How RFK Jr. would change McDonald’s — and Trump’s diet
President-elect Donald Trump’s penchant for McDonald’s is no secret — but choosing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run America’s health apparatus could be setting up a clash with the future commander-in-chief’s taste buds.
The Kennedy scion and longtime health campaigner and vaccine skeptic has taken aim at additives, artificial sweeteners and high-fructose corn syrup.
“The stuff that he eats is really, like, bad,” Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told podcaster Joe Polish Monday, the 70-year-old calling the food served on Trump Force One “just poison.”
A viral photo from Saturday night shows RFK Jr. seated alongside a beaming Trump — flanked by Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk — around a McDonald’s-laden table aboard the President-elect’s jet.
Kennedy, who has vowed to “Make America Healthy Again,” is seen holding a McDonald’s box aloft wearing an expression that many internet commenters have interpreted as “pained.”
RFK Jr. has insisted he has no desire to ban fast food, calling it “part of American culture” in social media posts last month, but he has called for the elimination of some of the key ingredients that make McDonald’s, well, McDonald’s.
Here are the changes the Kennedy scion would push:
No more seed oils
Can you imagine a McDonald’s order without those signature golden, salty fries?
RFK Jr. can, and he wants it to happen.
The 70-year-old, who possesses an incongruous-looking six-pack and is not shy about shirtless workouts, has said he is “against food that has seed oils.”
Seed oils include canola, soybean, and hydrogenated soybean oil — a blend of which is what McDonald’s cooks its fries in.
After Trump made a viral stop at Mickey D’s last month, RFK Jr. stated that the fast food titan should return to its initial practice of cooking the fries in beef fat tallow rather than seed oils.
That method, common at more gourmet burger joints, would give fries a darker color and a meatier taste
“That was good for you. Your body needs that, it makes you healthy,” Kennedy said on Fox News of the tallow method.
“Why aren’t we making it with tallow fat again?”
RFK Jr. also claimed seed oils are “one of the most unhealthy ingredients in foods and the reason they’re in the foods is because they are heavily subsidized,” and cited them as a cause of illnesses like “body-wide inflammation.”
The Kennedy scion has even released “Make Frying Oil Tallow Again” merchandise to drive his message home.
Registered dietician Claire Edgemon told The Post Friday that “cautions” should be applied to the use of both beef tallow and seed oils due to their high calorie count and added that “one nutrient doesn’t make or break health.”
“What is important is overall diet pattern,” Edgemon. “A diet high in minimally processed, whole foods (with an appropriate amount of dietary fat) has been shown to decrease risk of chronic diseases.”
Edgemon also argued that serving sizes are the biggest factor contributing to obesity — rather than the oils food is cooked in.
“Fast food restaurants that use either beef tallow or seed oil are adding calories to the food,” she said. “Eating calories above what is needed on a daily basis is what contributes to obesity. Thirty years ago, when beef tallow was used in the fast-food industry, the serving sizes were smaller.
“There is no one cause that can be identified as driving the obesity epidemic [but] one contributing factor is serving sizes. As serving sizes have increased over the past thirty years, we have seen an increase in obesity.”
Bye-bye, food dye
RFK Jr. has also spoken out against artificial dyes in “junk food” and tied them to lower life expectancy in the US compared to countries like Canada, Germany and Japan.
Trump’s favorite drink is Diet Coke, which contains caramel color — an artificial dye that gives the drink its signature dark brown color, and is made by treating carbohydrates with ammonia-based chemicals.
“If you look at a pack of Froot Loops in this country, it’s all chemical dyes,” Kennedy told podcast host Steve Gruber in September. “Yellow, blue, red dye, which are poison.
“In Canada, across the border, Froot Loops are a different color; they’re all colored by vegetable oils. It’s the same company. Kellogg’s knows how to create safer products that don’t have chemicals in them.”
“It’s not that these foods are poison, but it’s a game of averages,” Toronto-based dietician Andy De Santis told The Post Friday.
“If [fast food is] playing way too big of a role, it displaces other foods that are very important and that are irreplaceable,” he added, noting that a fast food diet will not likely contain vital nutrients found in fish, nuts and beans.
Stomping out soda
Trump’s Diet Coke fixation is so pervasive that Kennedy shared on the podcast that UFC CEO Dana White told him he’s never seen the 45th president “drink a glass of water” in their 20-year relationship.
The 78-year-old Trump is usually pictured sitting with a glass of his favorite carbonated beverage, even on his plane and during meetings with foreign counterparts.
But RFK, Jr. is famously none-too-sweet on sugary beverages like soda, including those laced with artificial sweeteners like Trump downs throughout the day.
In fact, the nephew of John F. Kennedy put aspartame – the ingredient that puts the “diet” in Diet Coke – right alongside chemicals like glyphosate (Round-Up weed killer’s active ingredient) and perfluorooctanoic acids (PFOAs, aka “forever chemicals”) as public health hazards in several interviews in recent months.
“We have the worst health outcomes because of chronic disease, and we’ve got to figure out what’s causing it and eliminate it. It’s not rocket science, Kennedy said in an August interview with Dr. Phil McGraw filmed during his own run for the White House.
“We’re mass poisoning an entire generation of kids. These kids are obese, it’s not because they suddenly got lazy,” he said.
He also hit out at “full-sugar” sodas, typically sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, as another culprit of obesity and disease.
“If you want to drink a Coke, drink a Mexican Coke, because they don’t allow it down there.”
Mexican Coke uses sugar instead of corn syrup – but actually has a few more calories and almost double the sodium per serving.
Raw milk only
RFK Jr. is also no stranger to the raw milk movement spreading across the US, and would support changes to the chain’s signature vanilla shakes accordingly.
Raw milk — which has not been pasteurized or processed to remove bacteria — has been growing in popularity in recent years for its supposed natural and nutritional benefits, with social media influencers touting the offbeat staple.
However, medical experts have warned that raw milk can contain dangerous germs — including listeria and E. coli — as well as viruses such as avian flu.
Kennedy has criss-crossed Lancaster County, Pa. for years, buying up Amish milk, salves and pesticide-free items, several farmers told The Post last week.
He also posted on X Oct. 25 that the FDA’s “war on public health” is going to end once Trump is back in office.
“This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”
