree this is reasonable and it's under current law. The food industry, there's these weird sounding ingredients, but they're also responsible for having safety studies of the ingredients at the amount that they're being put in the product and recommended to consumers.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  And I think this is an important conversation that we need to have. Big branding and products in America have foundationally different ingredients than other countries, including sugar content. If you look at major soda brands, major candy brands, major cereal brands, the exact same product has marginally to substantially lower amounts of sugar often in other countries. You know, if you are a cereal with 20 grams of sugar, marketing that cereal to five-year-olds for daily consumption, by law, you're actually required to understand the safety and efficacy of that product that's intended use. How addictive is it? What does it do to their metabolism?

• 35:21Speaker 00

  You know, if a candy brand, if their slogan is every day, you know, use every, has every day in their slogan, it's a fair question to ask, where's the safety study of, you know, this product with 40 grams of sugar, you know, that spikes blood sugar being used every day? So, again, this is just a reminder, I think, for the food industry. This is not mass finger pointing, but I do think we all need to have an incremental conversation here about what the law currently is, about what's happening in the country, and about how we need to build a bridge to the future where we're not systematically by design spiking our children's blood sugar every single day to diabetic levels

• 36:03Speaker 00

  and causing a mass and unique situation in America of inflammation, insulin resistance, which then leads to devastating rates of obesity, you know, diabetes and et cetera. So, that's the conversation we're fostering. It's been one year. I will say, you know, to voters, whether they supported President Trump, Bobby Kennedy, or not, or wherever they are, I think we should be actually very excited where we are right now. I think so, too. And I think one of the most important things that's happening is every single boardroom in America of a food company, frankly, of an agriculture company, you know, thinking about their inputs of healthcare companies,

• 36:44Speaker 00

  they are all talking about chronic disease and they're talking about how they can... Steer their business models more towards longevity, prevention, addressing the root cause disease. This is absolutely happening because I think whatever happens to this Maha movement and its current constitution and I, it needs to continue succeeding and it must and it deserves to. But this conversation's out of the box and I think that's a real accomplishment and a historic accomplishment of President Trump and RFK.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, those conversations happening are almost just as important or maybe more important than the work we do in a regulatory landscape.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  I mean, the reality is the consumers that purchase products, food products in America have way more power than Callie and I do or the administration does when it comes to influencing corporate behavior.

• 37:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  And you know, one thing I'll say about Maha in whatever form you want to call it, if you go back and look at successful societal movements, and I'm not equating Maha to the civil rights movement or women's suffrage, but if you look at things like that, they don't happen in one year.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  They're a decade.

• 37:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  They're a generational movement.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  And the message almost gains more momentum after, you know, the movement has quote unquote ended.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:03Speaker 00

  Right, me think about the impact of Martin Luther King today.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  Maybe even more impactful than, you know, during his lifetime.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  And I agree with you.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and one thing I will give President Trump and Secretary Kennedy a lot of credit for is that historically in DC, there's been a view that if you can't get a benefit from an action within two years or four years, right, talking about elections, then it's kind of put on the back burner. Why do it if the benefit's in 10 years? President Trump and Secretary Kennedy have embraced the Maha movement and these reforms, understanding that these things will take time. You might not see chronic disease rates dramatically fall off by this time next year.

• 38:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  But if you look in 10 years. At the movement and what it's done and where it's changed and where we've gone, you know, you'll see substantial benefits to children, to adults across this country when it comes to things like chronic disease rates. And so they've really bought into this thing that while this absolutely has two and four year wins and absolutely is a benefit to the American people in the short term, there's also a long tail on this and there's going to be benefits for generations and decades.

• 39:12Speaker 00

  This, the Maha movement is absolutely correct, is an invitation by President Trump and RFK for a grand, long-term nuanced conversation. We are talking about the foundations of the US economy. The Maha argument, which everyone knows is true, is that this is not an issue of rejiggering Medicare Medicaid reimbursement rates to solve what's happening to American health. There's something deeply cultural here. There's something spiritual. It's very multifaceted and we've opened up that conversation. And listeners of your podcasts, listeners of other great podcasts, understand this is a very, very deep issue and Secretary Kennedy and President Trump tap something very powerful in their conversations here.

• 39:49Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, when we monitor, you know, media attention, because, you know, attention, in my opinion, is more important than capital, right? Because capital will follow attention. When we look at where audiences are paying attention to certain topics, this is in the top three to five in category of top 25. I mean, there isn't a mom in America that isn't concerned about what's going into our child's body. There isn't, you know, a mother or father in, in America that isn't concerned about the life expectancy of their child being less statistically speaking than their own life expectancy. And there's this inherent, you know, desire, I think, in most people to leave the next generation better off than

• 40:31Gary Brecka?

  the generation that, that we founded. And I, I agree with you. I'm, I, you know, we don't even talk about the financial impact for our country by reducing the cost of chronic disease care and, and keeping people out of the system, for lack of better words, in mass, right? So they don't enter this system of over medicalization and, you know, and, and adding to this burdensome.

• 40:57Gary Brecka?

  Snowball of of of healthcare because you know eighty eighty five percent of these chronic diseases are entirely preventable, you know, it's interesting that it's called the food and drug administration because the food leads to the drugs that lead to the expenses and you know it's kind of this this snowball effect and unwinding that that ball of yarn I think you know the voters very often my opinion want you know instant right you know start the war and the war you know let's we should be able to stop this and start this and and and these movements don't don't turn that fast so it's important for people to understand that the momentum is moving in the direction of the American people.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  The momentum is and it's also important for people to understand that that these processes that take time are designed that way intentionally right and so we have to go through a formal process that involves rulemaking commenting but that's designed to ensure it lasts so so that if in five years someone else says that was a terrible idea you know they've got to unwind it through a similar process.

• 42:00Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Right and so while these things do take time they're designed to be that way legally through a framework to ensure that they can't just be reversed on the you know the right on spot.

• 42:11Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  And so some of the frustration we hear we get to your point we're one year in a little over one year in.

• 42:17Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  But this is it this has a long tail on it the Maha movement I think is one led by consumers it's led by obviously President Trump and Secretary Kennedy have coalesced a significant amount of passion in this area and I really think this is here for the long term success.

• 42:33Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, I do too I want to switch gears to another topic that's that's recently become very near and dear to my heart we've had we've had three babies in the ultimate human team and twenty twenty five was a very fertile year for us. I mean like half my half my executive team is having having babies and you know as such you know they're concerned about well what am I putting into my babies you know body and and and most of them are sourcing their infant formulas from

• 43:06Gary Brecka?

  And not too long ago, when you were here at the house and we were talking about some of the initiatives at the FDA, there wasn't the right time to talk about Operation Stork and what's going on with baby formula. But I wonder if we just speak to the moms across America now about what kind of initiatives are going on around Operation Stork and where do you see us going with foundational baby formula formulations?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Well, infant formula is maybe the most important single food item that we regulated FDA. And it's regulated very tightly, closer to a drug than a food product in many respects, which is good, right? The reality is that infant formula is sole source nutrition for a number of infants, the only source of nutrition that they're getting. So you have to make sure they're getting the right amount of macro and micronutrients. You've got to make sure that these things are not contaminated. And so when you're giving something, a baby, one thing for however many months.

• 44:11Gary Brecka?

  In the most vulnerable time.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  The most vulnerable time.

• 44:13Gary Brecka?

  Developmental lifecycle.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  You have to have to get it right. There's no room for error. And so we regulate infant formula really tightly. We also have not taken a hard look at the nutrients in infant formula in a long time. In fact, the last time FDA looked at nutrients in infant formula. So right now, there are 30 mandatory nutrients that must be in infant formula. 10 of those have maximum levels to prevent things like toxicity, certain vitamins and iron, right? You don't want to have too much of those. So there's 10 of those 30 that have maximum levels. We are undertaking for the first time since 1998. And by the way, back in 98, when we did that, we didn't make any changes. So it's actually been longer since this has happened. So under Operation Stork speed and President Trump and Secretary Kennedy's leadership here.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  We are looking to comprehensively assess and review the nutrient requirements in infant formula. We've already started that work. We put out a request for information last year. We got a ton of good information.

• 45:10Gary Brecka?

  Who do you put that request for information out to?

• 45:12Speaker 01

  So that goes out publicly and anybody can provide information.

• 45:16Gary Brecka?

  Researchers.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Researchers, moms, dads, caregivers, industry. Everybody can provide comments. We got a ton of comments on that. We're working with world-class experts. We're talking to other countries as part of the process. And so we're really excited about being able to, and we're gonna have to do this through rulemaking, so what we did was we put out a, what's called an NPRM, a notice of proposed rulemaking. And that's sort of the process that FDA uses to put regulations in place. And so we ultimately want to, depending on where the evidence and science shows, update those nutrient standards for infant formula in the US to make them more moderate. I mean, again, it's been over 30 years since there's been any changes to

• 45:58Speaker 01

  those. Now, we've added a couple of nutrients since that time, but we have not had a comprehensive assessment or review of the nutrient requirements in infant formula. So we're really excited about that. We think it's gonna be a game changer. We think that moms and dads, caregivers are really passionate about this. And it's one of the most important things that we can do at FDA under my tenure. And I'm really excited about doing that. But that's not all we're doing on Sworx Speed. We've also engaged in comprehensive testing to look at things like PFAS, phthalates, any number of heavy metals, pesticides. And we're gonna be releasing data on that in the near term.

• 46:35Gary Brecka?

  Really?

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Showing what we've found. And I will tell you, Gary, that we're in a pretty good spot. I mean, thankfully, the infant formula market has come a long way in the past several years. And by and large-

• 46:48Gary Brecka?

  On its own, I guess.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  On its own. These are very tightly regulated products, held to very high standards. FDA inspects the facilities every year. In fact, it's the only food facilities that we're in every single year. We have our own cadre of investigators that only do infant formula work. And so we're in their facilities every single day, both foreign and domestic. And these companies are held to incredibly- Tight and sophisticated standards. And the good news is the testing we've done shows that these products are in good, good shape. The, the levels are low, much lower than, you know, you look at EPA levels for things like bottled water or water levels for heavy metals. Overall, the infant formula supply in the United States, when it comes to contamination

• 47:33Speaker 01

  levels, is in a good spot and we're really thankful for that. We didn't want to see bad levels.

• 47:38Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  You know, we wanted, we wanted to see good levels and thankfully that's what we've seen. So we're going to be putting out data on that. We're also reassessing safety when it comes to microbiological contamination. So there's been a number of issues over, you know, going back to 2021, 2022 on Cronobacter.

• 47:56Gary Brecka?

  Yep.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  That led to the supply chain, right? And that's, that's where the 2022 shortage happened because of the, the Cronobacter issues as well as COVID supply chain disruptions. So we've done a ton of work to ensure the stability of the market. We allowed importation, personal importation of foreign formulas. We also started a process to allow foreign companies to move into the US and we've, we've permitted 13 different formulas.

• 48:22Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  That were not previously allowed in the US to now be lawfully sold in the US market. Most of those from Europe, Australia.

• 48:28Gary Brecka?

  Are they coming here to manufacture formulations here?

• 48:30Speaker 01

  It's a mix. I would say, I would say most is not manufactured here.

• 48:34Gary Brecka?

  But you're still spot checking those guys even though they're overseas?

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely. So if they're manufacturing in Australia, we're on, on the ground in Australia at their facility. So they're, they're held to the exact same standard to our, as our domestic manufacturers here. And so we're going to tighten up and see what else we need to do when it comes to microbiological food safety as well. There was an issue earlier this year or late last year related to infant botulism. And so we're taking a really hard look at ingredients that, that could be subject to that to see if there's new procedures we might need to put in place from a manufacturing perspective. So formula is top of mind for us. We have an entire team here in DC doing that work daily. We have the cadre that's out in the field investigating daily.

• 49:16Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  We're leaving no stone unturned to try to ensure the safety and nutrient stability of infant formula in the US.

• 49:24Gary Brecka?

  That is incredible. I think that this is the kind of messaging that drives the consumer, you know, support. And I think it also, you know, eventually this will be winning political, these will be winning political messages. These will show up at the ballot box when, when, when, you know, you know, different political figures are running for office and they, they stand on the foundation of making America healthy again, making us as healthy as we possibly can, supporting some of these, you know, legislative changes. I think you're going to have consumer behavior and consumer spending driving from the bottom up. You'll have consumers widely aware of these things. I mean, seven million moms across America that are probably ecstatic about Operation

• 50:07Gary Brecka?

  Stork. You're going to have them start, you know, voting with their hearts. And I think that's where you get that final piece of, of change and a real movement that really makes long lasting, that makes long lasting change. What surprised you the most, Kelly, when you joined HHS and you started this fight? What surprised you the most? Was it the lack of cooperation, the time it takes to get things done, the support that you received? What, when you got inside the, you know, when you got behind the curtain? Because, you know, going back to that podcast in your, in your book that you and your sister

• 50:51Gary Brecka?

  wrote, to me, it's the most apolitical, common sense issue, maybe to ever land in the political arena. Like, there should be zero disagreement on this. Like, who is taking the opposite side of that coin? Right?

• 51:08Speaker 00

  What surprised me is how much, frankly, hate there is in, in Washington DC towards this administration, towards President Trump. When I wrote that book... And went on those podcasts. Casey and I had an expressly non-political and didn't think about this in political terms. I met with Nancy Pelosi. I met with progressive Democrats. I met with Republicans. Democrats were passing the book around. We were meeting with everyone. This was really exciting. We were going to red states, blue states, both, both sides were passing bills. Remember that. And then President Trump started talking about these issues and Bobby Kennedy started talking about these issues on the campaign trail. Hmm. And Kamala Harris did not talk about the issues. And then President Trump and Bobby

• 51:53Speaker 00

  Kennedy, over hours and hours of conversations, talked about how they had a historic opportunity to go down in history for reversing the childhood chronic disease crisis and bonded over that issue and united. Right. So as somebody that cares about these issues, as my life's work, how can, and I think a lot of people felt this way, that was the side that is channeling this conversation, which is inherently non-political. The media has an absolute immune response to look at anything good and find the problem. Bobby Kennedy doesn't talk much about vaccines, quite frankly. Yeah. But every single article will, is about vaccines. My sister has only talked about chronic disease every single podcast, 400 podcasts. In the last 100 articles about her,

• 52:38Speaker 00

  the words chronic disease don't appear. It's one offhanded comment on raw milk that she made. Wow. They, they, there's a amoeba that tries to focus and divide the American people, and that's fine. But the most surprising aspect to me, and I want to be clear, whether somebody watching supports President Trump, doesn't support President Trump, you're right, this isn't political. But I am trying to drive political change and federal policy change. And what is demonstrably clear to me is that Democrats put their hatred of President Trump above these issues. I have reached out to Democratic staff and Democratic senators and did not receive one response. The people that were passing around my book and very passionate about these issues and friends with Bobby Kennedy in the past, they do not respond to us. The Democrats did nothing to help the food pyramid and flipped that upside

• 53:22Speaker 00

  down. The Biden administration said that ultra-processed food was healthy. They were totally co-opted. They have not done a lot- A lot to help on these issues. We are begging them and we are hopeful. And I truly, this is good faith. We are asking them to work with us on some of these no brainer 95% issues.

• 53:41Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  But the level of hatred and a leading reporter, a friend of mine, a leading reporter told me this, that the culture in the media is that they want to destroy President Trump and Bobby Kennedy. And that goal is more important than children's health. That they are actively, they actively see their job. The culture of the media is that these people need to be destroyed. And they cannot get a win. And frankly, it's the culture of a lot of the government bureaucracy. I mean, you know, there aren't that many political appointees that Bobby Kennedy and President Trump chose at HHS or the government. You know, 95% of the staff is entrenched career bureaucrats. A lot of them, quite frankly, think they're protecting science against President Trump and Bobby Kennedy.

• 54:26Speaker 00

  You know, the Democrats. So this is all stuff I talked about before coming in. The weight of the division in the country is pronounced. And the weight, again, not pointing a finger at any individual, one person, but the weight that the FDA regulates trillions of dollars of the US economy, quite frankly, food, drugs, tobacco. I mean, it's actually unbelievable what Kyle and Marty McCary go up against. Making daily decisions that impact market caps. It's all fine and good, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of force there that wants to keep things the way they are. So, so we're up against a lot. It's not, not an excuse, not anything. I, I think it's frankly what everybody needs to understand. There's a unique rare moment where people voted in folks to go

• 55:10Speaker 00

  nudge this in a different direction. We have done so much in the past year.

• 55:15Gary Brecka?

  You really have.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  The food pyramid, the food dyes, grass reform, school lunches, resetting the NIH to actually study food as medicine, study the root cause of disease. You just go down the list.

• 55:26Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 55:26Speaker 00

  Operation Stork Speed. But there's so much left to do. And I really do think this group of insurgents at HHS, you know, trying to push for reversing crock disease is worth continuing.

• 55:36Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. And, you know, we're, we're heading over to this announcement today at the, at the hospital, which is just a phenomenally short timeframe from when my wife did this post to when we're, we're, we're hearing this announcement. But what can the folks that are listening to this podcast right now do if they want to be? I don't want to say a part of the movement because that makes it sound like they're part of some, you know, some political operation, which it's not. How can they support some of these changes? How can they support the Maha movement, the apolitical Maha movement?

• 56:14Gary Brecka?

  How can they get involved in, in helping you both with state regulatory or federal regulatory issues? Because, you know, I think very often people just say, well, I'm just one voice, you know, I'm just one vote, I'm just one call to a senator. Is there an activity that they could, if they're fired up about this and they go, you know what? This momentum has legs. I care about the future of our, our country and our children and my family. What, what can they do?

• 56:43Speaker 01

  You want to start, Calley?

• 56:46Speaker 00

  The, the first thing, as Kyle said, the market is all that matters and what individual decision. At the end of the day, we need to change, you know, there, people need to, it's personal responsibility, they need to choose different items that they buy. What our argument is, is personal responsibility isn't really the issue. The choices Americans are making are dramatically impacted by the recommendations and massive incentives that the government has instituted, which are very corrupt. It's not a full personal responsibility issue that 70% of a child's diet is ultra-processed food, but that's 10% in other countries. That comes from school lunch incentives, SNAP incentives, recommendations, the lack of oversight from the FDA and grass, so we have more addictive chemicals in our food. So I, I think everyone should understand that we are fighting to change those incentives. But there is this awakening happening from the bottom up.

• 57:31Speaker 00

  And I just cannot, from being in the government, I cannot encourage people more to understand that the government has not had your back. There are tremendous forces that profit on sick, addicted children. It is true. Nobody will dispute it. It's dark. And the most revolutionary thing everyone can do is really be conscious of what they're reading, read your food labels, try to eat minimally processed food, think about where your food is sourced. I know it's tough for people out there. We're trying to put content out there about how cooking at home, you know, is that can actually be very affordable.

• 58:05Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  But these are basic things and continue on that track because that's what's really going to change the world. On the policy level, it is so important. A hundred calls on an issue actually make a huge difference.

• 58:17Gary Brecka?

  Really?

• 58:17Speaker 00

  Most people don't pick up the calls. We have had thirty states do Maha bills on getting cell phones out of schools, improving school lunches, getting food dies out of schools, SNAP waivers on the soda. This has all happened because Maha Moms, Maha supporters called their local legislators for these bipartisan bills. So I really do think finding state or federal issues, if there's various discussions on things like grass, call and say you support it. It does make a huge difference.

• 58:46Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, thanks, O2. You know, one final thing I want to close out on is, you know, the with a little of the momentum on our side, we know that, again, consumer spending is going to is going to drive corporate behavior. How how do you feel people could participate?

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, I think the reality is, one, more so than what Callie and I can do or the White House or the administration can do when it comes to changing regulations, changing the law. We know where Congress is. Not a lot's gotten done there. It is the day-to-day activities of consumers that will drive change in this country. And I would tell people, don't get discouraged. The movement takes time. We're a year in, fifteen months in, whatever it is. It takes time to get things done. We're working. Day in and day out on these issues, the president cares about these issues, the administration cares about these issues. These issues are good for everyday Americans. These policies

• 59:51Speaker 01

  will help children stay healthier, it'll lower cost for Americans, Americans will feel better, they'll eat better, they'll put more money in their pocket. The Trump administration is absolutely committed to these issues across the board. And I think people just need to stay engaged in the process and understand how it works. You know, there was a bit of a euphoria moment, I think, when Secretary Kennedy endorsed President Trump and President Trump won, and sort of a historic landslide election. And that momentum lasts, but it only lasts so long. And now you're coming up against a midterm election, and you know, you hear the rumblings. But elections are often won on small margins. You know, right up the road in Boca Raton, I think the mayor up there just won his race by like nine votes,

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  or maybe it was 12. But, you know, the reality is-

• 1:00:37Gary Brecka?

  No pregnant Chads.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so, when it comes to engagement, every voice does matter. Whether it's a letter, you know, you're voting, engaging in the public process, submitting comments to FDA, being vocal, all of those things matter. And the movement itself is one that grew out of sort of populist consumer voices wanting change, and I think will continue down that path.

• 1:01:06Gary Brecka?

  Guys, thank you so much for coming on the Ultimate Human Podcast. There's so much more that I wanted to cover. We didn't have the time today, so I hope that you'll come back on. I want to talk about food deserts and some of the other things that come across our platform. But I hope that this is a shot in the arm for the American people to not only see that there's been real change, and we have moved the ball a pretty good distance down the field. The fight is still on, but your voice really matters. Your phone calls, your letters, your participation really matters. And most importantly, where you're spending your dollars really drives the corporate behavior that drives the change. So, thank you so much for coming on the Ultimate Human Podcast.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Thanks, Gary.

• 1:01:47Gary Brecka?

  Appreciate you both. And until next time, guys, that's just science.