The internet was angry this week.
A proposal coming from the Trump administration’s budget process would reduce the fruit and vegetable vouchers available through WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Congress will ultimately decide what changes, if any, become law, but that has not stopped the outrage.
Much of that outrage has been directed at MAHA, the Make America Healthy Again movement. Critics have pointed to the proposed cuts as evidence that the movement never cared about nutrition in the first place.
I find that criticism misplaced.
MAHA is not the Trump administration, Congress, or even the Republican Party. It is a coalition of mothers, doctors, nutrition advocates, former Democrats, independents, libertarians, and conservatives who share concerns about chronic disease, food quality, environmental toxins, and the health of American children. Whether the proposed cuts move forward will ultimately be decided through the budget process and by Congress itself.
More importantly, I am not convinced the current debate is even the right debate.
Almost nobody is asking whether the program is delivering the most nutritious food possible to the women and children it was created to serve.
For decades, WIC has enjoyed broad bipartisan support. That is not surprising. The program serves pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, infants, and young children. Most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, agree that these groups deserve support. While conservatives and progressives often disagree about the size and scope of government, WIC has largely escaped those fights because its mission is narrow and its recipients are among the most vulnerable members of society.
The question is not whether mothers and babies deserve help. The question is whether we are helping them in the best possible way.
One detail missing from much of the current debate is that fruits and vegetables were not even part of WIC for most of the program’s history.
WIC was created in the early 1970s to combat hunger and nutrient deficiencies among pregnant women, young mothers, infants, and children. The food package reflected the nutritional concerns of that era. Milk, cheese, eggs, cereal, juice, peanut butter, beans, and infant formula formed the backbone of the program. Fresh fruits and vegetables were not added until 2009.
That fact alone tells an important story. WIC has never been static. The program has evolved as our understanding of nutrition has evolved.
Today, a pregnant woman on WIC might receive a dozen eggs, several gallons of milk, whole grains, beans or peanut butter, canned fish, and roughly $48 per month specifically for fruits and vegetables. A breastfeeding mother receives a larger package. Young children receive milk, eggs, cheese, grains, and about $26 per month for fruits and vegetables.
The current political fight centers on whether those fruit and vegetable benefits should be reduced. But when I look at those numbers, I see a different question entirely.
Why are we arguing about whether the produce voucher should be a few dollars larger or smaller while largely ignoring whether the entire package reflects what we now know about nutrition?
We spend enormous amounts of time arguing about budgets and surprisingly little time discussing nutritional outcomes.
One of the problems with the current debate is that it treats food as a budget item instead of what it actually is: medicine.
People like Erin Martin have spent years reminding policymakers of this reality. Through innovative programs, she has helped create pathways for people struggling with chronic illness to access local and organic foods through their healthcare, recognizing that what we eat can be just as important as many medical interventions.
That shift in thinking matters.
America once faced pockets of genuine hunger and food insecurity. The goal was straightforward: make sure vulnerable people had enough food to eat.
In many ways, those programs succeeded. America is no longer a country where widespread calorie deficiency is the primary nutritional challenge. In fact, one could argue that we have swung too far in the other direction.
Today, we are surrounded by inexpensive calories. Our farms, food processors, transportation networks, and grocery stores are remarkably effective at producing and distributing food. We have become extraordinarily good at preventing starvation.
What we have not become equally good at is producing health.
We now live in a country where obesity and nutrient deficiency often exist in the same person. A child can consume more than enough calories and still lack many of the nutrients needed for optimal growth and development. A mother can have a full pantry and still struggle with metabolic dysfunction.
The problem changed, and when the problem changes, the solution must change with it.
As someone with strong libertarian instincts, I am not naturally drawn toward large government programs.
But WIC already exists.
The American people have decided that pregnant women, infants, young children, and breastfeeding mothers deserve a safety net. Reasonable people can disagree about the size of that safety net, but as long as it exists, it should do what it promises to do.
WIC is a nutrition program, and nutrition is the promise.
If taxpayers are funding a nutrition program, then the food provided should promote nutrition. It should support health. It should help build strong mothers and healthy children. At a minimum, it should not contribute to the very chronic diseases that are now overwhelming American families.
That is why I find myself less interested in debates about how much money is being spent and more interested in what that money is buying. The real question is not whether the government should purchase food. The real question is whether the food being purchased is helping create health.
Both positions, however, miss the more important question.
Are the people these programs were created to help actually better off?
More than 50 years after WIC was established, are mothers healthier? Are young people entering adulthood with better metabolic health than previous generations?
Looking at America’s rates of obesity, diabetes, infertility, and chronic disease, the answer appears to be no.
That does not mean WIC failed. It means WIC largely solved the problem it was designed to solve. It helped address hunger and calorie deficiency. But in doing so, we discovered that calories alone are not enough.
Now, it is time for another pivot.
As a farmer, I would like to see us think much bigger. Instead of arguing over the size of a fruit and vegetable voucher, why not ask how we can connect more WIC dollars directly to local farms? Why not create pathways that make fresh eggs, high-quality meat, local produce, and other whole foods easier to access?
These are not conservative questions or progressive questions. They are practical questions about how to create healthier mothers, healthier babies, and healthier communities.
I believe Americans across the political spectrum are intelligent enough to move beyond a debate centered entirely on calories. The challenge now is not merely getting food into people. It is getting the right food into people.
If food is medicine, then nutrition programs should be designed with health as their ultimate goal. That means supporting local economies, local farms, nutrient-dense foods, healthy mothers, healthy babies, and strong communities.
The goal should not simply be to fill stomachs.
The goal should be to help build healthier generations.
