Schools are the largest restaurant chain in America, bigger than Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's combined. Nearly 100,000 locations, 30 million kids, and roughly 7 billion meals a year. Right now, the lion’s share of the calories served through this system are ultra-processed at a time when there’s growing concern about chronic diseases among children.

Nora LaTorre is the CEO of Eat Real, a nonprofit that's transforming school meals scale — certifying school districts against doctor-developed standards and helping food service leaders pivot to fresher, more local, more scratch-cooked food. Since 2019, the organization has grown from one district in one state to more than a million kids across 21 states. This expansion has put LaTorre and her organization at the center of an active debate about what the future of school meals should look like in the U.S.

Highlights:

– How Eat Real's certification model works and what the two-year journey looks like for school districts

– Why better food means more kids eat school lunch (which means more revenue)

– The story behind California's AB 1264, which passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support

– LaTorre’s take on how federal preemption is a serious threat to food policy progress

– What the MAHA moment means for school food

– What parents can do to support change at their local school

– The infrastructure gap: transforming school food nationally could require tens of billions in kitchen investment

Where to find Nora LaTorre:

Eat Real

Parent resources at eatreal.org/parents

Follow Nora on Instagram (@nourishedwithnora) and LinkedIn

Mentioned in this episode:

AB 1264 — California's school food bill

Stay in touch:

Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.

Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.

Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co

Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

HHS Secretary Kennedy says the food industry is poisoning us. The White House shares AI videos of him body slamming a Twinkie. And somehow, the trade group representing the companies making those ultra-processed foods — and thousands of other products Americans buy every day — has to figure out how to respond.

The Consumer Brands Association represents the CPG industry, not just food and beverage, but household products and personal care too. It's the largest manufacturing sector in the U.S. by employment — 22.3 million workers, contributing $2.3 trillion to the GDP. And right now, it's contending with one of the most hostile political environments it's ever faced.

Melissa Hockstad, the president and CEO of CBA, is at the center of navigating all of this. She's talking about constructive engagement, transparency, and the long game as major food companies try to stay out of the political wrestling ring, at least publicly.

Highlights:

– How CBA is approaching the Trump administration's anti-Big Food rhetoric, and where they see room for common ground

– The Facts Up Front and SmartLabel programs, and why the industry sees transparency on its own terms as a selling point

–How MAHA laws in Texas, West Virginia, and beyond have the industry turning to the courts and to Congress

– Why CBA thinks "ultra-processed foods" is too complex to define, and what that means for policy

– Front-of-pack labeling: where the Biden-era proposed rule stands now and what to expect from FDA under the Trump administration

– The affordability argument is not landing the way the industry hoped at the state level

Where to find Melissa Hockstad:

Follow Melissa Hockstad on LinkedIn

Mentioned in this episode:

Consumer Brands Association

Facts Up Front

SmartLabel

Stay in touch:

Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.

Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.

Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co

Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

Infant formula isn't some niche parenting topic. It's a public health issue, a food security issue, and in many ways an infrastructure issue.

The 2022 infant formula crisis was one of the most alarming food system failures in recent memory. Shelves were suddenly empty. Parents were driving across state lines to find cans of formula. The Department of Defense was flying it in on military planes. And most of us — including me — realized we knew almost nothing about how infant formula actually works, where it comes from, or how consolidated the industry really is.

Mallory Whitmore, known online as @theformulamom, has spent the last five years building the resource she couldn't find when she needed it most. As an infant feeding technician and now the education lead at Bobbie, a U.S. formula company, she's become one of the most influential voices on formula in the country. With more than 200,000 Instagram followers and a new book, Bottle Service, Mallory aims to give parents guilt-free, evidence-based guidance they're rarely getting anywhere else. Most parents use formula at some point before their babies turn one — it’s high time we stop treating formula as a niche topic.

Highlights:

– What Mallory learned (and all the info she couldn't find) when breastfeeding didn't work for her first daughter

– What it was like to be in the middle of the 2022 Abbott recall, the crisis that exposed just how fragile the U.S. formula supply chain really is

– The shame and stigma around formula feeding, and why "breast is best" messaging isn't landing the way it's intended

– What parents should actually look for in a formula

– Lactose, corn syrup solids, and other misunderstood ingredients

– Why some parents believe European formulas are superior, what's actually different, and the real risks of importing your own

– Operation Stork Speed: the FDA's first serious look at updating infant formula nutrition standards in decades, and whether the panel's expert guidance will actually translate into policy

Where to find Mallory Whitmore:

Follow Mallory Whitmore on Instagram

Check out her book Bottle Service

Mentioned in this episode:

Operation Stork Speed

Stay in touch:

Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.

Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.

Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co

Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.