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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promise If he takes office under a second Trump administration, he would “immediately” eliminate processed foods from school lunches.
Now that President-elect Donald J. Trump appointed Kennedy as Secretary of Health and Human Services, which will give him broad authority over the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates about 80% of the U.S. food supply. While he is still facing Although confirmed by the Senate and considered a controversial choice by some, some of his views on reform are supported by health experts.
Kennedy targeted ultra-processed foods for contributing to the obesity epidemic and said they should be removed from school lunches. Food policy experts say this is a great idea, but making these guidelines mandatory could be difficult.
“I would be pleasantly surprised if he can reform the school lunch program, because most public health officials I know would say this is an admirable goal,” said Marlene Schwartz, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health. said. University of Connecticut. “I think most people in my field are taking a wait-and-see approach because these kinds of ideas don’t typically come from Republican administrations.”
His views on food dyes also made headlines. “The first thing I will do is it will cost you nothing,” Kennedy said during his presidential campaign. Because I would just tell the cereal companies to get all the dyes out of their food,” Kennedy said.
The FDA has banned the use of red dye No. 3 in cosmetics because it was linked to cancer in animal studies, and has promised to expand the ban to include foods and drugs.
Kennedy singled out specific cereals in his statement on food dyes on Nov. 6, saying, “Why do we have Fruit Loops in this country that have 18 or 19 ingredients, but when we go to Canada, they only have 2 or 3?”
Newsweek says these claims are false because both the Canadian and U.S. versions of Froot Loops contain 27 ingredients, including substances that place the cereal in the “ultra-processed” category.
Pesticide use was also a hot issue for Kennedy. In an interview with Joe Rogan, he criticized the mass spraying of glyphosate on wheat starting in 2006 and claims that it is linked to celiac disease and gluten allergies.
Kennedy’s outlook on the food policy world goes back to his argument that regulatory agencies like the FDA have worked closely with corporate America to increase profits rather than benefit consumers. He told MSNBC that he plans to lay off hundreds of FDA employees, including those in areas like nutrition.
“There are departments like the nutrition department at the FDA that should go away and are not doing their job,” Kennedy told MSNBC.
Mary Summers, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania who lectures on food politics, told the New York Times about Kennedy: “On the one hand, he is claiming that he is going to dismantle the whole thing. On the other hand, they claim that they will ‘regulate’. I will go to war for you and fight all these bad things in your food.’ And those two things don’t go together.”
Kennedy will also have authority over updates to the next version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a set of recommendations for healthy eating. But Schwartz said updating such legacy plans will be governed by the checks and balances necessary.
“I don’t think he can single-handedly influence what is a very transparent process, as Congress increasingly scrutinizes who sits on committees to update guidelines,” she says.
Kennedy also voiced more controversial health issues, including the risks of fluoride in drinking water, which should be banned entirely, and the benefits of raw milk, which carries an increased risk of bacterial contamination. He also said seed oils are poisoning Americans.
