State fairs are famous for their indulgent food, and the Great American State Fair, which opened yesterday on the National Mall in celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday, is no exception.
But visitors strolling the rows of booths serving up cheesy fries, loaded nachos and cookies by the bucket will also be able to hear about the Trump administration’s efforts to “Make America Healthy Again.”
In one planned event, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will give a cooking demonstration with the chef Geoffrey Zakarian to showcase the new federal food guidelines. Those recommendations implore Americans to “eat real food,” like eggs, meats, milk, fruits, vegetables and whole grains — and discourage consuming deep-fried and highly processed foods.
But fairgoers may be hard pressed to find foods that fit those guidelines at the fair, highlighting the contradictions between the nation’s food supply and federal advice on healthy eating, said Laura Schmidt, a professor of health policy at the University of California, San Francisco. “You can sit there with your hot dog and chips while watching Dr. Oz cook up a healthy meal.”
“This is standard American fare,” she said, reflecting the foods commonly available to most Americans, including those who might wish for fresher, healthier options. There aren’t many vegetables on offer, she said, except for items like fries, a garden salad and a chicken Caesar salad.
Some of the people scheduled to speak at the MAHA events went so far as to say that they might avoid dining at the fair. One of those speakers is Joel Salatin, a regenerative farmer from Swoope, Va. He will give a presentation on “food emancipation,” which he described in an interview as “bringing food freedom back to the way it was at the founding of the country.” Small farms could thrive then, he said, in part because of a lack of food safety rules and other regulations governing the sales of products like raw milk.
“If they want to showcase whatever preindustrial food to go along with 250 years ago, I don’t think there’s going to be nachos and hot dogs,” Mr. Salatin said.
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Hilda Labrada Gore, a health advocate who goes by “Holistic Hilda,” will also be speaking at the event and plans to emphasize the value of “local, organic, seasonal, traditional foods,” she said in an interview.
“The irony is thick,” she said, after hearing of the menu options available at the fair. But she hopes her talk inspires people to shop from their local farmers’ markets.
As for what she would eat when she attends the fair, “I’ll probably bring my own food in a cooler, honestly.”
Fair organizers did not respond to questions about whether local or organically grown foods would be sold at the event.
At another event, billed as part of the fair’s MAHA programming, Judy Wang, a restaurant owner from Galesburg, Ill., will make pancakes on the main stage. She will also host a pancake eating challenge in which contestants will race to eat a plate of 10 pancakes topped with berries and a sauce made with mascarpone and cream cheeses, milk and sugar, she said in an interview.
Ms. Wang did not claim that her pancakes were healthy. But, she said, they are about “bringing people together.”
And that is part of what fairs are all about, said Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. “The fair is meant to be this kind of indulgent, celebratory time.”
Dr. Gearhardt has fond memories of eating “intensely fried” funnel cakes, corn dogs and powdered doughnuts at the fairs of her childhood, and she said she would not expect the fair to serve kale and carrots.
What is unfortunate, Dr. Gearhardt said, is that fair food has become everyday food in the United States. “It’s now no longer special because it’s just part of what has inundated our food supply.”
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