RFK Jr.’s New Podcast Is as Weird as You’d Expect

This statement, while true to a point, ignores the fact that food costs are expected to rise this year by almost 3 percent and that a diet high in animal protein, which features prominently in the government’s new inverted food pyramid, is becoming increasingly expensive. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that beef and veal prices were more than 12 percent higher in March than in March 2025, while poultry prices increased 1.5 percent over the same period. Prices of fresh vegetables, meanwhile, were 7.5 percent higher in March than a year earlier.

Irvine says one of the biggest barriers to healthy eating is education, joking that he didn’t know about okra and avocados growing up in England. Although they are partly right, he and Kennedy fail to mention other important factors like cost, access, and lack of time to prepare meals. Packaged and ultra-processed foods are popular because they are more convenient, have a long shelf life, and are a cheap source of calories. And research continues to show that many adults continue to eat these foods even though they know they shouldn’t.

The second episode of Kennedy’s podcast is just 15 minutes long and features professional boxer Mike Tyson, who appeared in a Super Bowl commercial aligned with MAHA for “real food.” Kennedy introduces Tyson, who was convicted in 1992 of raping a teenage girl and served three years in prison, as one of his “heroes.”

After talking about raising pigeons for the first few minutes, Tyson says he grew up in a neighborhood where ultra-processed foods were a “delight” and that his boxing mentor, Cus D’Amato, pushed him toward a healthy lifestyle.

Kennedy mentions Tyson’s sister, who died in her mid-20s from an obesity-related heart attack. “That’s all we ate was processed food,” Tyson says, “because we didn’t have money to buy food. We were the kind of family that would knock on the neighbor’s door, ‘Do you have any food?’

Tyson adopted a vegan diet for several years to improve his health, something he did not discuss with Kennedy. It does, however, describe what appears to be disordered eating habits, which are very prevalent in weight-sensitive sports. “If I’m not in good shape, I won’t eat,” he says. “If I’m not at the weight I want to be, it’s so unconscious that I won’t eat.”

Kennedy wonders what should be done to help people in urban neighborhoods eat better – acknowledging, to his credit, the existence of food deserts. Tyson responds: “We need more mentors. You know, they need mentors to show them how to have a good diet and take care of themselves.”

He’s not wrong. Nutritional knowledge and support from family and friends are key to motivating people to adopt a healthier diet. But the biggest problem with Kennedy’s podcast is that to date, he doesn’t go further in providing practical nutritional advice to the average Americans who apparently make up his audience. There are no meal prep tips or suggestions for inexpensive protein swaps. Importantly, despite presenting them as the villains of the article, Kennedy never provides a definition of what “processed” or “ultra-processed” foods are – while defining these terms is infamously vexing, FitCrunch bars would surely qualify – nor what types of foods or ingredients to avoid.

There is no doubt that Americans are extremely unhealthy. Despite Kennedy’s claims, doctors and government officials to have I’ve been telling people to eat healthier – for decades, in fact. And most Americans already know they should eat healthier. It’s unclear how Kennedy’s podcast will help them achieve that — and perhaps, given its host’s claim that he only eats meat and fermented foods, it might be best if he didn’t try.