00:00In this little bottle of Dr. Pepper, there are 15 teaspoons of sugar.
00:06There's a warning label here telling you this is really something that kids should not be drinking,
00:12that has a whole lot of calories in this.
00:14This is 240 calories, right, in this one bottle.
00:16So the industry has done a very good job in selling us products
00:22that are cheap to produce and make us unhealthy,
00:24and that's something Congress has got to deal with.
00:27Bernie Sanders is one of the loudest voices in the room when it comes to ultra-processed food,
00:32and now he's pushing for warning labels on ultra-processed products.
00:36He's here with me today to talk about his plans.
00:39I'm Mia de Graaf, health editor at Business Insider.
00:42The first thing that I want to talk about to do with transparency,
00:45I think it's a bit of a black box, that for your average citizen,
00:48it's hard to understand what stronghold industry lobbyists have
00:52over US politics and our food system.
00:55Major industries in this country, whether it's financial services or in health care or in food,
01:01spend huge amounts of money on campaign contributions.
01:05So they give you a lot of money when you run for Congress,
01:08and that gives them access to you in a way that ordinary citizens do not have.
01:12So they can come in and say, look, these are my problems.
01:14This is what I need.
01:15And you know what?
01:16I did put $50,000 through our super PAC into your campaign.
01:20Furthermore, they have lobbyists running all over Washington, D.C.
01:24And often these lobbyists are very well paid.
01:26They're very smart.
01:28In some cases, former leaders of the Democratic or Republican parties.
01:31So they have clout.
01:32Oh, you know, I was in Congress.
01:34I know what you're going through.
01:35And here's really what you've got to be doing.
01:38When it comes to other countries and their nutrition policy,
01:42are there any that you're envious of?
01:44Sure.
01:44I mean, there are many countries that are way ahead of where we are.
01:47I'll just give you one example.
01:49This is a bottle of Coca-Cola in the United States.
01:52No nutritional information, no warning label.
01:55This is one in Mexico.
01:56And I don't know that Mexico is doing more than other countries.
01:59Says excess sugars, excess calories, caffeine warning, not recommended for children.
02:06And there are other countries that have gone further.
02:09So what we need to do is when a parent goes out shopping,
02:12they need to know that there are products that are just not healthy for their kids.
02:17In the United States, we have not reached that stage.
02:19Other countries are doing a lot better than we are.
02:21What do you say to concerns that the front-of-package labels
02:24are just going to be a distraction that might delay further action?
02:27I think it's one thing that you've got to do.
02:30It's important for parents to know what the health impact is
02:35of the products they're buying for their kids.
02:36I mean, that's kind of common sense.
02:38I think if most parents knew that there were, again, 15 teaspoons of sugar in this drink,
02:44I suspect many parents would say,
02:46sorry, Joe, you can't have that.
02:49And would put pressure on the industry to start producing healthier products.
02:54Speaking about industry reform,
02:56I have to ask you about RFK Jr., who's been nominated for HHS secretary.
02:59He says he's going to overhaul our food system
03:03and specifically remove processed food from school meals.
03:07Do you think that's doable?
03:08Where do you agree and disagree?
03:10Well, I think a lot of what RFK is saying is kind of crazy and driven by conspiracy theory.
03:16Some of what he's saying is not crazy.
03:18I think the fact that in America now,
03:22we have an obesity epidemic.
03:2440% of adults are obese.
03:2720% of kids are obese.
03:30And that is directly related to the epidemic we have in diabetes.
03:37So you have millions and billions of people struggling with diabetes.
03:40Many of them are overweight.
03:43And it is costing us an estimated $400 billion a year to deal with diabetes.
03:50A huge amount of money.
03:52So it goes without saying that anybody with a brain in his or her head
03:56wants to deal with issues, get to the cause of the problem.
03:58And I think processed food and the kind of sugar and salt
04:02that we have in products that our kids and adults are ingesting
04:07is an important part of addressing that crisis.
04:11Could you explain what the stakes are and why Americans should care about this matter?
04:16When Kennedy talks about an unhealthy society, he's right.
04:22The amount of chronic illness that we have is just extraordinary.
04:26The obesity rates have risen for kids three times since the 1970s.
04:32So we're getting more and more obese,
04:35which leads to all kinds of other health-related problems.
04:39We have a problem right now actually recruiting young people into the military
04:43because of health-related issues.
04:45Our kids are not healthy enough.
04:46So in the long run, you want a healthy society as it ended itself.
04:50We want our people to have long lives, productive lives, happy lives.
04:53That's what we want.
04:55And if the industry is giving our kids food that is making them overweight,
05:00leading to diabetes and other illnesses,
05:02clearly that's an issue that we've got to deal with.
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