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

which is why is the government paying you trillions of dollars to serve food

that is fueling the chronic diseases. Part of it is just a lack of education that some in the healthcare space don't have when it comes to nutrition. I don't subscribe to the theory that there's an evil wizard behind the curtain that is intentionally trying to make people sick. What people might call big food is also largely partnering with us on this. They want that level of a recite and reform. 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 and shoot the

“table 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. The Maha argument is that this is not an issue of rejiggering Medicare Medicaid reimbursement race 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. That view of keeping the food supply safe behind the curtain. The no one

hears about is the most important job we have in FDA. What has transpired since early 2025 and where

are we going with this? The most revolutionary thing everyone can do is grow. 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 Diomatis is the head of human foods at the US FDA. Cali means is that 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. But 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 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 Brecca 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 at 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. 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 Diomatis and Callie Means. You both become really good friends of mine over the past few years. I'm deeply appreciative of the work that you're making because when you leave the private sector and you parachute into public sector life, that's got to be just a major transition. You know, going from front of the curtain to behind the curtain. And I wonder if you both would just talk about that dichotomy for a minute.

Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to start a Gary. Thanks for having us by the way. It's great to officially

be on. We had my second appearance of the party. We lost your audio. We lost the audio the first

“appearance. So this is officially my first appearance. We were having the Russians. That's I think that's”

I think it's right. It is a change. I can tell you I spent my entire career and private practice is my first in the government. And I'll start by saying it's an honor. It's a real honor in 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 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. You know, but there's a lot of laws regulation, 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 what we're doing them, we're doing things not because they're

we do these things right. I really appreciate that. And maybe if you could just delucidate,

“you know, specifically what your role is, that the US FDA is ahead of human foods. Because,”

you know, some people might see that tide on feel like it's a little nebulis, but what is your role and what are your duties and objectives in that position? Yes. So, it's got a vast remit. The FDA regulates about 80% of the US food supply. The USDA has about 20%. So, they're regulating beef poultry, similar products, whereas everything else comes to the FDA, including fish, package 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, 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 and about 55 to 60% of our people. And this is just keeping food safe. Keeping food safe. We've got eight labs across the country. We've, 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 prospect or that, that, that, that view of keeping the food supply safe behind the curtain, then that one year's about,

“is the most important job we have in FDA. But that's just one of three, three pillars for us.”

The other nutrition, right? That includes our Office of Critical Foods, which is where in bin 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. Yeah. And that's focused on pre-market and post-market work. So pre-market side would be grass generally recognized to 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, outbreak, 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 so 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 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. And that's something we're really proud of at FDA. I think this proactive approach is something that maybe a lot of the citizens don't earn 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 forward. 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 said rates or RA factors or you actually didn't have this Hashimoto's. You had mildly elevated antibodies that didn't qualify for this diagnosis and

have feel like this is the same thing. You know, 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 that is so

pro-American consumer. And I really congratulate you guys for that. Well, I appreciate it, Gary. And I will say, you know, 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 that our predecessors put in place. These ingredients

food and I use quotation marks there. You know, I think it's been a great partner to this administration.

They've led on things like die reform. Walmart has their great value brand, one of their house brands,

“the largest single food company in the world. And I think the 27 billion last year in sales,”

which is larger than than many of the sort of 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 federal preservatives, sweeteners, a number of ingredients. And so, to your intro point, you know, 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

to what we preach or what we try to do from a regulatory standpoint. So, I think that the consumer momentum will continue to drive change in the food space, maybe more so than any other space that we regulated after that. - That's so good, man. And, and Kelly, rewinding the clock a little bit. Before I, where you ever are 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?" She was like, "It's literally the best podcast I've ever seen. You've got to watch this. These guys are so in your wheelhouse." And I watched that Tucker Carlson podcast. Here I am on the ultimate human podcast for 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 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 have occurred over the last year? And where are we going with this agenda? Yeah, on that podcast back, see you're in

half ago. I never expected I would be moving to DC and going on. The reason I had to do it is because

I think we are still in the moment of a generational opportunity. It is impossible to describe how a custom 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 of 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 conversion of the grass loophole. It's almost the assumption DC is the food industry doesn't have to do safety studies. The common sense questions like, well, we spend $120 billion on snap. 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?”

80% of the kids on snap are on Medicaid. What we're doing with the hundreds of billions of dollars of incentive for ultra-processed food is we are poisoning our children's mitochondria. We're fueling information. We're fueling insulin resistance. What we have to understand one year into Maha is what I try to say on Tucker what Bobby Kennedy has tried to say. I think what a lot of voters have been waking 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 the table. And I have to go with Kyle. I am very inspired by what's happened in the past year with these conversations with the food companies 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 the third item is potato chips and we're fueling

Do we agree that we should have improved safety studies of our food? Yes. So we actually everyone agrees. Everyone we talk to is apparent as a human being. These things are impossible to disagree with. The challenge is 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

in the plan 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 absolute extraordinary taking soda and candy off snap and the majority of U.S. states flipping the food permit upside down. And 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 U.S. government of the United States has never said real food is healthier than ultra-processed food. And tell this year with skyrocket 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 or fine carbohydrates have never been

“called out in a U.S. dietary document. So I think that's having a force. I was just on a plane”

yesterday. The flight attendant said that the amount of soda that they're serving has gone down 50%. That everyone's ordering sparkling water. Snacking has gone down by some measures nine percent just in the past. 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 is going down. So there

is something happened. I'll call you in something going down. And I think that's from the messaging whether you're liberal or a 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 unit of President Trump and RFK. And I think what we've done with the food pyramid, with the food dyes, 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 in the coming years to just do more and more. And if we were to sort of stretch out the year from early 2025 to today, what are some things that the American public could latch on to to say, okay, we are making progress. What you just said is very impactful, but at a government level, where are the big wins for Maha and the agenda with the government? The grass reform, we remove black box warnings from female hormone therapy, we got rid of the red dyes,

we made snap reform. But we're not stopping there. So we've got three more years with this administration and with your with your 10 years and hopefully Bobby will outlast that three years, because my understanding is he actually wants to stay on and make a meeting of low impact for a longer period of time. One of the things I will say, being affiliated with Maha campaign and being on the Maha calls every week, attending a lot of these big legislative wins in different states,

is that people are beginning to recognize that they also have a role. Because it's more than just government regulatory guidelines going from the top down. So consumers can't just sit back and hope the 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. Okay. Great. Because my wife did a post about a year ago. I had a

best friend of mine from college who sadly passed a stage for Colin Cancer called 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, Mayo Clinic and Scottsill Arizona, you know, top medical institution. And, you know, they brought in the tray of food and it was, you know, puree applesauce, gelo, which actually still had the red die for. It was being phased out. There was a certain period of time to like, got it out. And, and it was like a Seagram's ginger. So 52 grams of sugar, no protein, no, no, no fats like, no nutrition. 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? Yeah. This, this announcement is an example of what Kyle's team and Secretary Cuis team throughout the government is doing. So we ask, you ask about Omaha framework, we ask where is government spending money and how can we influence and nudge the system into a

hospitals are a big one. So hospitals are dependent on Medicare Medicaid funding. There, there,

“their lifeblood is government funding. And if you go to every patient knows as you've talked”

about it, I was at Stanford Hospital with my mom, the Mayo Clinic with my mom, they served at Coca-Cola and she was a diabetic dying of a metabolic condition from cancer. 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? 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-process food and highly provinces 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 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 served whole grains. And you do look at the food. It's all fried and flammatory food. Let's get whole food protein. So it took the principles of the dietary guidelines and we're pushing that on 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. Yeah. 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. So we see this trickle into the cafeteria.

Yeah, it trickles into healthcare workers being sicker than the average American, and that's

“tens of millions of people. 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. Yeah. And in your point, Gary, these are the sickest among us. And they're getting terrible nutrition in many cases. And they're captive, too. Like that's right. They don't have it to be in a Disney. You know, unfortunately, there's a lot of sick people to go to the hospital. They don't have loved ones there. They're going to bring them 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 there's 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's been focused on is nutritional education and 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 that's focused on more fresh fruits and vegetables, more food, proteins, whole grains, minimization of things like sugars and ultra-processed foods. So a massive win for these hospitals and for patients in Florida.

Well, Kyle, 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 hospice and Florida step up. They're doing local food procurement. They're doing really interesting food as medicine things, better better food at the hospitals. As this momentum happens, we have really interesting conversations and these public private partnerships along with taking a firm stand and work our money should go. 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 know this is the right thing to do and they're making voluntary commitments. That's the flywheel that we're trying to carry. Yeah, I'm really happy to hear that, too. The actual level of corporate cooperation that you're getting because I don't subscribe to the theory that there's an evil wizard behind the curtain that is intentionally trying to make

you think they're not hostile actors. Yeah, they're not hostile actors and they're working the system. 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 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, they're within the rules. You know, and these corporations are navigating this and they're just driving trucks through the whole hole 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 to the American people. I want to shift to talking about the grass-guide lines,

an understanding of. Can you give us a little bit of context on what are they and what are some

“of the positive changes that you're making in grass-guide lines and why should American people”

care about that? 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 had gotten sick or died because of additives that were found in food. And so Congress and 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 that's going to enter the food supply to file the formal approval of petition, a food additive petition with FDA, a formal review and approval. Can't go to

market until FDA's reviewed it and approved it. The problem is that that same law, the 1958 food

advo 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, you can 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, that at the time, Congress was thinking about things like salt, vinegar, pepper, flower. 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 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 was affirming these and codifying grass substances and 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 it a no questions letter, a good day letter,

basically saying we agree with their conclusion that it's generally recognized as safe. But the

statute on regulatory framework has permitted this process to continue on. And it's something that this administration, the Secretary of Kennedy's 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 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 one way or another, we'll see meaningful change when it comes to grass standards here soon. 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 general recognizes safe, which then means that the FDA does not have a record of that ingredient being added in the food supply. It has no record of safety studies whatsoever. It's a perversion of the regulation. So, I'll give you an example, Gary,

“there's an ingredient called terraflower, which already sounds that bad. Yeah, I believe it comes”

from some South American plant. And we had no record of this. We, we all the sudden getting got a number of adverse event complaints around 400 of them with a lot of reports of basically gallbladder 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 there are comments, food they eat, and then we identified a frozen product, and we looked at the ingredient list,

and ultimately we see this ingredient, terraflower, that we had never heard of before at FDA,

because it didn't come through a formal process. It was a self-grast 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 through an approval process, that we wouldn't have allowed it on market, because we would have seen the potential dangers that this ingredient ultimately posed. And so, in this case, these illnesses and injuries were totally preventable, but we didn't know about the ingredient

advance. And so that's, that's sort of a prime example of some of the downfalls here. Now, grass is incredibly complex, there's a lot to it. There's other, you know, machinations of it that that we're working through, there's impacts on things like dietary supplements,

of ways that ingredients can actually get into the market today. Yeah. And so there's a lot

“going on in that space, and we're really working hard through the process. You know, I woke up this”

morning and there was, my phone was looking at the news and there was an FDA recall on a chocolate company, and they had these different iterations of chocolate, and one was like Euphoria, another one was sexual, and they actually found the Dallafill in Philadelphia. Absolutely. Pharmaceutical compounds in the chocolate, which would be under the brand name's Cialis and Viacra, it was in Cialis and Viacra, it was to Dallafill and so that afill, but the, the erectile dysfunction

drugs, and people were having these hypostastolic episodes where they're blood pressure, which I mean, because they're, they're, they're, they're violators. So there you are thinking that you're

going to have, you know, a nice bar of dark chocolate, you know, it's some polyphenols,

and it's the sexual version, you like, hey, why not? And, and, you know, you experience this rapid

“drop in blood pressure. So you, you, you have the, you have the bad actors, which wasn't even on”

the label, by the way. So, you know, hats off to the FDA for this, but I was just, my, my head just exploded. You'd be surprised how often we see it, whether it's chocolate or somebody's supplement sold in gas stations. Yeah. We see that a lot where an API and active pharmaceutical ingredient is placed in some of these products. And it's nowhere on the label. Yeah. I mean, so because you know, there, there are a lot of contraindications to those drugs, and they're prescribes 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 taken to enjoy your life, and it wasn't,

and I, I feel like there's the, um, eras of omission, and then there's the eras of commission, right? I mean, nobody has eras in commission insurance, right? The commissar variables are the ones where you intentionally, you are well aware of what's going on. You put it in there anyway, lead it from the label, and you, you know, and, and so, I mean, again, hats off to the FDA for catching that for recalling it and then for holding them responsible for that. Yeah, and I would say,

when it comes to grass, just around 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 and ingredient, they believe it's good for their own business, right? So you think about a large, you know, serial company, for example, if they want to innovate and put a new ingredient in their food supply, they've got to buy that,

you know, on a multi-year contract in large volumes, right? So they want a to buy an ingredient that's been through FDA's review process, very few of them will actually buy a significant scale, a self-grass ingredient. 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.

Yeah, I mean, 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, 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,

the care about the ingredients that come into people that they serve. We're building a bridge. Yeah, 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 Mahah 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 I think most Americans disagree, this is reasonable, and it's under current law. The food industry is 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. And I think this is an important conversation”

that we need to have. Big branding products in America have foundation, different ingredients, then 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, marking that cereal to five-year-olds for daily consumption, I law you're actually required

You know, if a candy brand, if their slogan is everyday, you know, use every day, it 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, that's just a reminder. I think for the food industry, this is not mass fingerprinting, 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, causing a mass and unique situation in America of information and insulin resistance, which then leads to devastating rates of obesity, you know, diabetes, etc. 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, a food company, frankly, have an agriculture company, you know, thinking about their inputs of healthcare companies. 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 Moja movement and its current constitution and

I it needs to continue succeeding and it must and it deserves to, but this conversation is out of the box. And I think that's a real accomplishment and a historic accomplishment of President Trump and Arfke. Yeah, those conversations happening are almost just as important or maybe more important

than the work we do in a regulatory landscape. Right. I mean, the reality is the consumers that

purchase products, food products in America have way more power than Cali and I do or the administration does when it comes to influencing corporate behavior. Right. And, you know, one thing I'll say about Moja and whatever form you want to call it, if you go back and look at successful societal movements and I'm not equating Moja to the civil rights movement or woman's suffrage. But if you look at things like that, they don't happen in one year. Right. They're a decade. Yeah,

they're a generational movement. And the message, it almost gains more momentum after, you know, the movement has quote unquote ended. Yeah. Right. Let me think about that. That's where I packed a mark. That's where I came today. That's where maybe even more impactful than, you know, during his lifetime and agree with you. 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 benefits in 10 years?”

President Trump and Secretary Kennedy have embraced the Moja movement and these reforms understanding that these things will take time. You might not see chronic season rates dramatically fall off by this time next year. 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 winds, 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. This, the Moja movement, it's absolutely correct, is an invitation by President Trump on RFK for a grand long term nuanced conversation. We are talking about the foundations of the U.S. economy. The Moja argument, which everyone knows

is true, is that this is not an issue of rejiggering Medicare Medicaid reimbursement race 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 podcast, listeners of other great podcasts, I understand this is a very, very deep issue and

Secretary Kennedy and President Trump tapped something very powerful in their conversations. He

“only monitored, you know, media attention because, you know, attention in my opinion is more important than”

capital. 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 is an amount of America that isn't concerned about what's going into a child's body. There isn't,

their child being less statistically speaking than their own life expectancy. And there's this

“inherent, you know, desire, I think, most people that leave the next generation better off than”

the generation that we found it. And I agree with you. 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 a better word in mass, right? So they don't enter this system of urbanization and, you know, and adding to this burdensome snowball of health care. Because, you know, 80, 85% 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 and the lead to the expenses. And, you know, it's kind of this snowball effect in unwinding that ball of yarn, I think, you know, a voter's very often, my opinion, one, you know, instant, right, start to work and the word, you know, let's, we should be able to stop this and start this 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. The momentum is, and it's also important for people to understand 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 last, 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, 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. Yeah. And so some of the frustration we hear, we get to your point, or one year and a little over one

“year in, but this is, this has a long tail on it, the Maha movement, I think is one led by consumers,”

it's led by, obviously President Trump, Secretary Kennedy, have coalesced a significant amount of passion in this area. And I really think this is here for the long-term success. Yeah, I do too. I want to switch gears to another topic 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 2025 was a very fertile year for us. I mean, I can't have my executive team as having, having babies, and, you know,

as such, you know, they're concerned about, well, one, I put into my babies, you know, body, and, and most of them are, are sourcing their infant formulas from overseas. 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 a, 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, you know, foundational

baby formula, the formula of the formula. Well, infant formula is maybe the most important single

food item that we regulated FDA. And it's, it's regulated very tightly, closer to a drug than a food product and many, many respects, which is good, right? You know, 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 micro nutrients,”

you've got to make sure that these things are not contaminated. And so when you're giving something, and a baby, one thing for however many months, in the most vulnerable times, the most wonderful amount of life cycle, you have to have to get it right. There's no room for air. And so we regulate infant formula really tightly. We also have not taken a hard look at the nutrients of 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 an 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, it's actually been longer since this has happened. So under Operation Swork's Beat in President Trump and Secretary Kennedy's leadership here, we are looking to comprehensively assess and review the nutrient requirements of infant formula. We've already started that work. We put out a request for information last year. We've got a ton of good information. Who do you put that request for information out to? So that goes out to manufacturers. That goes

out publicly. Anybody can provide information. Researchers, researchers, moms, dads, caregivers,

experts. We're talking to other countries as part of the process. Wow. And so we're really excited about being able to, and we're going to have to do this to rule making. So what we did was we put out a, what's called an NPRM, a notice of proposed rule making. 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 nutrients standards for infant formula in the U.S.

To make them more modern. I mean, again, it's been over 30 years since there's been any changes to those. Now, we've added a couple of nutrients since, 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 going to 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, that's not all we're doing on stroke speed. We've also engaged in comprehensive testing to look at things like PFAS, balades, any number of heavy metals, pesticides. And we're going to be releasing data on that in the near term, real showing what we've found. And I will tell you, Gary, that we're in a pretty good spot. I mean, thankfully, the environmental market has come a long way in the past several years,

and by and large on its own, I guess, right. On its own, these are very tightly regulated products helped a 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 an our own cadre of investigators that

only do in the formula work. And so we're in their facilities every single day, both foreign and domestic. And these 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 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 other formula supply in the United States when it comes to

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

“bad levels. 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 coronabacter. Yeah. That was a supply chain, right? And that's that's where the 2022 shortage happened because of the the coronabacter 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. Wow, there were not previously allowed in the US to now be lawfully sold in the US market. Most of those from Europe Australia, but it's coming here to manufacture formulations here. It's a mix. I would say most is not manufactured here. But you're still spot checking those guys even. Absolutely. Okay.

Absolutely. So if there are manufacturing in Australia, we're on on the ground in Australia at the facility. So they're they're held to the exact same standard to our is 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, late last year, related to infant botulism. So we're taking a really hard look at ingredients that could be

subject to that to see if there's new procedures we might need to put in place from 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. We're leaving no stone on turn to try to ensure the safety and nutrient stability than the formula in the US. 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, different political figures are running for office and 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, some of the million moms across

America that are probably ecstatic about operation store. 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 change in a real movement that really makes long lasting, that makes long lasting change. What surprised

was it the lack of cooperation and the time that it takes to get things done and the support that

you received, what, when you got inside the, you know, when you got behind the curtain, um, because you know, going back to that, that podcast and your, and your book, uh, you're in your sister 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. Um, what's, what surprised me is how much frankly hate there isn't in Washington, you see towards this administration, towards President Trump, when I wrote that book and when on those podcasts, Casey and I had an expressly non-political and didn't think about those

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 sides were passing reverse. And then President Trump started talking about these issues and Bobby Kennedy started talking about these issues on the campaign trail and Kamal Harris did not talk about the issues. And then President Trump and Bobby Kennedy over hours and hours of conversations talked about how they had a historic

opportunity to go down in history for reversing the childhood crisis crisis and bond it 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, but every single article will is about vaccines. My sister has only talked about chronic disease, every single podcast, 400 podcasts. And the last 100 articles about her, the word's chronic disease don't appear. It's one off-hand comment on Rom Elk that she made. Wow. They, there's a, a mebo that tries to focus and divide the American people and that's fine.

But the, we're going to 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 demonstrable 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 permanent flip that upside down. The Biden administration said that all the process food was healthy. They were totally co-opted. They have not done 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. But the level of hatred and 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. 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, 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 in trench queer bureaucrats. A lot of them, quite frankly, think they're protecting science against President Trump and Bobby Kennedy. 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 putting a finger at any

individual one person. But the weight that the FDA regulates trillions of dollars of the US economy quite frankly, through drugs to backoh. 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 think it's”

frankly what everybody needs to understand. There's a unique rare moment where people voted in folks to go nudge this in a different direction. We have done so much in the past year. You really have the food pyramid. The food dyes, grass reform, school lunches, resetting the NIH, jack-tree, study, food, medicine, study the root cause of disease. You just go down the list.

group of insurgents at HHS, you know, trying to push for reversing chronic disease is worth

continuing. Yeah. And, you know, we're, we're heading over to this announcement today at the hospital, which is just phenomenally short time frame from when my wife did this post to when we're, we're hearing this announcement. But what can the folks that are listening to this podcast right now and 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 Maham movement, the apolitical Maham movement? 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? You want to start? Kelly? The, the first thing this Kyle said, the market is all the matters of what individual decision. At the end of the day, we need to, you know, the 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 choice is Americans are making or dramatically impacted by the recommendations and massive incentives that the government is instituted, which are very corrupt. We, it's not a full personal responsibility issue that 70

percent of a child's diets, ultra-process food, but that's 10 percent in other countries. That

comes from school, lunch and incentives, snap and 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. 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 psychedelic to 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 eating, read your food labels, try to eat, mentally process 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 it? It can actually be very affordable. Yeah. 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. Most people don't pick up the calls. We have had 30 states do mahogibles on getting cell phones out of schools, improving school lunches, getting food dies out of schools, snap waivers on the soda. This is all happened because mahog moms, mahog 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. Yeah, thanks so too. You know, one final thing I want to close out on is, you know, with a little of the momentum on our side, when you know that again, consumer spending is going to, is going to drive corporate behavior,

how, how do you feel people can participate? Yeah, look, I think the reality is

one more so than what Cali 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 down 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, where a year and 15 months in whatever it is, it takes time to get things done. We're working day 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 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 last, but it only last so long. And now you're coming up against a midterm election. And you hear the rumblings,

I think the mayor up there just won as a race by like nine boats or maybe a rally.

“But you know, the reality is the chance. 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 and wanting change. And I think we'll”

continue down that path. 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 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. I appreciate it. I appreciate

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