RFK Jr.’s worst nightmare

A Wednesday morning in May Is a strange time to be trick-or-treat, especially if you wear an adult business business. The Indiana Convention Center had just been opened for visitors for the second day of Sweets & Snacks, the largest meeting of the candy and snack industry in North America. Together with nearly 15,000 other attendees, I went from booth to trying out monsters. By 10:40 I sipped a free Blue-Raspberry-Watermelon Icee while a woman on the right took a selfie with Mr. Jelly Belly. On the slender Jim stand a few meters away, a bunch of people in wind instruments gathered around a smelly board of meat sticks. The only thing that could come between those present and their snacks was occasionally free beer or run-in with a mascot. At a certain point the Sasquatch of the Jack Link tried to steal the mini muffins of My Entenmann.

I had come to candy and snacks to taste the future of junk food. The annual conference is the most prominent location of the industry to show off its new products. Based on my three days in Indianapolis, the hot new trends are freezed candy and everything that tastes vague East Asian: think of “Matcha Latte” popcorn. But at the moment that future looks shaky, especially for clothing. Candy embodies everything that health and human services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes it is wrong with the American diet. It is mainly sugar (which Kennedy has called “Gif”) counts as an ultra-processed food (which Kennedy has called “Gif”), and is often colored with synthetic dyes (which Kennedy has called “Gif”). Last month RFK announced Jr. A goal to eliminate synthetic food paint towards the end of 2026, a major threat to an industry based on making clear, striking treats. In an e -mail, a HHS spokesperson said that “Kennedy secretary has been clear: we have to build a healthier future by making smarter choices about what our food is going.” The spokesperson added that “the secretary is dedicated to collaborate with the industry to prioritize public health.”

At Sweets & Snacks I did not meet industry that was preparing for change. Instead, it was the worst nightmare of RFK Jr.: An unabashed celebration of all things sugar -like, artificial and delicious. On the congress floor it was difficult to find a single product – at the litany of meat sticks and occasionally a mixed note – that the approval stamp of RFK Jr. would get. Even a finalist for the annual Salty Snack Award of the Convention, Vlasic Pickleballs, contained Tartrazine, a synthetic yellow dye that Kennedy specifically beaten. While I filled my face with sugary treats, I started to wonder: was the neighborhood in the industry about Kennedy or vice versa?

RThe presence of FK Jr. Was remarkably absent from the moment I arrived in snuffs. “Everywhere here is fine,” I told my Lyft director when we went to a colossal red M&M. Candy companies have already invested in healthier options: Mars bought Snack-Bar Maker species in 2020 and proudly showed the bars in a stand in addition to their more traditional M&MS, Skittles and Starburst. But the only vague mention of the imminent RFK Jr. -Distribution on the floor of the congress was posted a billboard by the organizers of the conference, the National Confectioners Association (NCA). It repeated the long-term message of the Candy lobby: candy should not be combined with other ultra-processed foods, because it is occasionally a treat.

It is not surprising that candy companies do not change their products abruptly in response to pressure, even if it comes from the best health ruler in the country. Americans bought $ 54 billion in these treats last year. In April, the health secretary stated that the American food industry “had been voluntarily agreed” to remove synthetic dyes from their products, but based on the items that can be seen at Sweets & Snacks, the candy industry has little interest in fulfilling that promise fast. When I asked Christopher Gindlesperger, Senior Vice President of NCA from Public Affairs and Communication, if the candy industry had a household name with RFK Jr. To voluntarily eliminate synthetic dyes, his answer was simple: “No”

Some of the discussions about dyes are understandably frustrating for industry. Federal supervisors have not done the kind of thorough academic evaluation of these dyes that is usually expected before they try to push them out of food supply. (The state of California released its own evaluation in 2021 and discovered that “synthetic dyes are associated with unfavorable neurobehavioral results in some children.”) At the same time, the candy industry does not like much to indicate that it recognizes the growing concern about these ingredients. It is difficult to be sympathetic to companies that deliberately market unhealthy products to children by using mascots and funky colors. I was surprised when I was one Despicable Me-Fire clower set with which children let a cookie color in a cookie with a marker filled with tartrazine.

The efforts of the industry to maintain the status quo are risky. If Kennedy is planning to enforce an actual ban on synthetic dye, this can have a monumental impact. Making the switch to natural colors is not as easy as FDA Commissioner Marty Makary suggested when he told last month during a press conference during a press conference to have their products with fruit and vegetable juices color. Natural colors are usually more expensive, and they are much more picky than their synthetic alternatives. Moisture, pH and even light can cause the dyes to break down. A naturally colored M&M can be red if it leaves the factory, but if it is in your pantry for too long, it can take on a non-so-personal color. There is also a question whether there are even enough fruit and vegetables in the world to provide the food industry with sufficient natural dye to serve the enormous American market. “The amount of crops that go in some of these dyes is just so high that we have not necessarily planted these crops,” said Renee Leber, a food scientist at the Institute of Food Technologists, me.

Here is another concern: natural dyes can change the taste of certain treats. The company behind Dum-Dums-Lolly’s has suggested that replacing artificial red dye with beet juice could make its red lollipops taste like beets. (That does not mean that it cannot be done. Many companies already sell products in Europe without synthetic dyes. And kittens, a German company sandwiched between Jack Links and Harvest Snaps, gave his Rainbow Unicorn Gummies away, which looked a lot of striking, despite the fact that they were only colored with fruit and congestions of juices.)

FOOD dyes are just one part of the RFK Jr. -Dealing with which the candy industry is now confronted. Yesterday, the “Maha Commission” of the Trump administration released a common report on child health, in which sugar and ultra-processed foods are called up as an important contribution to the problem of the chronic diseases of young people. When I spoke with Gindlesperger, he quickly pointed out that candy is far from the biggest cause of the sugar problem of America. (Sweet drinks are.) “People understand that chocolate and sweets are treats, and consumers have carved a special place for them in their lives,” he said. He mentioned an analysis of CDC survey data funded by the NCA, which showed that people in the United States eat around 40 calories per day.

But that analysis makes no distinction between children and adults. Data is scarce about the candy use of children, but if you have walked with a child in a candy path, you can probably see that most are not fully understood that gummy worms are meant to occasionally spoil. “It is really difficult for a child who has access to candy to stop eating,” Natalie Muth, a pediatrician and dietician, told me. Candy consumption in children, she added, is a ‘big problem’.

In a country where almost 20 percent of the children are obese, more has to be done to protect people against the worst tendencies of the candy industry. But the obligations of such changes will be for RFK Jr. It is incredibly difficult to only prohibit tartrazine, the FDA should compile a docket of information that demonstrates its damage, issue a draft regulation, take public comments and then close the regulations. Gindlesperger said that the candy industry is waiting for the FDA to formally assess the safety of the dyes that the problem has: “We support and would welcome that assessment.” Even after all those steps, the food industry – and probably – is the case. There is even less precedent for breaking down sugar. Kennedy has acknowledged that a sugar ban is unlikely and has argued instead for more education about the risks of a sweet tooth.

If Kennedy succeeds in starting the actual reform, the “Make America Remory” movement will not really cause a revolution in the American diet until it can define our relationship with certain foods. Whether Kennedy likes it or not, candy is part of our national psyche. He can’t just wave a waving and forbid trick-or-treat or candy sticks. Over the course of three days I saw adult adults filling several shopping bags with free treats. Candy companies showed bags of their products to show retailers what they would look like in a store, and the bags had to be recorded literally to prevent them from being swept. (Some were still.) I learned that visitors usually take a second suitcase to drag their loot home.

Nothing embodied the affection for treats such as the spontaneous dance party that broke out near the end of the conference. Chester Cheetah, Ernie The Keebler Elf, the Purple Nerd, The Lemonhead, Bazooka Joe, Clark Cheese Head and Chewbie, the Hi-Kauwmascotte, all started waving together with a fanfare that was hired to entertain guests. Participants in the conference shouted to get a video of the spectacle and to make a selfie with their favorite mascot. The moment was absurd and funny and more than a bit embarrassing. Yet I couldn’t help it, but pull out my own phone and crack a smile. Perhaps the nostalgia for gone Halloween -night, or maybe all sugar just came to my head.