A new study from nutrition scientists at Harvard, University of California, San Francisco, and the NGO Nourish Science found that 86 percent of Americans have low diet quality and over half of the nation has very low diet quality.  Adults with very low diet quality had lower intakes of whole or minimally processed foods, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and seafood.

Diet quality was higher for older adults, females, higher education attainment, higher income, and food secure Americans.  Unsurprising demographics.

According to the study authors: “This study provides the first set of data-driven diet quality measurement categories health leaders and policy makers can use to track changes to the well-being of the U.S. population and provide science-backed data to inform the types of interventions to be implemented.

“These results exemplify how important it is for Congress to make diet quality a core SNAP objective and uphold the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s SNAP program, the nation’s principal mechanism to prevent obesity, improve diet quality and reduce chronic disease among low-income Americans. (The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) assists low income families with purchasing healthy foods and is facing significant cuts as part of Congressional passage of the Trump Administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”)

In a recent article, one of the study authors pointed out the hypocrisy of cutting SNAP benefits while at the same time the MAHA movement cites the need to improve diets as a key factor in chronic disease prevention.  “This moves the U.S. farther away from improving diet quality and meeting the goals of the MAHA movement by excluding low-income people who are at high risk for developing nutrition-related chronic disease.”

We understand that improving diets is a challenge.  Most consumers cite cost, time-constraints and availability of healthy foods as barriers.

But, when it comes to increasing produce consumption specifically, we would also point out the hypocrisy of those promoting organic-only messaging regarding fruits and vegetables and raising inaccurate safety fears about conventionally grown.

These groups actively work to scare consumers away from the more affordable and accessible fruits and vegetables.  It is nonsensical, head-scratching, and, well, rather crazy in light of this study’s findings.

This is also done knowing that low income consumers exposed to this messaging state they are less likely to purchase any produce – organic or conventional.

Further, this anti-conventional messaging is conducted in a complete scientific vacuum ignoring decades of studies and government data that show all fruits and vegetables are safe and exceptionally nutritious. This underscores the importance of supporting a message of choice – Consumers should simply be encouraged to eat the fruits and vegetables they enjoy and are affordable and accessible to them. 

It is disheartening that food insecure households may perceive conventional grown fruits and vegetables as somehow “less than” or, worse, according to some groups, something they should avoid consuming.

If these groups sincerely cared about improving diets, public health and preventing chronic diseases, they would stop promoting unscientific misinformation about the very foods health experts agree we should eat more of every day.

But they don’t stop and they won’t stop.  So what does that say about them?