Why MAHA’s push on Coca-Cola and ice cream is ‘nutritionally hilarious’

Pop quiz: What’s Coca-Cola with cane sugar and ice cream made with natural dyes?

Answer: Coca-Cola and ice cream.

Getting Coca-Cola to use cane sugar rather than corn syrup and ice cream manufacturers to stop their use of synthetic dyes are the latest achievements trumpeted by the Make America Healthy Again movement as part of its quest to reform the U.S. food supply. But nutrition experts say that despite MAHA’s rhetoric, these kinds of changes won’t move the needle when it comes to Americans’ health. 

“My term for this is ‘nutritionally hilarious,’” said Marion Nestle, one of the country’s foremost nutrition experts and professor emeritus at New York University. Whether Coca-Cola contains cane sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, she said, it will still contain virtually the same amount of calories and lots of sugar. (Coke currently has about 10 teaspoons a 12-ounce can.) That means soda will still pose the same risks when it comes to chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. “It’s the kind of thing that makes nutritionists roll their eyes, because it doesn’t make any difference,” Nestle said.  

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