By Joel Aleccia and Amanda Seitz, Associated Press
Washington (AP) A company that produces $7 meals per person that are delivered straight to the homes of Medicaid and Medicare enrollees received praise from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday.
He went so far as to commend Mom’s Meals for delivering taxpayer-funded, additive-free meals to the homes of elderly or ill Americans. French breakfast sticks with fruit or ham patties are among the spreads, as is dinnertime chicken bacon ranch spaghetti.
Kennedy said in the video, which was uploaded on his official health secretary account, following his visit of the company’s Oklahoma facility last week, “This is really one of the solutions for making our country healthy again.”
However, an Associated Press analysis of the Mom’s Meals menu, including the nutrition labels and components, reveals that the company’s products are the kind of ultraprocessed, heat-and-eat meals that Kennedy frequently blames for causing illness.
According to Marion Nestle, a food policy specialist and dietitian at New York University who examined the menu for The AP, the meals contain chemical additions that would make them impossible to replicate in your kitchen at home. According to her, a lot of the menu items are high in sodium, and some are rich in sugar or saturated fats.
According to Nestle, it is entirely feasible to prepare meals like this using real ingredients and no highly processed additives, but every meal I examined was laden with these additives. They don’t have to be this way, which is what makes it so awful. Although they are obviously more expensive, other businesses are able to manufacture far better products.
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She pointed out that Mom’s Meals does not contain the petroleum-based artificial coloring that Kennedy has pushed businesses to eliminate from their goods.
In an email answer, Mom’s Meals stated that substances frequently found in ultra-processed foods are not included in its food products. According to Teresa Roof, a company spokesperson, the company does not use artificial food coloring, high fructose corn syrup, specific sweeteners, or artificial preservatives that are prohibited in Europe.
at response to inquiries concerning Mom’s Meals, U.S. Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon stated that the meals are a nutritious substitute for what many individuals would find at their grocery stores.
Several businesses in the United States, including Mom’s Meals, provide medically customized at-home meals. Some enrollees, such as those with diabetes or cancer, and some older Americans enrolled in specific Medicare health insurance plans, have Medicaid coverage for the meal programs.
According to the company’s website, meals can even be brought to patients who have just been released from the hospital.
The annual amount that federal taxpayers spend on meal assistance through Medicaid and Medicare is unknown. According to a STAT News investigation last year, some states were paying millions of dollars to give Medicaid members medically customized meals that were marketed as nutritious and authorized by dieticians. However, the survey found that many businesses sold meals that were high in fat, sugar, or salt—all of which are mainstays of an unhealthy American diet.
It can be difficult to define ultraprocessed foods. The majority of foods in the United States are processed, whether through pasteurization, fermentation, freezing, grinding, or other methods. The most processed foods are those made using industrial methods and contain substances like coloring, preservatives, and additives that are impossible to make in a home kitchen.
Kennedy has stated that the foundation of his plan to “Make America Healthy Again” is healthier American diets. Kennedy’s unique alliance of Trump supporters and suburban mothers who have dubbed themselves as MAHA has grown as a result of his appeal for Americans to eat more whole foods.
Kennedy encouraged Americans to choose healthier options in a recent social media post criticizing the over consumption of ultraprocessed foods in American diets.
According to Kennedy, this nation has lost the most fundamental of all freedoms: the freedom that comes from being well.
Aleccia from Temecula, California, reported.
