by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, may be better known for his anti-vaccination views, but his plans for America to change the food. system.
In Trump’s first speech since election night, Thursday night at Mar-a-Lago, he said Kennedy would help “make America healthy again” and protect Americans from “harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and additives food.”
Kennedy on toxic chemicals from food
One of Kennedy’s focuses is toxic chemicals in the environment, particularly from pesticides and fertilizers used in farming.
“Pesticides, food additives, pharmaceutical drugs and toxic waste permeate every cell in our bodies,” Kennedy said during Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson’s America’s Health Crisis Roundtable in September.
“This attack on our children’s cells and hormones is relentless. They are swimming around in a toxic soup … We are mass-poisoning all our children and all our adults.”
Michael M. Santiago / Staff / Image Source / Getty Images / Canva
There is scientific evidence that supports the idea that chemicals used in agriculture, such as glyphosate and phthalates, can have negative effects on health, such as increasing the risk of certain cancers and disrupting hormones.
However, said dietitian Christine Byrne, of Ruby Oak Nutrition News Week that Kennedy’s statements were a “gross misrepresentation and oversimplification of science.”
“The American food system is complex, and while it is far from perfect, accusations like this are meant to instill fear, not force change,” she said. “It’s vague, scary to say that children are swimming around in a ‘toxic soup’ and it’s not true.”
Dr. Federica Amati, chief nutritionist at nutritional science company ZOE News Week that Kennedy “raises some valid concerns about the quality of our food and the impact of xenobiotics on health, especially on children.”
“We know that chronic diet-related diseases are a public health emergency, so change is urgently needed to change this,” she said.
In a video on the Kennedy campaign website from October 17, Kennedy was going to “reverse 80 years of farm policy in this country,” he criticized the current system for “destroying the soil” with “chemical agriculture- established.”
This speaks to the regenerative farming movement, which seeks to improve the quality of the soil by limiting the use of harsh chemicals and certain industrial methods, such as filling the soil and monocropping.
Amati said Kennedy was expressing “concern about the health of our soil, which is tied to the health of the environment.”
Kennedy on the dangers of seed oils
On Fox News on October 28, Kennedy called seed oils “one of the most unhealthy ingredients we have in foods,” contributing to “inflammation throughout the body.” Two days later on the channel, he said that McDonald’s french fries would be healthier if fried in lard, rather than seed oils.
Seed oils are a hot topic of debate. Some nutrition experts agree that seed oils – such as canola, rapeseed or sunflower oil – cause inflammation in the body and increase the risk of diseases such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
Other nutrition experts – including most registered dietitians – support the view that seed oils are a safe source of unsaturated fats in moderation, and that saturated fats such as tallow raise cholesterol levels and increase risk heart disease.
“Consuming too many seed oils can have some negative health effects, but the same is true for saturated fats like beef tallow,” Byrne said. “It is better not to demonize any one food, and instead eat a varied diet.”
Kennedy on ultra-processed food
Kennedy has often raised concerns about the obesity epidemic and lifestyle-related disease levels in the US, blaming ultra-processed food as a major contributor.
Ultra-processed food is hotly debated, but it is widely agreed that industrially processed foods—containing chemical additives such as emulsifiers and sweeteners and developed for maximum palatability—are associated with negative health outcomes such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Kennedy repeatedly referred to ultra-processed food as “poison,” saying at Johnson’s rally: “We are poisoning our children, systematically, for profit.”
In the same debate, Kennedy criticized the legal use of chemical additives in American foods that are banned in many European countries, suggesting that he may pursue stricter regulations against them.
On Fox News on October 30, Kennedy said: “I’ll get processed food out of school lunch right now.” Here, he seems to use the word “processed” to mean “ultra-processed”. The term “processed food” refers to any food that has undergone any kind of processing, including healthy foods such as pasteurized milk, home-baked bread and canned vegetables.
Amati said that while the evidence regarding additives was “emerging,” Kennedy’s “whole message about reducing ultra-processed foods is correct.”
Kennedy on the USDA and FDA
Kennedy said regulatory bodies such as the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration contribute to the prevalence of obesity and related diseases in the US for profit.
For example, at a Maine presidential campaign event in July, he said: “The USDA was created to help the family farmer and ensure a healthy food supply, but its job is to do the opposite.
“It means feeding us poisoned, processed, addictive foods that are mass poisoning and killing us, and making us the sickest population on earth.”
Byrne said: “Blaming the food and farming industry entirely for America’s health issues ignores so many contributors to negative health outcomes, including many social determinants of health .”
Amati said: “The overall key message of urgency to change our food environment is aligned with the state of public health.”
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