“Courtney Gaine, president and CEO of the Sugar Association, explains the latest in nutritional policy, including what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again movement mean for sugar.
Gaine, a registered dietician, spoke Feb. 4 at the American Sugarbeet Growers Association annual meeting in San Diego. While she expressed a good deal of frustration surrounding chaos in Washington around nutrition and misinformation surrounding food, she sees opportunities for sugar to gain favor in the Make America Healthy Again movement.
It’s on the additive side that Gaine believes sugar can find favor with MAHA constituents. Sugar is natural while artificial sweeteners are not. Gaine said explaining the farm origins of sugarbeet and sugar cane seems to be a winning strategy. However, additives are difficult to define and complicated, so she worries MAHA will still just “go after sugar.”
Gaine also touched on the Food and Drug Administration updating the definition of “healthy” after seven years of rulemaking. The new definition requires foods labeled healthy to meet limits on sugars, sodium and saturated fat and to include a serving of at least one food group. Less than 2% of foods will meet the criteria, she said. Since artificial sweeteners and unlimited calories in a day are allowed, she doesn’t think it’s going to do much to inform the public.”
Read the full article here: https://www.agweek.com/news/sugarbeet/what-make-america-healthy-again-could-mean-for-sugar
February 25, 2026
Courtney Gaine, president and CEO of the Sugar Association, which represents the industry on scientific matters, said at the International Sweetener Colloquium. “It is really easy to regulate sugar. You can get easy wins for sugar,” Gaine said as she others discussed the impact of the MAHA movement. “The narrative is: The government and food […]
February 20, 2026
Courtney Gaine, president and CEO of the Sugar Association, a scientific body which supports the U.S. sugar industry, told the USDA Outlook Forum that the school meal standards taking effect next year might prohibit added sugars in kindergarten meals and significantly restrict them in other grades. That change alone would cut sugar demand by over […]
January 10, 2026
The health secretary’s new dietary guidelines tell parents to cut the added sugar until their kids turn 11. “Misleading rhetoric “declaring war” on and creating unsubstantiated fear about a real ingredient like real sugar will not improve children’s health,” said Courtney Gaine, the association’s president and CEO, in a statement. “Real sugar — which comes […]
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