LEFTOVERS

Ivanka’s New Initiative Takes a Page from Michelle Obama’s Book

Maybe healthy eating is a winning issue—finally.

Ivanka Trump on Thursday launched a public push to get more fresh produce and healthy food to American consumers, taking a page out of former first lady Michelle Obama’s playbook.

During an appearance at the Heartland Summit in Bentonville, Arkansas, Trump spoke for the first time about her work on the issue—which largely centered around her experience as the founder of an organization called Planet Harvest, which describes itself as a “profit-for-purpose company that creates innovative, whole harvest solutions that resolve inefficiencies in the supply chain.”

Trump told Axios, which first reported on her remarks, that she developed “a real passion for supporting American farmers and getting more food into communities in need” after seeing the USDA’s Farmers to Families Food Box program in 2020.

She said her work would be focused on “private-sector solutions” that she hoped would “expand access to fresh food, support farmers, reduce waste and drive lasting impact across communities.”

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“We launched Planet Harvest to reimagine how American produce moves—not just through the supply chain, but across communities,” she said. “By connecting fresh and surplus harvests with those who can benefit from them, we’re supporting farmers, reducing food waste, expanding access and using good nutrition to improve health.”

The first daughter has largely stayed out of the spotlight since her father left office in 2021. During his first term, she served as a senior adviser to the president and was often spotted at the White House. She later bowed out of his inner circle after he announced his intention to run for the presidency—again—in 2022.

At the time, a source close to Ivanka said that she was “choosing to use her influence now on a more personal level” to “positively impact her own community.”

The first daughter’s push to promote healthy eating mirrors a similar initiave by first lady Michelle Obama, who was lambasted by conservatives for the effort.

Obama’s Let’s Move! public health campaign to reduce obesity in children encouraged daily physical activity and healthy diets in schools. She pushed for more fruits and vegetables, fewer trans fats and sodium, and only skim or low-fat milk.

Yet some conservatives rushed in to claim that “big government” was obstructing parental choice.

Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, for instance, attempted to mock Obama’s initiative by bringing 200 cookies to a Christian school.

The late radio host Rush Limbaugh labelled Let’s Move! a dangerous example of “government eating.” He would go on to espouse the “Twinkie diet.”

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It remains to be seen how Ivanka’s efforts will be received by those who took issue with Let’s Move.

In 2018, Ivanka’s father oversaw the rollback of Obama’s school lunch standards, with then-Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue claiming that children would just throw away healthy food and therefore get zero nutrition.

On Obama’s birthday in 2020, the president’s Department of Agriculture proposed to weaken the standards even more, allowing schools to reduce the amount of fruits and vegetables in favor of more pizza and burgers. Potatoes would even count as a vegetable.

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