Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Food Claims, Explained

Since endorsing Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made plain his unorthodox views on a wide range of public health issues. Many of them relate to our food supply. If he passes the Senate confirmation process and becomes the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), he will enter the office with the intention of making policy changes that could dramatically alter the way Americans eat. Those changes could also upend the way agricultural industries are regulated and subsidized. 

At the very least, he will have an enormous megaphone for claims that have been widely challenged—and in many cases debunked—by both science and industry experts. Kennedy follows a pattern of exaggerating the health benefits of certain food substances while minimizing the risks of those substances. These views merit examination:

On raw milk.

Virtually all foods have the potential to carry microbes that can be harmful to humans, but dairy milk is especially prone to doing so. Prior to 1938, according to HHS, milk was responsible for a quarter of all food-based disease outbreaks—a veritable wrecking crew that included tuberculosis and typhoid. A half-century later, milk was responsible for less than 1 percent of these outbreaks. What happened in between was the widespread adoption of pasteurization: the application of moderate levels of heat to food products in order to kill harmful bacteria. Milk that has not been pasteurized is “raw” milk. 

A majority of states currently allow raw milk sales (with varying degrees of regulation), but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibits its transportation across state lines. The net result is that raw milk has become a niche product, responsible for a small percentage of overall milk sales nationwide, sold largely to consumers who, like Kennedy, believe that the pasteurization process eliminates beneficial vitamins along with probiotic “good” bacteria. 

It’s true that pasteurization removes Vitamin C and certain non-harmful bacteria from milk, but in the case of the former, the amounts present beforehand are negligibly low and unlikely to have any measurable health benefit. In the case of the latter, the probiotic bacteria found in raw milk is not the beneficial kind or is at least not found in sufficient quantities to be beneficial. 

Like other sectors of American agriculture, dairy farming has been heavily consolidated since the New Deal. Pasteurization requirements have certainly contributed to this, with the cost of implementation and upkeep favoring larger producers. It is unsurprising, then, that smaller dairy producers have been among the most vocal advocates for raw milk. Reviving the fortunes of small dairy farms is precisely what the Delaware Legislature had in mind earlier this year when it passed the Consumer Choice Milk Act, which allows customers to purchase raw milk directly from dairy producers. And, as libertarians are fond of pointing out, there is a discussion to be had about whether raw milk sales pose a larger, smaller, or equal risk to those of other less regulated products like oysters, or eggs from “backyard” poultry. 

But when Kennedy argues raw milk “advances human health” and accuses the FDA of suppressing it as part of what he calls its “war on public health,” he is simultaneously attributing exaggerated benefits to raw milk and downplaying its risks. While overturning the agency’s ban on interstate sales of raw milk might help small dairy farmers, it will also undoubtedly increase the risk of severe food-borne illnesses in exchange for dubious health benefits. As recently as November 24, the California Department of Public Health reported that containers of raw milk sold by Raw Farm in Fresno had tested positive for H5N1 bird flu, which has infected dairy cows and some people who have come into contact with the livestock. 

On seed oils.

Kennedy has called seed oils “one of the driving causes of the obesity epidemic,” calling for foods like french fries to be cooked in animal-based fats instead. “Seed oil” is a term of art for the most common and affordable cooking oils in American kitchens: canola oil, corn oil, and lesser known varieties such as soybean, sunflower, and safflower oils. The generic “vegetable oil” seen on grocery store shelves is generally one or more of the above. Marketed for decades as a healthier alternative to animal-based cooking fats like butter or lard, some vegetable-based cooking oils came under fire in the 1990s because of their association with unhealthy “trans fats”—fats created from the hydrogenation process developed to improve shelf stability in margarine and shortenings. 

Although most seed oils sold in American grocery stores are trans fat-free, many of the common accusations now leveled at seed oils by alternative health advocates—that they contribute to cardiovascular disease—would suggest a degree of guilt by association. Seed oils do contain high levels of omega-6 fatty acids relative to omega-3 fatty acids, a polyunsaturated fat that is considered more heart-healthy than omega-6. But despite the association in some studies of omega-6 with disease-causing inflammation, the American Heart Association endorses the inclusion of seed oils in a healthy diet. Another knock on seed oils is their inclusion in many types of highly processed foods.

Kennedy has famously promoted beef tallow as a healthy alternative to seed oils, noting that McDonald’s stopped cooking its fries in beef tallow in 1990 and America’s (very real) obesity epidemic got considerably worse in the decades that followed. At best, this seems like confusion of correlation and causation—nationwide obesity appears to have levelled off in the last decade. There’s minimal evidence that the use of seed oils has caused an increase in obesity, while heart disease has decreased during the same period. 

Seed oils also are derived from crops that require the use of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers, all stated targets of Kennedy’s policy agenda. Blake Hurst, a farmer and former president of the Missouri Farm Bureau who has written for the Wall Street Journal and the American Enterprise Institute, published a scathing op-ed shortly before the 2024 presidential election on the topic of Kennedy’s seed oil claims, noting that in 2020 the government of Sri Lanka shifted to organic farming as a policy priority, banning largely the same chemicals that Kennedy has proposed banning. The yields of Sri Lankan rice farmers dropped dramatically within a year, and the country had to begin importing what had once been a principal export crop. “For 10,000 years, agriculture WAS organic,” writes Hurst, “and people were hungry.” 

On food dyes.

Late in the 2024 presidential campaign, Kennedy made pointed attacks on “cereal companies” for their use of what the FDA terms color additives, better known as food coloring or food dyes. These are virtually everywhere, thanks to the ingrained human habit of judging the desirability of foods based on appearance as well as taste and smell. There are “natural” food dyes, such as annatto and turmeric, as well as synthetic food dyes, principally derived from petroleum or coal. The latter, known by charmlessly industrial names (Red 3, Yellow 5) are regulated by public health authorities around the world, some more strictly than others. Critics of synthetic food dyes often point out that regulations in the European Union are more stringent than in the United States. In the 1970s, the popular Feingold Diet blamed certain synthetic food dyes for childhood allergies and hyperactivity. These claims still circulate in alternative health circles, despite the diet having been debunked by numerous scientific studies. Nonetheless, studies continue to explore links between childhood behavioral disorders and artificial food dyes, and California recently moved to ban several of them. 

However, some synthetic dyes have been found to cause cancer in animals and some have been found to contain carcinogens. Moreover, there are no public health benefits to artificial food colorings to offset the potential downsides. But when cereal maker General Mills attempted to discontinue its “classic” artificially colored Trix cereal in 2015 it found itself facing a consumer revolt and was compelled to reintroduce it in 2017, Yellow 5 and all. 

This is no doubt what General Mills had in mind when it announced its redoubled effort to “​​engage with federal regulators as they consider any additional changes they may propose” shortly after the November election. No doubt other major players in the food and agriculture sectors will be joining them.