Making French Fries Healthy Again!

The campaign to Make America Healthy Again is cranking up with some eye-opening messaging. An early leader in this campaign turns out to be a burger chain, Steak ’n Shake. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. praised the chain last week for making french fries healthy again:

“Congratulations @SteaknShake for being the first national fast-food chain to begin the transition away from seed oils. Thanks for leadership in the crusade to Make America Healthy Again.”

For whatever reason, the secretary removed that post from his account on X, but he continues to praise fast food chains for making America healthy by frying with beef tallow instead of vegetable oil. In an appearance at a Steak ’n Shake location, He told Sean Hannity on Fox News:

“We are poisoning ourselves and it’s coming from principally these ultra-processed foods.”

Then Hannity and Kennedy tucked into a meal of burgers and fries and Kennedy delivered his product pitch: “People are raving about these fries.”

Truly, this was a golden moment of brand endorsement.

Hold on a Minute

Predictably, people who actually study nutrition and health are not amused.

Dariush Mozaffarian, a distinguished professor and cardiologist at Tufts’ School of Nutrition Science and Policy, calls the discussion about seed oils a distraction. The real problems with ultra-processed foods, he says, are refined grains, starches, sugars, salt, preservatives, chemical additives, and contaminants from packaging. On the seed oil controversy, he says:

“Seed oils are actually the bright spot. Seed oils are healthy fats, healthy monounsaturated, polyunsaturated fats that are really good for our bodies.”

Stanford nutrition scientist Christopher Gardner says it plainly:

“People should eat fewer French fries, whatever they’re deep fried in.

“If people are eating more hamburgers and more French fries, even though they’re now in tallow instead of seed oil, more people are going to die.”

Somehow, encouraging people to eat more french fries at Steak ’n Shake does not seem like a great way to make America healthy again.

Click here, here, and here for more on the RFK Jr. PR campaign for healthy french fries. For a new systematic review of seed oils in lipid disorders and diabetes, click here. Finally, for perspective from a Cleveland Clinic dietitian, click here.

French Fries, photograph by Santeri Viinamäki, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

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March 23, 2025