You win some, you lose some. Louisiana had that reinforced with recent developments involving its sugar and oil industries.

This week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a new — and radical — change in its nutrition guidelines. Principally, it pivots away from processed foods and other recommendations that had encouraged sugar-heavy consumption.

That’s not so good for Louisiana sugar production, which leads the country. And it could be significant because, although not many consumers will base their shopping choices directly on the 2025-30 dietary guidelines, promised coordination with the Department of Agriculture’s nutrition programs — which send $400 million a day out the door—will affect what foodstuffs can be purchased. That affects demand, which affects producers.

This will hit sugar producers negatively. But even as Louisiana will be adversely affected on that front, seismic changes occurring in Venezuela may give the state’s economy a boost.

After the snatching of suspected drug kingpin Nicolas Maduro, whose side job was dictator of the country, the successor government has pledged greater cooperation with the U.S. government. That means far greater access to oil extraction, which under the Maduro regime had dropped off substantially, and for the single U.S. company that could remain, microscopically.

This matters because Venezuelan oil, which comes from the world’s largest reserves, is of the heavier variety that Louisiana refineries are disproportionately equipped to process. A sudden influx of that crude would provide a significant boost to these producers.

In all, it probably ends up a net benefit for Louisiana. Sugar is heavily subsidized by the federal government, while oil refining gains accrue primarily to the private sector. That means any ripple effect from each will reverberate more strongly from the expanding oil sector than from the retrenching sugar sector.

Yet Louisiana may also prosper from the food-pyramid shift in another way. It almost certainly will prompt several state agencies to alter their practices, such as the Departments of Health and Education changing requirements — building upon previous state-level directives — governing food provided in schools, child-care centers, and nursing homes, moving them toward healthier diets. Better health places fewer demands on taxpayers, which should have an outsized impact in Louisiana, where almost a third of the population is on Medicaid programs, trailing only New Mexico, California, and Alaska. That means the net economic multiplier loss from reduced sugar production may be more than offset by reduced Medicaid spending.

These acts, the doings of the Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration, continue to pay off for Louisianans.