The sad thing is, when it comes to diet, is that even when well-intentioned Feds try to do right by us, they fail. Either they’re outvoted by puppets of agribusiness, or they are puppets of agribusiness.

Bittman’s line is a blunt indictment of U.S. food-policy making: even officials who genuinely want healthier dietary guidance and regulation are structurally constrained. He frames the problem as capture—either direct (officials acting as “puppets”) or indirect (reformers being outvoted by industry-aligned colleagues). The quote compresses a larger critique common in his journalism: that nutrition advice, agricultural subsidies, and regulatory decisions are shaped less by public health evidence than by agribusiness lobbying and political incentives. Its significance lies in shifting responsibility from individual “willpower” to institutions, arguing that personal diet choices are made within a policy environment engineered to favor industrial food interests.