The statement, while true to a point, ignores the fact that food costs are set to increase this year by almost 3 percent and that a diet rich in animal protein, which is featured prominently in the administration’s new inverted food pyramid, is getting more expensive. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that beef and veal prices were more than 12 percent higher in March than in March 2025, while poultry prices were up 1.5 percent over the same time period. Fresh vegetable prices, meanwhile, were 7.5 percent higher in March compared to a year earlier.
Irvine says a main barrier to eating healthy is education, joking that he didn’t know about okra and avocados growing up in England. While partly right, he and Kennedy fail to mention other important factors like cost, access, and a lack of time for meal preparation. 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 still eat these foods despite knowing 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 MAHA-aligned Super Bowl ad for “real food.” Kennedy introduces Tyson, who was convicted in 1992 of raping a teenager 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 food was a “delicacy” and that his boxing mentor, Cus D’Amato, pushed him toward a healthy lifestyle.
Kennedy mentions Tyson’s sister, who died in her mid-twenties from a heart attack related to obesity. “That’s all we ate was processed food,” says Tyson, “because we didn’t have no money to buy food. We were the kind of family that knocked on the neighbor’s door, ‘You have any food?’”
Tyson famously adopted a vegan diet for several years to improve his health, which he doesn’t discuss with Kennedy. He does, however, describe what seems like disordered eating patterns, which are prevalent in weight-sensitive sports. “If I’m not in good shape, I won’t eat,” he says. “If I’m not the weight I want to be, it’s just so subconscious, I won’t eat.”
Kennedy asks what should be done to help people in urban neighborhoods eat better—acknowledging, to his credit, the existence of food deserts. Tyson replies, “We need more mentors. You know, they need mentors to show them how to have proper diets and take care of themselves.”
He’s not wrong. Nutritional knowledge and support from family and friends are key to motivating people to adopt healthier diets. But the biggest issue with Kennedy’s podcast is that, to date, this is about as far as it goes in dispensing practical nutritional advice to the average Americans who are ostensibly its audience. There are no meal prep tips or suggestions of lower-cost protein swaps. Crucially, despite casting them as the villains of the piece, 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—or what types of foods or ingredients to avoid.
There’s no doubt that Americans are overwhelmingly unhealthy. Despite Kennedy’s assertions, doctors and government officials have been telling people to eat healthier—for decades, in fact. And most Americans already know they should be eating healthier. It’s unclear how Kennedy’s podcast will help them do that—and perhaps, given its host’s claim that he eats only meat and fermented foods, best if it doesn’t try.
