MAHA Versus the Colonel and His Ilk

A movement doomed to fail

The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement comes directly from the Trump White House via the Make America Healthy Again Commission. The goals are lofty and, on the surface, admirable. For example, the movement wants to “address the root causes of America’s chronic disease crisis—poor diets, environmental toxins, and inadequate healthcare systems.” It also hopes to promote “sustainable farming practices that rebuild our soil, reduce chemical reliance, and promote biodiversity.” Further, the movement wants to “expose corporate corruption,” “eliminate environmental toxins,” and “protect natural habitats.”

I predict that the movement will fail because some of its objectives contradict other objectives, some objectives will be impossible to achieve, and other objectives will make our lives worse, causing pushback from a wide swath of Americans once they realize what MAHA hopes to achieve.

Which objectives are impossible?

Eliminating environmental toxins

According to MAHA: “We promote candidates and policies that remove harmful chemicals and pollutants to ensure every American lives in a toxin-free environment.”

Bruce Ames, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Emeritus at U.C. Berkeley, developed the Ames Test, a widely used laboratory test that identifies the mutagenic potential of chemical compounds. To cause cancer, a compound must be mutagenic and delivered in a sufficiently large dose. After much testing, Ames came to the conclusion that about half of all manmade chemicals are mutagenic, potentially capable of causing cancer at a high enough dose.

That doesn’t seem surprising, especially given the image presented by those promoting and advocating natural foods and medicines—that synthetic chemicals can be dangerous. But what proportion of natural chemicals—such as those found in natural foods and medicines—are mutagenic? Take an honest guess. Zero? One percent? Ten percent? Wrong. Again, about half.

Half of all chemicals (natural or synthetic) cause cancer if given in high doses. — ­Bruce Ames, U.C. Berkeley

If half of all synthetic and natural chemical compounds are mutagenic, good luck to those who think they can rid our environment of “environmental toxins.” It gets even more ridiculous if we think through some of the implications.

According to Ames and his colleagues, “99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves.” Plants can’t get up and run away so they’ve developed chemical warfare to survive in a world of hungry predators. Plants produce pesticides. By definition, pesticides are toxins. Therefore, plants produce toxins.

So, to rid our environment of toxins, we’ll need to exterminate every living plant. Yeah, let’s hear the reaction the MAHA people get when they propose that solution.

Which objectives conflict?

Sustainable farming practices and protecting natural habitats

The MAHA goal for “sustainable farming practices that rebuild our soil, reduce chemical reliance, and promote biodiversity” is another way to describe organic agriculture. While there are advantages to organic agriculture, there is one tremendous downside that gets very little attention: organic farming is less efficient. According to Bjorn Lomborg, “organic farming produces between 29% to 44% less food than conventional methods,” depending on the crop grown and the particular circumstances of the farm. This means that more farmland is needed to grow the same amount of food. How much more? Based on Lomborg’s estimates, 41% to 79% more farmland (the inverse of one minus the numbers above). This is a problem because the amount of the Earth’s landmass that is used for agriculture can’t be used for other purposes, such as natural habitats, which contradicts the objective to “protect natural habitats.”

According to Lomborg, “Agriculture already uses 40% of the ice-free land on the earth. Increasing its efficiency will allow us to keep more land wild and natural.” If we make farming more efficient, we could return some of that land over to the natural flora and fauna. If we make farming less efficient, such as with organic processes, we will need to take even more land from the natural flora and fauna.

Let’s hear the reaction the MAHA people get when they propose converting more rain forests, prairies, marshes, deserts, ancient timber stands, savanna, chaparral, and meadows into farms.

The experience of Sri Lanka can provide a cautionary tale for those beating the organic farming drum.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised to transition the country’s farmers to organic agriculture. In 2021, his government made good on that promise, imposing a nationwide ban on the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, forcing all farmers to go organic. The production of rice and tea, two of Sri Lanka’s primary crops, declined dramatically while prices rose by about 50%, sending half a million people back into poverty. As a result, in July 2022 citizens stormed Rajapaksa’s official residence, forcing him to resign while in exile.

I wonder what Rajapaksa thinks of organic farming now.

Which objective will be unpopular and cause pushback from Americans?

Addressing Americans’ diets

When the MAHA supporters talk about poor diets and health outcomes, they are mainly talking about obesity. In other words, why are Americans so fat? After 200,000 years as a species in a daily struggle to get enough food to survive, we’ve had roughly 50 years of amazing abundance. We are wealthy and can easily and cheaply acquire wonderful food from around the world. Plus, we are lazy. While our ancestors needed to burn calories to acquire calories, many of us simply sit on the couch and order food deliveries in front of the television.

In the Mike Myers movie, “So I Married an Axe Murderer,” one of the characters complains about “the Colonel” [Sanders] who "puts an addictive chemical in his [KFC fried] chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly." The implication is there’s some secret ingredient added to our foods to trick us. If we could just identify the secret ingredients and remove them, the MAHA people reason, we could make our food wholesome and we could once again reach our ideal weights.

While it is possible the food itself could be improved, the problem is predominately the dose we consume.

Even nectar is poison if taken in excess. — ­Hindu proverb

We are surrounded by nectar (i.e., tasty food) and we consume it in excess relative to our energy expenditures. This might not be a problem if we frequented the gym five times a week but most of us don’t. If the MAHA advocates want to solve this supposed problem, they will need to either make us substantially poorer, make our food less appetizing or less available, or force us to run laps and do pushups.

Instead of Make America Healthy Again, the group might need to change its name to Make Food Unappetizing and Unavailable Again, and In Addition, Get Down and Give Us Twenty Pushups (MFUUAAGDGUTP).

Once Americans learn what is involved, they will see the movement for what it is and throw its advocates out the door and onto the street.