For many years, docs have warned Individuals to not overindulge in quick meals. So it was hanging to see the secretary of the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers sit all the way down to a burger and fries on nationwide tv this week.

Whereas ready for a meal at a Florida Steak ‘n Shake, Robert F. Kennedy defined to Fox Information host Sean Hannity that Individuals can be more healthy if they begin consuming extra of what he calls “conventional” elements, like beef tallow.

Kennedy has impressed Steak n’ Shake to change again to tallow — which is rendered beef fats — for cooking its fries. The cooking fats was phased out from quick meals chains about 35 years in the past when heart-attack survivor Phil Sokolof launched a marketing campaign in opposition to saturated fats.

Steak n’ Shake described the change as “RFK’ing” its fries, and Kennedy desires extra eating places to observe its lead, arguing that seed oils are fueling the weight problems epidemic.

“We’re poisoning ourselves. And it is coming principally from these extremely processed meals,” Kennedy informed Hannity, happening to quote statistics about America’s sky-high ranges of continual illness.

Moments later, he took a chunk of a crunchy French fry and stated: “Persons are raving about these fries.

The TV look has diet scientists dropping their jaws. Charges of weight problems and diet-related continual illness have been rising for years, and are linked to poor diets.

A special kind of frying oil will not make this calorie and cholesterol-rich meals wholesome, says Christopher Gardner, a diet scientist at Stanford College College of Drugs.

“Folks ought to eat fewer French fries, no matter they’re deep fried in,” he says.

He notes that beef tallow and different saturated fat like butter can result in clogged arteries and excessive ldl cholesterol, a threat issue for coronary heart illness and stroke. And whereas seed oils are elements in lots of extremely processed meals, like potato chips and frozen dinners, they don’t seem to be why these meals are unhealthy, he provides.

NPR reached out to Kennedy’s staff for remark however didn’t hear again.

Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a heart specialist and head of the Meals is Drugs Institute at Tufts College, informed NPR he is glad Kennedy is anxious about extremely processed meals and the diet-related illness epidemic, which he calls an pressing nationwide disaster.

However, “concern round seed oils can be a distraction, and we have to be specializing in the actual issues,” he says.

The true villains, says Mozaffarian, are extreme quantities of refined grains, starches, and sugars, in addition to salt and different preservatives, chemical components, and contaminants from packaging.

“Seed oils are literally the brilliant spot,” he says. “Seed oils are wholesome fat, wholesome monounsaturated, polyunsaturated fat which can be actually good for our our bodies.”

He notes that seed oils are effectively researched and have “unbelievable proof” of well being advantages, together with research displaying they’re linked with decrease levels of cholesterol and coronary heart illness; randomized trials have proven that consuming seed oil doesn’t trigger irritation.

Gardner is troubled that Kennedy is utilizing his platform as Well being Secretary to advertise quick meals, and fears it could lead on some folks to suppose that it is OK to eat extra of it. (Although Kennedy conspicuously turned away a milkshake dropped at his desk at Steak n’ Shake, Hannity had already downed one burger earlier than Kennedy arrived and ordered one other to eat with him.)

Extra sugar, fats and salt make quick meals and packaged meals “hyper-palatable,” as Gardner notes, and so they encourage overeating.

He says he’d prefer to warn Kennedy, “folks observe your instructions”

“If individuals are consuming extra hamburgers and extra French fries, though they’re now in tallow as a substitute of seed oil, extra individuals are going to die.”

And whereas Steak n’ Shake has gotten a blitz of optimistic publicity in MAHA circles — Laura Loomer not too long ago visited one the chain’s eating places to strive the fries, and one TikTok consumer praised the chain for, “getting on board with wholesome oils” — it’s kind of of a case of tallow-washing.

In an e-mail assertion, Steak ‘n Shake informed NPR that its meals producers nonetheless use vegetable oils to pre-fry the meals earlier than it is frozen and shipped to shops. It stated it is working to take away these oils from its provide chain, “as quick as attainable.”