NYC Food Policy Center: January 2025 Food Flash

by Casey Dalrymple

What’s Hot: ICE begins arrests in New York metropolitan area, placing food and agriculture workers at risk

Donald Trump has never been shy about his intentions to deport large swathes of the American workforce. This past week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun to set these intentions into action, arresting thousands across the country, with New York and New Jersey seeing raids this past Tuesday. 

The American food system is essentially dependent on the very same workers that the Department of Homeland Security is now committed to deporting. In New York State specifically, half the agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants, and more than 60 percent of the city’s culinary workforce are immigrants. ICE has a history and practice of arresting United States citizens, regardless of documentation status, leaving Latinos and people of color in the food industry at risk for unlawful detention.


Taken in combination with President Trump’s attempt to overturn birthright citizenship, these raids and the deportations that may well follow are more than a hindrance to our economy — they are an affront to our legal system and our collective morality.

Fact Check: What do we mean when we say “ultra-processed foods?” And why are they bad for you?

In the current media climate, it’s beginning to feel like “ultra-processed foods” (UPFs) are more than just a byword for “junk food.” A nearly endless stream of purportedly health-conscious media paired with the growing prominence of the Make America Healthy Again movement leaves the American consumer with the impression that a pack of corn chips is not just a poor choice, but also actively lethal — an impression that is not precisely wrong, but not precisely right. 

For one, despite the broad cultural currency of the phrase, there is no broadly agreed-upon definition of “ultra-processed food.” There are a number of reliable benchmarks and systems, the most widely used being the Nova Classification System, which assesses foods on a four-tiered system (1 being “unprocessed or minimally processed” foods like whole fruits and meats, and 4 being “ultra-processed,” featuring largely ready-to-eat, flavored, pre-packaged foods like breakfast cereals and candy). The SIGA System, adapted from Nova, is more granular yet, scores foods on a scale of 1 to 100, with the intention of helping consumers reduce UPF consumption rather than just assessing the level of processing involved. Other organizations have still other systems of classification, which warrants a level of caution on the part of anyone hoping to assess what is and isn’t a UPF with any level of rigor.

This is not to say that a wholly pre-packaged, pre-processed diet is ideal. As we’ve reported in previous editions of our Food Flash, the reality and practicality of adopting a UPF-free diet is more complex than it’s being made to appear. Communities currently and historically deprived of food often must rely on pre-made meals that, while scoring high per the Nova or a SIGA Systems’ assessment, are comparatively nutritious and calorically dense.

In addition, where fresh and whole food options do exist, and home-cooked meals are a viable routine, food does not become healthier just because it’s prepared at home. The high fat, sodium, and sugar content that tend to make UPFs so bad for us can just as easily be replicated in the home.

UPFs, taken as a whole, remain far from an ideal American diet, considering not only their effect on public health but also their deleterious impact on the climate and their place in a foodscape dominated by near-monopolies. It is for this precise reason we should address our reliance on UPFs as an issue with our food system on the whole, and not just an aisle to avoid in the grocery store.

Quote of the Month

“What is clear—or should be clear—to all of us is that if we arbitrarily judge some immigrants to be ‘better’ than others, we will inevitably risk reinforcing a system that is based on biased and unequal power and economic structures that are pervasive in the world today. All too often, current legal pathways to immigration privilege a subset of people while shutting out many who work equally hard and are equally deserving.” — Rachel Cleetus, via The Equation

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