Marion Nestle

Well, I think what it reveals is how fragile our economy is.

We have 42 million people in this country, 16 million of them children, who can't rely on a consistent source of food from day to day and have to depend on a government program that provides them with benefits that really don't cover their food needs, only cover part of their food needs.

And this amount of money is under attack and is looked at as a cash cow that will, instead of paying for people's meals, will pay for tax cuts for people who have lots and lots of money to begin with.

It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

It's unprecedented.

We have never punished the poor as badly as we're punishing them now.

Well, when I wrote my book, Food Politics, in 2002, the first question I got asked was, what does food have to do with politics?

Nobody asks me that anymore.

Part of that is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

and what he's doing, which is so obviously political around food, and everybody can see what's happening with food assistance.

When I look at what's happening at food assistance, I

And I'm just stunned at how similar this is to what happened in the 16th century when the English passed the English food laws.

And they were passed with the idea that the poor were poor, not because of bad luck being born into the wrong family or circumstances beyond their control.

R.F.K.

Jr.

?

Well, I was very hopeful.

when he was appointed because he was talking about, let's get the toxins out of the food supply, let's make America healthy again, let's make America's kids healthy again, let's do something about ultra-processed foods, let's do something about mercury in fish, and a lot of other issues that I thought, oh, how absolutely terrific.

that we're going to have somebody who cares about the same kind of issues I do.

This is very exciting.