President Biden today held the first White House conference in 50
years on reducing hunger and improving nutrition in America. The
last conference took place in 1969 under President Richard Nixon.
It led to the expansion of food stamps, plus the women, Children
and Infants program, commonly known as Wick. William Branham tells
us more about the goals of President Biden's conference and what
he's proposing.
I'm not. The president released a series of proposals to try and
end hunger by 2030 expand nutritional assistance and reduce obesity.
The plan calls for more free school meals and new labels on food
and would offer medically tailored meals for those on Medicare. Today's
meeting comes amid a significant hike in food prices due to inflation
and an increase in food insecurity, driven mainly by poverty. Parts
of the president. Biden's plan would require congressional approval.
Oval, But he said it was essential to do so.
In every country in the world and every state in this country, no
matter what else divides us if a parent cannot feed a child
There's nothing else that matters to that parent.
If you look at your child, and you can't feed your child, what the
hell else matters?
I really mean it.
Joining me now is Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey.
He's a member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
and has been a leading sponsor of a bill to change food labeling
Senator Booker Great to have you on the program in talking about
these seemingly disparate but linked crises of hunger and obesity.
You have talked about a nutrition crisis in America. What do you
mean by that we've seen in recent decades. An explosion of diet related
diseases Take, for example, diabetes. We now have a country where
half of our population is either having ties either Type two by diabetes
or is pre diabetic.
And it has exploded into our economy. Most Americans don't realize
that one, almost one out of every $3 spent by their government has
spent on health care, or almost one out of $5. We spend as Americans
in our economy is spent on healthcare and 80% of the diseases and
healthcare dollars are being spent on preventable diseases.
We have this weird crisis in America, where there is an over abundance
of highly processed, sugar filled, salt filled foods that have empty
02 node nutrition and a shortage of access to actual foods that help
that are healthy for us. And here's the thing. Most Americans again
just don't know not only the size of the crisis how much it is costing
us not just in money, but in well being.
But if you look at our agricultural subsidies, only 2% of our AG
subsidies go to the things that nutritionists tell us to eat the
most of my kids in Newark, walk into a community grocery store and
find a Twinkie product cheaper than an apple. Not because of its
true cost, but because we are subsidizing one and making it so much
harder to access. The other.
For those people who don't follow food policy in America. What do
you mean that we're subsidizing these unhealthy foods every few years
or so we have a farm bill. It's coming next year, and we have billions
of dollars of agricultural subsidies that go to lots of different
foods. There's a food category to get really specific that's left
out of most subsidies. It's called specialty crops.
But it's a terrible name, because especially crops are all the fruits
and vegetables we eat, not the mono crops, the commodity crops that
often go into the corn syrup that's in ubiquitous in our foods or
sugar that's everywhere in our foods. And so we have this society
that has decided right now again. This is policy that we have policies
are making unhealthy, highly processed, sugar filled foods readily
abundant and cheap and healthy foods very hard to access or too expensive.
It does not have to be. There doesn't represent the true costs and
we pay for it twice. We're paying for the foods that make us sick.
And then we're paying the extraordinary healthcare bills and pharmaceutical
bills. When we don't make that accessible, we could see the matter
of decades half of our government dollars not being spent on education,
not science and technology, not innovation.
But being spent on the healthcare costs of our population that had
so much diet related disease. I know that the issue of food labeling
is a very big one for you. And you're trying to. The FDA is rolling
out some new rules this week to try to steer people to better, healthier
choices. But we have been putting calorie counts on menus and better
warnings on foods for many years now.
And it seems like we haven't really done much to dent the obesity
crisis. Why do you think that this would move the needle in a substantial
way? Evidence based guy show me something that's working and I wanna
steal those strategies and help me work in my country. My state would
have you so we know from other places that have put front of label
packaging warning labels.
On foods that are very correlated with disease that that actually
does affect consumer behavior. We've seen with tobacco by putting
more prominent labels letting people know that again. These are leading
to the number one killers in America, heart diseases, certain cancers
and more. And so I trust consumers if we provide them information.
If we provide them access to healthy, fresh foods. If we shift our
subsidies from the stuff that's making us sick to the stuff that
makes us well. We will see the cost of taxpayers going way down because
diseases pharmaceutical costs will go down and you'll see an elevation
of well being in the health of Americans. You have also called on
the FDA to require mandatory reductions in excessive salt, Excessive
sugar.
Excessive saturated fat.
How do you counter the pushback from from companies in from consumers
who say
If I want to make a really salty product, or I, as a consumer want
to drink a really sugary drink? That is my business, not the government's.
Well, I'm one of these people that believes in freedom and heck,
you and I both have probably gone deep into a pint of ice cream or
candy. This is not about taking any of those foods away from folks.
It's really about two things.
Number one FDA. If people are going to produce this food, let's label
it select. Consumers know that how strongly linked this is a certain
diseases Number two. Let's make sure that we're not subsidizing the
stuff that's making us sick and allow the
subsidies that go to the things that make us healthy, So it's not
about stopping people from eating. But you understand Now we have
miss labeling. We have people telling us
This food is healthy for us when we know and there's no very little
controls on saying this is heart healthy or this helps you lower
your cholesterol when clearly these foods actually are linked to
diabetes to obesity and heart disease. We have so much miss information
out there. I want the FDA to put the F back in the
FDA the food back in the Food and Drug Administration. They've been
regulating and trying to keep us safe on everything from tobacco
to harmful drugs. It's about time we have a food conversation our
country because we maintain this course we literally could see in
our lifetime. Almost half of our government dollars going to Medicaid,
Medicare and other health care related costs. Senator Booker of New
Jersey Thank you so much for being here.