Love him or hate him, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the current United States Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — making him a leader and key decision maker as it pertains to the country’s health, or as he and President Donald Trump refer to it in their campaign, “Making America Healthy Again (MAHA).” But not everything he says is necessarily agreed upon by health professionals. In the years leading up to his confirmation, RFK Jr. was known for contributing to the spread of conspiracy theories, specifically as it pertained to vaccines distributed during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
While that certainly contributed to a great deal of misinformation during a particularly important time of the country’s health, some of his more recent stances are affecting something somewhat less serious, but debatably just as important: your French fries. Even prior to his confirmation, Kennedy Jr. was very outspoken about his opinions on the state of fast food in America — going as far as to scorn the current U.S. President’s own habit of regularly consuming McDonald’s and bottles of Diet Coke on a November 2024 episode of “The Joe Polish Show.”
Those remarks have echoed in the last week, but instead of suggesting that Americans move away from fast food and consume a balanced diet that includes fresh, whole foods as most health professionals agree on and recommend, RFK Jr. is putting the pressure on America’s fast food brands to change their recipes, starting by “RFK-ing” their fries — that is, swapping the seed oils they’re usually fried in for something else.
RFK Jr. encourages the removal of seed oils from fries
Seed oils include common vegetable oils such as canola, sunflower, and soybean oils. These oils have been critiqued (often by individuals who lack dietary or medical credentials) for their omega-6 fatty acids, which, according to the same critics, break down under the pressure of high heat cooking and become toxic, creating inflammation in the body that contributes to an overall weakened immune system and develops into chronic illnesses. Despite a lack of supporting scientific evidence, RFK Jr. is one of those people — and he’s spreading his ideas like wildfire.
In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News last week, RFK Jr. sat down at a Florida Steak ‘N Shake location to enjoy a serving of its French fries, which are now fried in beef tallow, stating “seed oil is one of the components of processed foods,” essentially equating them with the “ultra-processed foods” he claims are responsible for America’s current health epidemic. Steak ‘N Shake isn’t the only food chain to move away from seed oils, either. Sweetgreen switched to avocado and olive oils in 2023 and announced a limited-time seed oil-free menu in January 2025 in addition to its new air-fried Ripple Fries — although the chain hasn’t been as loud about claiming direct “MAHA” support.
Health professionals like Dr. Maya Vadiveloo, an associate professor of nutrition and health sciences at the University of Rhode Island, on the other hand, have warned, as she did in a recent conversation with The Wall Street Journal, that these anti-seed oil claims have been blown out of proportion and that some vegetable oil alternatives — including butter and beef tallow — are actually more inflammatory than seed oils are.
