As the Make America Healthy Again Commission (MAHA) makes headlines, Idaho producers may wonder where changing policies and recommendations leave them. One article of particular interest is the disavowal of “ultra-processed foods.”
In the September Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy Report, MAHA announced that “USDA, HHS and FDA will continue efforts to develop a U.S. government-wide definition for ‘ultra-processed food’ to support potential future research and policy activity.”
“We just have a lot of questions,” says Sam Eaton, vice president of legal and governmental affairs for the Idaho Potato Commission. “Where do you draw the line for what is and isn’t? It will be extremely difficult to define it. I think they’ve realized that.”
MAHA’s Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment, released in May, identified ultra-processed foods as one of the four major drivers of childhood chronic disease and devoted an entire section to the rationale behind that assertion. The later Strategy Report maintained the assumption that processed foods are an important piece of the puzzle; however, its only reference to ultra-processed foods (a term used so frequently in the first report that the writers reverted to an acronym, UPF) was to state that the committee is working to define the term.
“The tone is improved, in our perspective,” says Eaton of the Strategy Report. “We need to have good, peer-reviewed science. It seems like they recognize this, which is good.”
“Consumers, producers and bureaucracies have applied the ‘I know it when I see it’ standard to sustainability, regenerative agriculture and now processed and ultra-processed foods without a clear definition for what these words actually mean,” says Britany Hurst Marchant, executive director of the Idaho Wheat Commission. “In the absence of guardrails, consumers and those who influence consumers resort to vibes, likes and follows instead of science and common sense.”
Assigning a precise definition to the “ultra-processed food” label should bring clarity to the discussion around obesity and healthy foods. “It’s probably needed,” says Rick Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association.
“We think it is valuable that the government is looking closely at how foods are defined, but it is important that the conversation takes the full picture into account,” says Samantha Parrott, executive director of Snake River Sugar Association (SRSA). “Calories, artificial sweeteners and overall dietary balance all play a role in health, and no single ingredient should be singled out.”
Processing Idaho’s ag commodities
The distinction between processed and ultra-processed foods matters to Idaho ag, because processing is the norm. “Aside from fresh produce and eggs, there are very few food items that can be plucked from the ground, bush or vine and directly eaten. Life spans have been extended, defects and deficiencies reduced, diseases erased, and starvation and food insecurity reined in because of the programs, processes and technologies that increase affordability and accessibility to food across the country,” says Hurst Marchant.
Dairy is one of those products consumed with minimal processing – for whole milk, just pasteurization and homogenization. While homogenization is a consumer preference and standardization practice, pasteurization is a food safety and longevity issue. “It gives us the shelf life needed to have dairy products last beyond what you see in raw form,” Naerebout says. While not opposed to raw milk being sold with proper labeling, he says, “We are not proponents of selling raw milk here at Idaho Dairymen’s Association. … There are concerns about food safety.”
Thankfully for the dairymen, pasteurization and homogenization are not the processes that MAHA has its sights set on. “So far, they seem to be working in a direction that won’t negatively affect dairy,” says Naerebout. Even items that undergo more processing, like cheeses and yogurts, should fall far short of the “ultra-processed” category.
“Even before MAHA, we’ve had a clean label. Traditionally, we’re a simple, clean-label product that fits well with the MAHA agenda,” he says. “Full-fat dairy fits well with what this administration is going for right now.”
Then there are potatoes. “We’re fortunate that potatoes right out of the ground, if stored properly, have a long shelf life on their own,” says Eaton. “But there are ways that we can process them to improve storage.”
With high levels of potassium and B6, he says, “We’re passionate that the potato is a healthy vegetable in many forms.” But with potential forms ranging from frozen and dehydrated potatoes to potato chips, the definition for ultra-processed foods could have significant impact.
Other Idaho commodities undergo processes like milling or sugar extraction. “Processing is necessary for wheat,” says Hurst Marchant. “Enriched and refined grains are important sources of fiber, something of which 90 percent of Americans aren’t getting enough. Wheat provides 20 percent of the world's calories and is generally milled into flour first.” Since 1939, the U.S. has also mandated that processed flour be fortified with vitamins and minerals such as iron, thiamin and riboflavin, which is a cost-effective way of countering the nutrient deficiencies – and resulting birth defects – that began to appear in the early 1900s.
“This is not to say that wheat is not nutritious on its own,” says Hurst Marchant. “The American diet prefers white bread to whole wheat, which requires more runs through the mill, and demands a long shelf life for pantry staples, which also requires a more extensive process for commercial food production than your mom's or grandma's home-milled, home-baked, fresh-from-the-oven wheat foods.”
If any commodity is more villainized than wheat, it is the sugarbeet. “Sugar is often misunderstood, but it is a natural ingredient that comes directly from plants, like the sugarbeets grown right here in Idaho,” says Parrott. “In moderation, sugar can be part of a balanced, healthy diet.”
The grower-owned cooperative Amalgamated Sugar processes SRSA growers’ beets to make the sugar that may be straight to consumers or incorporated into other products. “Beyond sweetness, sugar has important functional properties that people sometimes overlook,” says Parrott. “It acts as a natural preservative in many packaged foods, helping maintain freshness, texture and increases shelf life.”
And despite its association with processed foods, she says, “Once people in that [the MAHA] movement understood that when we say real sugar we mean sugar that comes directly from plants, sugarbeets and sugarcane, the conversation shifted. We are a natural ingredient, not a lab-made sweetener, and consumers are increasingly seeking out real sugar … which puts us in a good position moving forward.”
MAHA and Idaho ag
So far, says Eaton, MAHA outputs have taken “sort of a policy direction, not hard and fast ‘you will do this.’” In that context, consumer demand matters.
“The consumer interpretation and the MAHA movement as a whole could impact the consumer's relationships with national brands, but only if they can afford it and if they can convince their kids and spouse to eat something different,” says Hurst Marchant. “The wheat industry has seen this shift several times as wheat foods have been both the staple of the family dinner table and the villain of the dietary influence sphere for decades. Ultimately, carbohydrates prove time and time again to be not just beneficial but critically necessary to health, nutrition and function of the human body.”
Further, it isn’t a one-sided conversation. “National groups and food manufacturers need to communicate with the government,” says Eaton.
This is particularly important for commodities such as sugarbeets. “Currently, many food companies are incentivized to use artificial sweeteners like aspartame, which is imported from China and is an industrial additive,” says Parrott. “There is still not enough research to fully understand the long-term safety of these products. Real sugar from plants, on the other hand, has been studied for generations and is proven to be safe when consumed as part of a balanced diet. Supporting policies that prioritize natural ingredients like sugar will help food companies make healthier choices for consumers.”
For other commodities, MAHA presents opportunities. The dairy industry is watching for the outcome of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025, which has been on the U.S. House of Representatives calendar since June. If passed, it would allow milks with higher fat content to be served in schools participating in the school lunch program.
“For the most part, we’re working to be aligning with what the administration is asking for,” says Naerebout. This includes relatively small shifts, like removing artificial flavors and dyes in ice cream and flavored school milk. “We’re not seeing wholesale changes to the product.”
For potatoes in particular and agriculture in general, says Eaton, “MAHA is just a piece of the challenge. There are also trade issues, and trends and diets that affect how people consume all foods.”
