Lab Meals for the Fatherland - How Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wants to Rescue the Healthy Republic from the Microwave

It was a promo video for the ages - or at least for the archive of political self-contradictions. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., America’s current Secretary of Health and Human Services and eternal scolder of anything that even smells like additives, stands smiling in a production hall in Oklahoma. In front of him steam Styrofoam trays filled with chicken bacon ranch pasta, artificially reheated French toast sticks, and industrial ham patties. And then Kennedy says the sentence that will, with high probability, soon appear in every satirical year-in-review segment somewhere between “Bleach for Corona” and “Tanks for Education”: “This is really one of the solutions for making our country healthy again.” You rub your eyes. The same man who recently claimed that America had been plunged into a “metabolic medical dictatorship” by ultraprocessed foods is now promoting ready-made meals whose ingredient lists read like a chemistry exam. The same Kennedy who urged companies to remove artificial colorings and corn syrup from their products is now endorsing a menu that, according to expert Marion Nestle, “has about as much to do with real food as a chicken nugget does with a chicken.” Welcome to the age of nutritional parallel realities. The company receiving Kennedy’s blessing is called Mom’s Meals - a name that sounds like it was generated by an algorithm tuned to sentimental retirees. For seven dollars a pop, it delivers “medically tailored” microwave meals to Medicare and Medicaid recipients - the sick, the elderly, the impaired, and now, apparently, morality itself. Kennedy calls it “a healthy alternative,” presumably in relation to what’s usually found in U.S. supermarkets. The truth? Every tray of this health mission hides a laboratory. Emulsifiers, thickeners, flavorings with E-numbers long banned in Europe. The only thing missing is irony - but Kennedy delivers that himself, right on cue.

Few people have warned as fervently against processed foods in recent years as he has. On talk shows, he spoke of “slow murder by meal.” In his speeches, he called the loss of traditional food culture “an attack on the nation’s immune system.” And now he stands there - eyes shining before steaming canned goods - and says thank you. For meals without petroleum-based food dyes, at least. It’s a bit like an anti-nuclear activist praising a power plant because the cafeteria now serves vegetarian. Of course, Kennedy has an explanation ready: the meals supposedly contain none of the “typical ingredients” of ultraprocessed food - no colorings, no sweeteners, no corn syrup. The fact that they are still ultraprocessed is something his spokesperson does not explain. Probably because in Kennedy’s nutritional universe, you’re only allowed to condemn what fits nicely on a campaign slogan. “No aspartame in pudding” simply plays better than “polymerized maltodextrin in the bacon cube.” And Kennedy is pursuing a higher mission - a return to national health, his version of “Make America Healthy Again.” The movement is called “MAHA,” and its followers are a bizarre mix of anti-vaxxers, eco-moms, and libertarian supersmoothie enthusiasts. They believe in celery juice, cod liver oil, and the right to raw milk. That Kennedy is now praising microwave meals you could only replicate at home in a hazmat suit is enough to make even the most committed MAHA believers pause.

Once again, it becomes clear: American politics is no longer a place for coherence, but a hall of mirrors full of symbolism, longing, and suggestion. Kennedy loves the role of the admonisher, the maverick, the man against the system - even when he’s the one managing it. That he, as Secretary of Health, is now praising what he once denounced as an activist is not an exception, but a systemic error with meal delivery. And while millions in taxpayer dollars flow into pasta with ranch dressing, doubts grow: Is this still food policy - or already an eating disorder in office? Kennedy says it’s about freedom. The “freedom to be healthy.” But that freedom apparently ends where the freezer aisle begins. Maybe it’s time to take him at his word. Maybe the country really does need a national nutrition offensive. One that promotes real food instead of microwave illusions. One carried not by PR campaigns, but by farms. And maybe - just maybe - then there would be room for a new vision.