RFK Jr.’s new dietary guidelines push protein at every meal, full-fat dairy, vegetables, fruits and whole grains. The slogan, ‘Eat Real Food’ is mantra embraced by his circle of influencers.
RFK Jr. announces new dietary guidelines
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced new dietary guidelines, saying his message is clear: eat real food.
WASHINGTON – Get ready for some sauerkraut-infused meals.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will put his cooking skills to the test with celebrity chefs to motivate Americans to eat healthy.
Kennedy will launch The Real Food Show, a new cooking series on July 30, to help translate the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans into easy, affordable meals they can prepare at home, he said in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY.
An evangelist of fermented food who once carried a personal stash of sauerkraut to restaurants, the HHS secretary said the recipes will feature kimchi, sauerkraut and yogurt.
As he prepares to try to change Americans’ eating habits, the HHS secretary also talked about cooking with the family as an antidote to loneliness; his own eating habits (“I’ll eat anything. I don’t have a gag reflex.”); his status as a weight loss guru among members of the Trump Cabinet; and a culinary habit his wife banned while going out to dinner.
The new dietary guidelines, unveiled in January, prioritize protein at every meal, full-fat dairy, vegetables, fruits and whole grains. The “Eat Real Food” slogan accompanying the new guidelines is an oft repeated mantra among his circle of influencers, including boxing legend Mike Tyson.
“When we published the dietary guidelines, there was immediately sort of a good reaction, but also a little trepidation from the public and from critics saying that this food is a lot more expensive than the ultra-processed food that we’ve been eating,” said Kennedy, ahead of the launch of the show “And that’s not true.”
The program will showcase how to prepare healthy meals for costs less than $5 per serving whenever possible, according to HHS.
The first couple of episodes will feature chefs Andrew Gruel and Robert Irvine. The program will be broadcast online here.
Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement has found common ground among a bipartisan group of voters, primarily those known as MAHA Moms, with its promise to combat chronic childhood diseases by reducing environmental toxins, ultra-processed foods and “overmedicalization.”
‘Americans have forgotten how to cook’
Kennedy said the show can teach people that it can be cheaper and healthier to cook at home.
“Fast food is not less expensive,” he said. ”That meal costs $12 to $14. People can eat a lot cheaper at home and a lot better food. But many Americans have forgotten how to cook. It’s becoming a lost art.”
Part of the job of Kennedy’s Health and Human Services Department will be “reintroducing” Americans to cooking again, he said.
More than half of all men and almost three quarters of women regularly cook at home, according to a 2023 study in the peer-reviewed journal “Current Developments in Nutrition” from the American Society for Nutrition.
A ‘sacred ritual’ to beat isolation
Kennedy said cooking is not just a way to get good nutrition but a “sacred ritual that has been abandoned.”
“We have a malaise, an epidemic of isolation in this country,” he said.
Addiction, he said, is a disease of isolation and disconnection.
“And one of the ways that we can start connecting people again is through that sacred ritual of cooking again, of coming together with your family and creating something that’s beautiful, that’s useful, and sitting down with them and enjoying that.”
Practices what he preaches: Kennedy cooks two meals a day
The HHS secretary was quick to give credit to his wife, actor Cheryl Hines, as the better cook in his household.
Kennedy said while he cooked two “rudimentary” meals a day, his wife is a “much better cook.”
When they have company or when the kids come home, Hines takes over the skillets.
“She loves cooking and she loves baking,” he said. “She’s a very, very good cook.”
His repertoire consists of eggs and bacon, cheeseburgers, hamburgers.
“I can cook a really good omelet,” Kennedy said, adding that he learned it from Gruel, the chef who will be on the first episode. “And then my specialty would be steaks and meat and fish.”
There is a way to eat sauerkraut
Kennedy, who is known to be a fermented foods aficionado, was in the habit of taking his own sauerkraut to restaurants, he said.
“I used to carry it with me, but I got too many complaints,” he told USA TODAY.
Asked if it was from fellow diners, Kennedy said: “My wife mainly. It’s hard to carry without spilling it. And when you spill it, it causes other problems.”
He also does not make his own.
“I use store-bought sauerkraut,” he said. Then the HHS secretary described the correct way to eat it.
“The way that you’re supposed to eat it is bite for bite,” he said. “You take a bite of the meat, take a bite of the sauerkraut. That is kind of the prescribed, perfect way of eating it. You know, I don’t do that perfectly every time that I try.”
Trump Cabinet weight loss guru
It’s not just Kennedy who is on the “meats and ferments” diet. Other followers, he said, include Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
He said they had all lost weight on the diet.
How does it feel to be the Trump Cabinet weight loss guru? “A lot of pressure,” he said, laughing.
‘I will literally eat anything’
Asked what is the most exotic food he’s eaten, Kennedy said: “I will literally eat anything because I don’t have a gag reflex.”
“I love experimenting with foods. When I travel, I’ll eat even stuff I find on the street, you know, street vendors’ cooking,” he said.
While Kennedy might be a carnivore diet enthusiast, he’s also experimented with being on a vegan diet several times.
But it never lasted long.
“I just had a, a craving, an atavistic craving for protein,” he said.
His wife, he joked, would say he lasted all of 24 hours.
“I prepped the kitchen and did everything when I could, but I cannot last very long on it,” he said. “I feel hungry all the time.”
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal.