Robert F Kennedy Jr. jumps into the limelight with this week’s outrage… He’s been pushing a for-profit company creating meals out of health-harming ultra-processed ingredients. This endorsement is at odds with his years-long campaign against ultra-processed foods, which he has called in the past “poison.” His dual role puts the integrity of his advocacy into question. It further questions the success of his public health initiatives.
Kennedy, the U.S. health secretary, on a visit to Mom’s Meals. She spent her first day celebrating Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt’s bipartisan Food Is Medicine Act while on the ground. During this visit, he expressed support for the company’s mission, which produces 1.5 million “medically tailored” meals each week distributed across the country. Most importantly, these meals are created by registered dietitians and professional chefs to align with restrictive medical diets.
All this promotion aside, Kennedy’s dangerous anti-UCPF rhetoric still casts a long shadow. And a recent report found that these foods now make up more than 60 percent of everything Americans eat. Ultra-processed foods, which regularly have stabilizers, thickeners, gums and anti-caking agents. Though these ingredients are great for prolonging shelf life, they present issues surrounding nutritional quality.
Kennedy’s agency is meeting this contradiction head-on, of course, with a smart and daring public relations campaign. The goal is to warn Americans of the risks posed by dangerous ultra-processed foods. This campaign would appear to be quite the irony considering his recent endorsement of a company that serves up millions of meals with those ingredients.
As a part of his visit to Mom’s Meals, Kennedy made clear the urgency of addressing America’s food-related health crisis. He stated, “This is really one of the solutions for making our country healthy again.” Experts remain skeptical about this assertion. Marion Nestle, emerita professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, called out Kennedy’s praise for Mom’s Meals. She asked him to explain why he would advocate for these meals as the answer to America’s food crisis.
“We can do better and there are lots of meal programs that do better, and they don’t have any of those kinds of ingredients in there,” – Marion Nestle
Walter Willett, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, upon reviewing Mom’s Meals. He even gave the meal service a “C” grade. He noted that the meals are indeed ultra-processed. As we’ve seen, they can still be far healthier than their competition found in grocery stores.
“These meals could be ultra-processed but be much healthier,” – Walter Willett
Kennedy has been championing this new legislation in California. This new proposal would seek to regulate large food processors focused on creating ultra-processed foods. The state’s action is a testament to increasing alarm over the harmful health effects caused by these products.
Teresa Roof, a spokesperson for Mom’s Meals, was quick to defend the criticism. She lovingly raved about the quality of the food the company produced. On the free forms, she noted that Mom’s Meals stands apart since there are no ingredients like many commonly critiqued ultra-processed food items.
“The question at hand is the definition of ultra-processed foods. Mom’s Meals does not produce any meals containing ingredients commonly found in ultra-processed foods,” – Teresa Roof
While the pros and cons of the idea are still being hotly debated, it’s clear that further discussion of ultra-processed foods will be complicated, nuanced—and even controversial. Kennedy’s fighting the good fight to get Americans eating healthier with efforts like Mom’s Meals. His previous comments about the harms of ultra-processed foods highlight key questions to ask about whether things have truly changed.