by Adam De Gree
Nearly 50 percent of American children and almost three-quarters of adult Americans are obese or overweight. Forty percent of 18-year-olds have a diagnosed mental health issue. Autism incidence has risen from 1 in 150 to 1 in 36 since 2000—in California it is 1 in 22. Americans aren’t just sick. They’re being destroyed.
That’s the conclusion that Calley and Casey Means draw in their #1 New York Times bestselling book, Good Energy. In the book—as well as in a fascinating interview with Tucker Carlson—the Means lay out a case against Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, and Big Government. And their work has caught the ear of both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) and Donald Trump, who are now running on a unity ticket to make America healthy again.
Things are about to get very, very interesting.
The Means are siblings with impressive credentials. Casey graduated top of her class at Stanford University School of Medicine and went on to work toward a highly competitive surgery specialization. Over nine years into her post-graduate training, she realized that the American medical system trains doctors to manage symptoms, not to cure illness. As a result, she quit and co-founded Levels Health, which makes a leading continuous glucose monitor.
Not to be outdone, Calley graduated from Harvard Business School and went on to consult and lobby for food and pharmaceutical companies. Like his sister, Calley came to see that America’s healthcare system is incentivized to put people on a pharmacological treadmill as early as possible. He’s now lobbying to ensure that food and healthcare spending is put to good use.
The Means make a straightforward argument: “The system is rigged against the American patient to create diseases and then profit off of them.” It starts with food.
As they explain, America’s food industry was acquired by Big Tobacco in the 1980s. Tobacco companies, flush with cash, were looking for a new market after medical authorities finally acknowledged that smoking is harmful. Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds bought Kraft, General Foods, and Nabisco in the 1980s—at the time, these were some of the biggest merger and acquisition deals in history. These companies then transferred their scientists, who excelled at making cigarettes more addictive, into the business of engineering food.
The result? Seventy percent of the modern American child’s diet is comprised of ultra-processed foods. These foods contain ingredients that did not exist 100 years ago, and they’ve been designed to addict eaters. Instead of being nourished by real foods, Americans are filling up on industrial byproducts like seed oils, which are now the top source of calories in the US.
It’s not only that the American diet has been turned into a science experiment by major corporations—it’s also that those corporations have captured government agencies. Ninety-five percent of the people on the USDA’s Nutrition Guidelines for America committee had conflicts of interest with the food industry, and 75 percent of the FDA’s funding comes from Big Pharma. By commandeering the regulatory apparatus of the federal government, the food and pharmaceutical industries have written themselves a blank check to remake both dietary and medical practices nationwide. So it is that hundreds of harmful chemicals banned in Europe are allowed to reach American plates each and every day.
These aren’t just abstract issues. As Casey explains, “The USDA controls the U.S. School Lunch program, which serves three billion meals per year to students. The largest fast-food chain in America is the USDA School Lunch program. … Just this past year, Kraft Heinz is brokering deals with the USDA to put Lunchables in schools.”
Having the USDA provide lunch to kids is like having the fox guard the henhouse. And though it may be too late for millions of chronically ill and overweight Americans to flourish, the chronic disease disaster has finally caught the eye of prominent politicians. In fact, it was the central issue of RFK Jr.’s immensely popular third-party presidential campaign.
Shortly after the attempted assassination of President Trump, Calley Means called RFK Jr. and told him that he had been advising President Trump on the chronic disease epidemic. That issue has become a bridge between the independent candidate, who has a history of supporting left-wing policies, and the Republican nominee. The two are now running together, with Trump promising to put RFK Jr. in a position to deal with the epidemic, should he win the presidency.
The unlikely alliance is set to bring new demographics together for the first time. RFK Jr. has a strong following in the health and organic farming community, which is traditionally progressive in outlook. If they follow his lead into the Republican Party, this could be the start of a new political coalition.
So, will America ever be heathy again?
Only we have the power to decide with our diets, habits, and perhaps even our votes.
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Adam De Gree is a classical educator and freelance writer. He teaches online history, literature, and government & economics courses for homeschoolers with Classical Historian. His writing has been published in venues including The Culture Crush, The Imaginative Conservative, and Partially Examined Life.
