This month Diana is in discussion with UCLA Law student Melissa Deng and Robyn Huey Lao, an allergy mom advocate and pediatric nurse practitioner, about Robyn’s journey to shepherd California Senate Bill 68, the Allergen Disclosure for Dining Experiences, to passage. She explains how she was inspired by her nine-year-old daughter, Addie, and how their love of food inspired this bill. The three talk about building coalitions, the process of introducing bills to the legislature, and the importance of legal research. Melissa also explains her work at UCLA on restaurant training for food allergens.

You can find Robyn’s website, Addie Tells All, here.

You can follow her on Instagram at @AddieTellsAll

You can find the law review article, Fearless Dining: Mandating Universal Allergen Disclosures on Restaurant Menus, that started Robyn thinking here.

You can find Melissa Deng on LinkedIn here.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

In this episode, Diana and Michael are joined by Professor Lingxi Chenyang to discuss her article, “Food Antidemocracy,” forthcoming in the Southern California Law Review. In this article, Professor Chenyang looks at the Farm Bill’s hidden history, delving into the antidemocratic techniques that were used to initially pass this law and tracing some of the major problems in our modern food system to this history. “Food Antidemocracy” is a fascinating look at the underpinning of the American food system.

Professor Chenyang is an Associate Professor at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

You can find “Food Antidemocracy” here.

You can see Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother” photograph here.

In this month’s episode, Michael and Diana talk with Amanda Mrad and Juliet Cushing, two UCLA students who are involved with the World Food Forum and who participated in its annual flagship event at FAO headquarters in Rome this October.

Juliet Cushing is a clinical researcher with the UCLA Department of General Internal Medicine, working on diabetes prevention and chronic disease management. Juliet graduated from UCLA with a degree in Human Biology and Society, and a minor in Food Studies.

Amanda Mrad is a double Bruin, holding a degree in physiology and food studies and currently pursuing an MLS degree, specializing in food law. She is also currently interning at the FAO headquarters, where she works within the Office of Youth and Women, home to the World Food Forum.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Some relevant links are here:

World Food Forum (WFF)

Join a WFF National Youth Chapter

UCLA Teaching Kitchen

UCLA MLS Program

As always, you can send questions or comments to Diana Winters at winters@law.ucla.edu.

Today, Repast welcomes Mary Eichenberger, the new Editor-in-Chief of the University of Arkansas School of Law’s Journal of Food Law & Policy (JFLP). Here, Michael, Diana, and Mary discuss the background of this seminal journal, its history of publishing crucial food law and policy scholarship, and her plans for its future.

Mary Eichenberger is from Clarksville, Arkansas where she grew up on her family’s cattle farm. She is a 3L student at the University of Arkansas School of Law and currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Food Law & Policy. While in law school, Mary has served on the executive board for the Food & Ag Law Society and the Rural Law Association. She graduated from the University of Arkansas in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business and minors in legal studies and southern studies. Mary currently works as a Research Fellow at the National Agricultural Law Center. After law school, Mary plans to pursue a career in agricultural and food law with an emphasis on policy. In her free time, she enjoys reading, baking, and spending time outdoors.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

You can find a link to the JFLP here.

You can find the JFLP’s LinkedIn here.

The JFLP is on Instagram at @arkansas_foodlawandpolicy.

As always, you can send questions or comments to Diana Winters at winters@law.ucla.edu.

In this episode of Repast, Michael and Diana host Emily Broad Leib, Clinical Professor of Law, Director of Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, and Founding Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC), and Akif Khan, Clinical Fellow at the FLPC. They discuss the FLPC’s long history of working on food waste and food date labeling, and a comment the FLPC recently submitted in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Request for Information on Food Date Labeling, drafted by Akif.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

The link to the FLPC’s comment is here.

The link to the Zero Food Waste Coalition comment is here.

You can find the FLPC’s Food Loss and Waste Policy Hub here.

This month on Repast, Diana talks with Maria Trubetskaya and Justine Kim, UCLA Law’s inaugural Future of Food Fellows. The Future of Food Initiative was created as an interdisciplinary collaboration between graduate students working in different fields to address issues and obstacles in the creation and path to market of cultivated meat. Here, Diana, Maria, and Justine discuss cultivated meat, its regulation, this collaboration, and more.

Justine is a rising 3L at UCLA Law School, interested in pursuing personal injury law. Maria graduated from UCLA Law in May 2025 with a specialization in Critical Race Studies. They are joining a big law firm this fall as an associate in their commercial litigation practice.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

A link to the flyer for the Future Food Symposium, held spring 2025, is here.

Today, Repast welcomes Kim Kessler, the Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Tobacco Control at the New York City Department of Health, Dipa Shah Patel, the Director of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department's Nutrition and Physical Activity Program, and Paula Daniels, the Director of the L.A. County Office of Food Systems. Kim, Dipa, and Paula join Diana to discuss how agencies within municipalities can work together to reduce chronic disease.

This conversation was sparked by a strategy released by the New York City Health Department in January of this year titled Addressing Unacceptable Inequities: A Chronic Disease Strategy for New York City—a multiagency strategy that addresses the root causes of chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and screenable cancers, and outlines proposals and interventions to reduce the incidence of chronic disease.

Kim Kessler is the Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Tobacco Control at the New York City Department of Health.

Dipa Shah Patel is the Director of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department's Nutrition and Physical Activity Program.

Paula Daniels is the Director of the L.A. County Office of Food Systems.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

You can find Addressing Unacceptable Inequities: A Chronic Disease Strategy for New York City here.

You can find the L.A. County Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Report here.

As always, you can send questions or comments to Diana Winters at winters@law.ucla.edu.

In this episode of Repast, Diana is joined as co-host by Lavanya Sathyamurthy, UCLA Law student and co-founder of the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative. Diana and Lavanya talk with Professor Denisse Córdova Montes from the University of Central Florida. Here, the three discuss Professor Córdova Montes’ career as a human rights advocate and educator, her work as the Acting Associate Director of the University of Miami School of Law’s Human Rights Clinic, and a human rights approach to the right to food, among other things.

Professor Córdova Montes is an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

You can find blog posts about the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative at UCLA Law here and here.

You can find Professor Córdova Montes’ Maine Law Review article on the Maine right to food here.

You can find a link to the National Right to Food Community of Practice’s website here.

You can find the article titled The “Second Amendment of Food”: Some Reflections on American Liberalism, commented on in the podcast, here.