The day after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services on a self-described mission to “Make America Healthy Again,” the vegan podcast host and animal rights activist Bob Linden posted a missive in a number of vegan Facebook teams, declaring it a “beginning” and an “opportunity.”
“as Vegans, we need to make sure that we have a place at the table to Make America Healthy ‘Again’(?)” he wrote in February 2025.
Fellow vegans within the feedback have been incredulous — what of the bear cub carcass Kennedy claimed to have dumped in Central Park or his lifelong curiosity in searching? But Linden noticed in Kennedy a possible vegan ally who, regardless of his carnivorous weight loss plan, promised to advocate towards vaccine mandates, end animal testing and encourage Americans to stop processed meals.
A 12 months later, Kennedy has made “real food” a pillar of his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) framework. But his new diet pointers and inverted meals pyramid place a a lot stronger emphasis on purple meat, complete milk and different animal merchandise than earlier government-issued dietary solutions.
“I feel like it’s a betrayal,” Linden mentioned in January. “I believe these new dietary restrictions are anti-American.”
Linden mentioned he defines the MAHA acronym otherwise now: “Meatheads are hijacking America.”
Kennedy has by no means represented himself as a vegan — his notorious mind worm was likely a pork tapeworm larva — however his emphasis on complete, pure meals and his hostility to vaccines, which some vegans view because the epitome of animal-tested drugs, urged a possibility to bend coverage in a extra animal-rights-friendly course. The former Democrat, outstanding vegan and vaccine opponent Alicia Silverstone, as an example, threw her support behind Kennedy’s failed presidential marketing campaign.
“I’ve always been on board with the ‘real food’ movement,” mentioned Brian Turner, a vegan bodybuilder and coach. “When RFK Jr. started focusing on cutting out ultra-processed junk, dyes and added sugars, I thought it was a great step forward, and it’s something most of the vegan community and the MAHA movement can actually agree on.”
But with the MAHA tent reserving a outstanding area for beef and dairy farmers and carnivorous conservatives, the vegans who hoped he’d give them a voice are being squeezed out.
Kennedy’s standing as maybe the highest-profile vaccine opponent in workplace was thrilling to Linden, who mentioned he’s “anti-vax.” Most vaccines are tested on animals earlier than they progress to human trials and may contain “animal-derived products”; subsequently, he mentioned, “vaccines aren’t vegan.” They are, although, secure and efficient at defending towards dangerous and preventable sicknesses.
Along with undermining his division’s assist for vaccination and criticizing the processed meals trade, nonetheless, Kennedy has spent his time as well being secretary talking incessantly about his prolific consumption of purple meat. Earlier this 12 months, he mentioned switching to a “carnivore diet” and consuming beef round twice a day helped him obtain “mental clarity” and shed 20 kilos. His spouse, Cheryl Hines, mentioned he cooks a steak with sauerkraut, his different fundamental meals, at 6:30 a.m. (Hines has said she’s a vegetarian.) For his birthday in January, he posed with a greasy, bone-in steak filled with three lit candles.
Kennedy’s style for meat goes past private desire and into the coverage realm. This month, showing on the beef trade conference CattleCon, Kennedy urged cattle farmers to “increase the size of the herd to ramp up beef production.” He’s attacked seed oils and vowed to finish a purported “war on protein.” He’s touted beef tallow, a lard derived from cow and sheep fats that’s higher in saturated fat than seed oils, because the “MAHA way” to fry meals.
The message delivered from the highest of the federal government’s well being equipment is that plant-based diets are feeble and insufficient. “I’ve never needed a ‘war on protein’ to get results,” the bodybuilder Turner mentioned.
Kennedy’s option to middle animal merchandise in American diet pointers might mirror his personal weight loss plan, however the adjustments have been little question politically motivated, mentioned Laura Wright, a professor of English at Western Carolina University who research veganism.
“Given this current administration and its focus on sort of hypermasculinity and lack of empathy for any being, whether human or non-human, that doesn’t fit a specific kind of ideological mold, this isn’t surprising,” Wright mentioned.
Red meat has lengthy been related to virility, masculinity and the nationwide id of America, Wright mentioned.
“To some, not eating red meat — the intentional not eating red meat — is seen as un-American,” mentioned Samantha Mosier, an affiliate professor of political science at East Carolina University.
Kennedy’s MAHA coalition was assembled from a big and disparate assortment of curiosity teams and a few of its tenets contradict one another — like emphasizing unprocessed meals to cut back the quantity of saturated fats within the American weight loss plan whereas encouraging elevated consumption of purple meat and complete milk, each of that are higher in saturated fats than vegan options. Splintering was inevitable, Mosier mentioned.
“It’s often seen, when you build coalitions in which you have multiple factors — Make America Healthy Again is combining things related to diet, and they’re relating things to the environment,” Mosier mentioned. “If you are a vegan and you are part of that movement, there’s a chance that the entire movement may not represent your collective values.”
Vegans needed Kennedy to radically reimagine the American weight loss plan, even when they didn’t anticipate him to transform tens of millions to their trigger. They’ve by no means had an advocate in excessive workplace earlier than.
“I don’t think vegans fit into any administration,” mentioned Gary Yourofsky, one other vegan and animal rights activist whose combative messaging contains describing the slaughter of animals for meals as rape, slavery and a holocaust. “Nobody truly understands veganism. Everybody eats meat, cheese, milk and eggs.”
Kennedy has adopted by on a few of his pledges to supporters of animal rights. Late final 12 months, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists have been advised to finish analysis on macaque monkeys, who’d been primarily used to check HIV prevention. Science reported that the order got here from Kennedy.
“I’ve never seen anything do something so amazing on behalf of animals,” Yourofsky mentioned.
But encouraging Americans to eat extra meat is a coverage ethics-focused vegans say they can’t abide. Most Americans by no means adopted USDA’s MyPlate solutions or the meals pyramid to a T anyway, Mosier mentioned, so it’s not clear whether or not the brand new inverted pyramid will instantly affect anybody to ditch tofu for steak or oat milk for a glass of the full-fat dairy unique.
Veganism was by no means common — just one% of Americans identified as vegan in a 2023 Gallup ballot — however it’s now not on development. Sales of plant-based meat options, which surged during the Covid-19 pandemic, are declining. Consumption of dairy milk continues to rise. Formerly vegan restaurants are including meat to their menus.
“I feel that veganism is a threat,” Wright mentioned. “I’ve always felt that it’s so non-normative, and it’s so in many ways kind of anti-establishment, that the fact that it’s sort of been disappeared doesn’t surprise me.”
Given veganism’s minority place within the tradition and in politics, Yourofsky mentioned he can’t be notably fazed by the meat-heavy changes to nationwide diet pointers.
“I didn’t find that to be offensive,” he mentioned of the adjustments. “I found it to be stupid.”