Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a promise on Fox News last month: He would “immediately” remove processed food from school meals if he takes a position in a second Trump administration.
The message shocked nutrition experts who remember how Donald Trump’s first administration fought against stricter standards for school lunches. In 2017, Sonny Perdue, Trump’s agriculture secretary, declared that he would “make school meals great again,” and for the next four years he and other Republicans attacked Michelle Obama’s efforts to design healthier school menus when she was first lady .
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Kennedy’s expected role in overseeing aspects of food policy in the new administration marks a significant shift in how Trump plans to regulate the nation’s food.
Some of the ideas Kennedy is putting forward — such as removing ultra-processed foods from school cafeterias and cracking down on food dyes — have found public support on both the right and left. But the idea of putting Kennedy, founder of a prominent anti-vaccine group, in a position to shape health policy has alarmed some federal health officials and public health experts, as well as the food industry. They are concerned about his stated desire to fire nutritionists at the Food and Drug Administration; its promotion of products and drugs that the agency has previously warned about, such as raw milk and hydroxychloroquine; and its history of promoting debunked claims about vaccine safety.
“Here is a man who presents himself as an advocate for science, but who embraces the least scientific aspects of the medical system,” said Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit organization that warns against the disadvantages of ultra-processed drugs. food and food coloring. He was also a former top FDA official in the Obama administration.
Kennedy blames the Democrats for not prioritizing healthy food.
“The fact that Democratic sachems are debating whether their party should support public health as a political strategy rather than embrace it as a core value is a testament to how out of touch and morally bankrupt the party has become,” Kennedy told The Washington Post . “Healthy food and clean, non-corrupt government institutions should not be party political issues.”
On social media and talk shows, Kennedy repeatedly hammers the food industry, claiming it is “mass poisoning” the American public.
He has said that Trump wants to “take the chemicals out of food.” Kennedy has also targeted McDonald’s fries, falsely claiming that Froot Loops in Canada contain only two or three ingredients. He has argued against consuming seed oils, although nutritionists oppose scientifically dubious claims that such oils are toxic. And he wants to prevent food stamps from being used to buy soft drinks or processed foods.
Revising food policy generally takes years, and some experts say such campaign promises can run afoul of the realities of governing. But in 2025, the Trump administration will be charged with writing the next version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a publication that makes recommendations every five years on what Americans should eat to promote health and is a cornerstone of the federal nutrition policy. These guidelines, experts say, could give Kennedy a built-in vehicle through which he can try to make his mark on the nation’s food policy.
When Kennedy pushes for regulations – such as limiting access to ultra-processed foods and banning food dyes — that would be a significant change for an industry accustomed to seeing the Republican Party as an ally, said Martin Hahn, a partner at Hogan Lovells whose work on behalf of the food industry focuses on focuses on industry regulations. The Biden administration has been working on possible labeling requirements for food packages and a “healthy” label for certain foods.
“If RFK implements his agenda, we would look at everything the Biden administration did and give them steroids,” Hahn said, arguing that Kennedy’s policies could lead to higher grocery prices.
Food industry lobbyists say science must support any changes Kennedy wants to make to food regulations.
“We want to have predictable regulatory systems that are based on science and risk and that allow us as an industry to meet consumer needs,” said Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of the Consumer Brands Association.
In recent weeks, Kennedy has said he wants to root out conflicts of interest among experts involved in drawing up dietary guidelines and review ingredients not used in foods sold in other countries.
Trump’s promise to “let Kennedy go on the food” came as the two men joined together in their Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative, aimed at tackling chronic diseases and childhood illnesses. Trump advisers have praised Kennedy’s campaign performances since he abandoned his third-party bid for the presidency and endorsed Trump, and the president-elect has said Kennedy will have a key position in his administration. The two are strange bedfellows, as Trump has proudly served McDonald’s in the White House, while Kennedy this week called the Big Macs and Kentucky Fried Chicken on Trump’s campaign plane “poison.”
Kennedy’s rise has energized some Democrats, such as Vani Hari, an author and activist known as the Food Babe who has 2 million followers on Instagram. Hari, who said she served twice as Obama’s delegate in North Carolina, organized a protest at Kellogg’s Michigan headquarters in October demanding the company remove food dyes.
She said she believes Kennedy can work to root out “corruption” in federal agencies by curbing the influence of industry-funded research and leaning on Trump to ban thousands of chemicals she says are harmful and that only companies can use used in the United States. “He will undoubtedly need bipartisan participation,” Hari said of Kennedy.
Trump has yet to specify whether Kennedy will be nominated to a Cabinet-level position or whether he will be given an advisory role, such as the White House health czar. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) said he believes next year’s Republican-controlled Senate could confirm Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services if Trump were to nominate him.
When Kennedy called him last summer and asked about his chances for confirmation, Johnson said: “The first words out of my mouth are, ‘Bobby, this is the answer to my prayers,’” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.
Spokespeople for Trump’s transition team did not respond to requests for comment.
Tackling ultra-processed foods is complex, nutritionists say. The FDA has said that the link between ultra-processed foods and poor health outcomes is concerning, but gaps remain in understanding how these foods impact health. While more investigations are underway, the FDA has taken initiatives to address saturated fat, sodium and added sugars and to assess chemicals found in foods sold in stores, an agency spokeswoman said.
Susan Mayne, former director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition under Barack Obama, Trump and Joe Biden, said existing regulations are robust but the agency needs more scientists assessing chemicals in processed foods. If career scientists with highly specialized expertise leave, “they would be extremely difficult to replace,” Mayne said, citing Kennedy’s threats to fire federal employees and the risk that anti-science policies will drive out federal employees.
Kennedy last week threatened to dismantle entire departments of the FDA, saying the agency’s nutritionists “have to go” because they are “not doing their jobs.” The specter of a massive fire prompted FDA Commissioner Robert Califf to defend staff as “hard-working people” in his remarks Tuesday at the annual meeting of a cancer research nonprofit. Current and former officials say they worry this would harm public health.
“It is truly extraordinary to say at one point that you are deeply concerned about the health and nutrition of the American public and in the same breath to say that you will eliminate or lay off these personnel responsible for carrying out that protection said a senior FDA official who spoke on condition of anonymity to be candid. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
Kennedy’s proposals to clean house at the FDA’s nutrition department are not far from what some nutrition advocates have been pushing for, said Lindsey Smith Taillie, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She pointed to frustrations over the Biden administration’s inability to implement labeling requirements for food packages to warn consumers about unhealthy products — regulations that have been delayed time and time again.
“It underlines the point that they have been quite ineffective at doing anything meaningful,” she said, arguing that food companies had too much say in the FDA’s work.
The FDA is under pressure to overhaul its food program. In the wake of the 2022 infant formula crisis, Califf asked an outside group to evaluate the feeding program; the resulting report offered a blistering critique of the agency’s structure and culture. Last month, the FDA completed a massive reorganization that created a new Human Foods Program, charged with overseeing all of the agency’s food safety and nutrition-related activities. The agency is hiring a director for its new Nutrition Center of Excellence.
An FDA spokeswoman said the agency is committed to advancing its nutrition portfolio, but the resources it has received are limited compared to the burden of diet-related chronic diseases.
Marion Nestle, a retired professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, said she supports Kennedy’s proposal to get ultra-processed foods out of schools. But she criticized the hypocrisy of a government that had previously rolled back efforts to make school meals healthier.
“Now we have Republicans saying essentially what the Obama administration tried to do, but Republicans blocked at every opportunity,” she said.
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