Make America Healthy Again? Reacting to RFK Jr.'s Health Ideas

RFK Jr. has been making waves with his controversial nutrition and public health claims. His ideas have sparked heated debates, from the impact of fluoride in our water to the dangers of seed oils. I examine the science behind these claims in this episode, separating fact from fiction.

I tackle some of the most contentious topics, like the risk of consuming raw milk. Is the fear-mongering justified? I break it down and explore the real science.

Let's move away from fear-mongering and conspiracy theories. Instead, let's embrace logical, evidence-based discussions and work together to promote well-being.

TOPICS COVERED 👇
Discussion on RFK Jr.'s Claims (00:01:18)
Fluoride in Public Water Systems (00:05:02)
Seed Oils Controversy (00:09:35)
Raw Milk and Pasteurization (00:12:56)
Concerns About Food Additives (00:16:47)
The Bigger Picture in Public Health (00:20:15)
Access to Fresh Foods (00:23:40)
Evidence-Based Approach (00:23:40)

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Transcript

Michelle 00:00:00  Welcome back to the Nourish and Free podcast. My name is Michelle Yates. I'm a registered dietitian with my master's in Health psychology, and this podcast is here for helping you with ultimately living more nourished and free. What does that mean? Good question. Basically, when I say living more nourished and free with that translates to is being more nourished and fueling your body well. But being able to do that in a way that's free from misinformation or food stress, food anxiety, and also free from things that a lot of us find ourselves subjected to, like binge eating or emotional overeating or body image distress. Now, with today's topic, I want to talk more about RFK Jr's or Robert Kennedy Jr's plans to, quote, Make America Healthy Again. And the reason for that is because this is going to impact our ability to live nourished and free. If we are getting potentially some bad information that is making us more stressed out about the food that we eat or the water that we drink. And at the end of the day, that's where a big part of my concern is with this Maha movement, which, by the way, I cannot read that or hear that without thinking about Amanda Bynes from The Amanda Bynes show.

Michelle 00:01:18  I don't know if you know what I'm talking about or not. If you do, I love that. But if you don't, I'm not going to. I won't put that in your head. But anyway, the claims that he makes and the ideas that he is now influencing people with is creating alarm, and it's creating stress, or really just elevating alarm that's already been put in place from a lot of people who are very misinformed about nutrition and kind of just have their priorities in the wrong places. So, yeah, I want to talk through that, because I certainly don't want people to be stressing out over things that they just don't need to be stressing out about. And then when it comes to this particular context, too, it's unfortunate that somebody may be highly influential on regulations or policies that is not an expert in this field. You know, Robert Kennedy Jr is a lawyer. He does not have any expertise in human biological sciences. And he's certainly proven that with the things that he says. So I just want to go through a few examples of what I find concerning why they're concerning, why they're misinformed or incorrect, and just kind of leave that with you for you to make your own decision on what's important to you when it comes to health policies and regulation and stuff like that.

Michelle 00:02:42  Now, to be honest with you, this episode could be hours and hours and hours long. I'm not going to do that. I want to try and keep this somewhat succinct and, like I said, let you make your own decisions and do your own due diligence on continuing to look into these matters, but I do hope that you find it helpful. And if you do, be sure you share it with a friend. I also want to acknowledge too, that hey, this is somewhat of an emotionally charged topic. Like right off the bat, I haven't even said anything really about. I guess I've made a couple of comments that you can probably tell what I'm going to say the rest of the episode, but I really haven't said much about what I think about this, and you're already probably feeling some sense of tension. It's just an emotionally charged topic because it's political in nature. So I want to be clear when it comes to me, I'm not here to bully anybody for their political affiliation. I enjoy having conversations in my personal life about politics and people's personal values, and why they find things to be important that may be different than what I find to be important.

Michelle 00:03:49  I enjoy that in my personal life and my professional life. When it comes to nutrition and dietetics, I'm going to stay in my lane and today my lane is overlapping with politics in the sense that this guy who's in a position of power has a lot of opinions on things related to the topic of nutrition and is a part of, you know, the political ecosystem. So this is not a pro or anti anything episode. It is genuinely just like a let's talk about what this guy has to say and hold it up to the facts and see if it stands. So without further ado, let's dive in okay. So first up let's talk about what this guy has to say about fluoride, specifically fluoride in our public water systems. So RFK Jr at some point tweeted or X or whatever you want to call it, that quote. On January 20th, the Trump White House will advise all US water systems to remove fluoride from public water. Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.

Michelle 00:05:02  End quote. First glance at that. It strikes a sense of fear in me. Right? I think it wouldn't anybody to be like, oh my gosh, fluoride does all those things. I had no idea. And then initially your response is going to be like, well, I'm so glad that we're removing it, right? Because if it's doing all these things, get it out of here. But does it actually do all these things? So let's backtrack to what fluoride really is. Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral. It's naturally occurring in all kinds of things. Like anything, the dose determines the poison. Right now, of course, we can have too much fluoride if we're using that argument, but it's very difficult to have too much fluoride for the average individual when we do have too much of it. Certainly it can cause some adverse effects and undesirable things. But how much of it does it really take to have too much of it? And why put it in the water in the first place if there's any chance of it being toxic? Right.

Michelle 00:06:06  If there's any chance about having adverse effects on us? Well, first of all, in order to have too much from water that's been treated with fluoride, you would need to be drinking gallons and gallons of water treated fluoride every day for a long period of time before you will ever get to toxic levels of fluoride in your system. That is then causing harmful side effects. That would be very difficult to do. In fact, you would probably have toxicity from water or water poisoning before you would have any side effects noticeable from the fluoride. Now, a lot of people like to talk about how kiddos are at risk for toxic levels of fluoride. It would take about 15 gallons of fluoride treated water before kids can have any issues from fluoride. So yeah, like of course we want to think about these things and think about the toxic levels and be sure we're not ever getting to that point. But the good news is that we're not we are not reaching toxic levels of fluoride, at least in the average individual.

Michelle 00:07:13  Now, if somebody for some reason has high exposure to fluoride, not only because of having excessive water treated with fluoride or for whatever reason, if the specific water that they're drinking has too much in it. Plus they're also having fluoride in other ways, then maybe they will end up ingesting too much. But again, it's just very difficult for that to happen. It's virtually impossible to achieve fluoride toxicity from water or toothpaste containing the standard levels of added fluoride. So why is our water treated with it in the first place? What is the point of it? If there is any risk at all, why have it around at all? Right, so fluoride treated water Having fluoride treated water readily available in public systems is shown to improve teeth enamel and prevent tooth decay. And it's been incredible. It's been a huge advancement to be able to provide this to certain populations who maybe don't have the best oral health, and now they've got this support from fluoride treated water. It's interesting to see what the difference is when you compare somewhere that has fluoride treated water versus a place that doesn't.

Michelle 00:08:26  And in 2015, Buffalo, New York, had removed fluoride from the public water supply. And since then, increases in cavities and other dental problems, especially among children, has occurred. They've gone up. Some studies are showing that when we don't have fluoride in water anymore, there's an increase in cavities by about 25 to 50%. Now, of course, you can still get cavities even if you're drinking fluoride treated water, right? Like there's still a chance. It's not like this is the silver bullet of never having a cavity again. But if it is helping with prevention, then this is a great thing. Again, not a silver bullet, but at least it's helping. So we don't want to take it away because it is something that's supportive to our overall public health. Okay. Moving on to seed oils. Now I want to do a whole separate episode on seed oils because holy moly, this is such a I just I cannot believe how much of a bandwagon this has turned into a bandwagon of a topic.

Michelle 00:09:35  Like people are so passionate about this seed oils argument, so I will do a separate episode digging into it more, but I'll kind of just give you the CliffsNotes version, I guess, here, because our pal RFK Jr says that seed oils are unhealthy, so let's examine that with the CliffsNotes version of an episode that will come in the future. so seed oils, which is any vegetable oil extracted from the seed of a plant like canola, corn, cottonseed, grapeseed, rice bran, safflower, soy, and sunflower oils, they've been vilified heavily on social media. If you have not heard somebody say that seed oils are bad for you, or they're inflammatory or they're toxic. I will genuinely be so surprised and also jealous of your life that you're not having to deal with that noise because it's just annoying. But here's the thing. These claims have absolutely no evidence to back them up. None. Again, I will go into much more detail in a later episode, but that's all you really need to know here.

Michelle 00:10:39  There's no evidence backing this up other than people saying, but I took seed oils out of my diet and I feel so much better. Why is that? Why do so many people say that? It's actually a very simple answer. The foods that seed oils are most commonly found in our ultra processed foods, and we know that a food or a diet that is mostly composed of ultra processed foods is generally not great for our health, and it's low in fiber. Not super supportive for your body, right? So when people are now hypervigilant around seed oils, they naturally end up changing the quality of their diet. But it's not because of the seed like the seed oil itself wasn't the problem. It's what the seed oils were in. So they generally end up having a more whole foods based diet or a more fresh diet, one that's less processed. Now, again, I'm sure you've heard me say this before. unless you knew this episode, but having an ultra processed food time from time to time, or having an ultra processed meal like it's not going to kill you by any means.

Michelle 00:11:51  But we do see that it's like pretty consistently that when that's like the main staple of your diet, our health is not usually in the best place. So when people are like, well, when I stopped eating seed oils, I felt so much better. And then you dig into it a little bit more, you see that? Well, now you're eating a lot more fruits and vegetables than you ever have. You're having more just like fresh foods in general. So yeah, of course you feel better and you're not having stomach issues anymore and stuff like that. What's interesting is that there are some really well-designed studies that show that replacing saturated fats with the polyunsaturated fats of vegetable oils or seed oils significantly decreases the risk of having a cardiovascular event. And it might even be anti-inflammatory. So there's just like this argument just doesn't have a leg to stand on. But like I said, people love to still just go to war over it. So we will do another episode on that later. Okay. The next thing the RFK junior is very passionate about is raw milk.

Michelle 00:12:56  There was a tweet where he said FDA's war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, colliding compounds, ivermectin. He goes on and on and on and on and lists all these other things. So what we can glean from this is that he does not approve of the government suppressing raw milk. So let's talk about it. Why do we suppress raw milk. So pasteurization. I'm sure you've heard of is the heating process that we do on raw milk that destroys the pathogens associated with a variety of illnesses, which can be fatal? Keep that in mind. These illnesses can and have caused people to die. So the pathogens found in raw milk includes E.coli. Coli, salmonella, Listeria, and there's a couple of others as well. So when we go through the process, the heating process of pasteurization, it destroys those pathogens and significantly reduces the chance of anybody contracting those diseases. So it's a good thing. What's interesting, too, is that in a massive review and meta analysis, they found that any nutrients that were lost through the process of pasteurization were minimal and insignificant.

Michelle 00:14:21  So when we go through the process of pasteurized raw milk, we're removing the risk without reducing the reward of milk. So this is like a no brainer, right? We're making it safer to drink. We're significantly reducing the risk of it while still maintaining the nutritional integrity of it. And you know, people that drink raw milk or advocates of raw milk will say, you know, I've never gotten sick consuming it, and the benefit far outweighs the risk. There's no risk. It's riskier to have. I was just talking to a friend about, this thing going around that apparently you get more sick from bagged salad than you do from raw milk. So it's just things like that. but the bag salad. What? I said to my friend, I was like, well, so many more people are eating bagged salad than they are having raw milk. You know, like, that's not a fair comparison. If we increased the number of people who were drinking raw milk to the same number of people who ate bagged salad, then compared the two, we probably see some very different results.

Michelle 00:15:29  So you just can't make that comparison when it's such a different like, yes, there's more exposure to bagged salad, right? So of course there's a higher prevalence of of illnesses. But anyway, all of these, all of these claims are really at the end of the day, which is still not justifying the risk associated with this. When the pasteurized milk ordinance was Implemented 100 years ago. In 1924, the dairy related foodborne illnesses decreased from 25% down to 1%. So clearly it's saving lives. It's doing really good things. Maybe I'll do a solo episode on that as well, and I can go into more detail on that. But for the sake of today's episode, I think that's all that I will all that I'll say. Okay. And then the last thing with RFK Jr that a lot of people are specifically like, why is this a bad thing? He wants to care more about this. We should care more about this is his concerns around food additives and food dyes and all of that. Now, this is a very complicated discussion because you kind of have to evaluate each specific claim one by one, right? Like if he's going to demonize red dye 40.

Michelle 00:16:47  Great. Let's talk about that Specifically if he's going to demonize yellow food dye, like if he's going to demonize one. Whatever it is, we need to talk about that one specific thing. It's difficult to really group them all together and make a sweeping statement, because that's just not really how these things work. But what I will say is that from my standpoint, I personally feel like hyper fixating on food additives and food dyes and things like that in our older processed foods is just putting our focus on the wrong things. There are so many people, and we don't realize it because we get stuck in our bubbles of wherever we live, the people that we hang out with, the schools that we take our kids to, whatever it is. Right? Like so many people that we do not see are struggling with food insecurity, or they live in a food desert where they literally do not have access to fresh foods, fresh fruits and vegetables. That should be the priority. Not micromanaging these foods or these ingredients and foods that have a pretty insignificant effect on people.

Michelle 00:18:00  Now, I know there's a lot of alarm bells going off for a lot of people. They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I took food dyes out of my diet and I feel so much better. Great. Keep doing what works for you. But we have to understand that what works for you is not necessarily applicable to the whole nation. Right. And there's usually a reasons why these things are included in food. Not always, but sometimes it actually can be a good thing to have them around. For example, if food is more appealing looking and you have somebody with sensory issues or a very picky eater that can help them to be getting enough nutrition in if the food has an appealing look to it now, yes, you can achieve coloring your food through other ways, and I'm not against that. Like using beetroot powder in place of red food dye. Like I'm not I'm not opposed to that. I just think that there's probably a significant barrier there when it comes to like the cost of doing something like that and the realistic ness of it that I don't know about because I don't work in the food industry like that.

Michelle 00:19:08  Right. Like I'm a clinician helping people with their relationship with food. I'm not in the deep in the weeds of food science and production and on the assembly lines, right, or in the labs. So there's a lot there that I don't know. And at the same time, I can still see that there's way bigger problems than trying to just remove dye from all of these foods and, and then potentially be left with really boring and bland looking food that now nobody wants to eat. And so they're not eating it. And maybe they're missing out on key things that were in that food. But then another thing too is like we are talking about generally like RFK Jr in these conversations is talking about ultra processed foods. So again, it's kind of like the seed oil thing, right? Like we're focusing on something so specific about that food and thinking that if we just change that, then everything will be fine and nobody will need medication anymore. But what we really need to be doing is improving the overall quality of people's diets, not just like micromanaging these little tiny ingredients.

Michelle 00:20:15  So that's kind of like the theme of this episode is what Maja is doing is missing the forest for the trees. If you haven't seen my Instagram post about this yet, I posted it on November 12th. Go look at that and it's the eighth slide. I have a graphic that's a good visual to help you kind of see what I mean when I'm saying it's missing the forest for the trees. I want you to picture this massive forest and each tree represents something that relates to the overall health of Americans, like access to fresh and whole foods. Like we talked about the cost of food, school lunches, and other food assistance programs that helps people get food when they otherwise can't afford to, or they don't have the option to. Lack of adequate nutrition education, food safety and labeling regulation. The lack of follow through on meeting dietary guidelines. Like I said, 95% of people aren't meeting the recommendation for fiber, and 90% of them aren't meeting the recommendation for vegetables. And then there's about 100 other things, too, like sedentary lifestyle.

Michelle 00:21:29  And so many like just access to health care. There's so many different things that all make up what determines the health of an individual. And it's not just about these food additives, right. And so if we're thinking about a visual here Or if you're not looking at the slide on my Instagram post, picture that forest and then picture one little tree that represents the food additives. That is what this guy is focusing on. Is this one little tree in the midst of this huge forest, as far as I can tell. Right. Especially with like, the floor. Like, why does that have to be the thing that we do right out the gate? Why that? Especially since it's not even justified. And then he's got other things that just take your focus completely off of the forest, that make you turn around and look the other way completely and backtrack like this stuff with the seed oils and the fluoride treated water. Like I said, in the raw milk, like, no, we don't need to be focusing on those things at all.

Michelle 00:22:28  So those are my overall like, that's my response to this, is that I just feel like we're putting our priorities in the wrong place. It's not that it's bad that somebody wants to address, you know, our food systems in America and fill in the blank, yada yada health. Right? Like it's not bad that somebody wants to take that on. I just wish that we were assigning that role to somebody who was actually an expert in this field and putting the priorities in the right places. So you may be wondering, well, if those aren't the things to focus on, then what would make America healthy again and again? Referencing my Instagram post again, here are some things that I wrote down that I think helped to kind of bring us back to reality. We need to be addressing the big issues, not the ones that are silly, unnecessary, or the ones that just barely move the needle. We need to be making access to whole fresh foods easier and more universal. We need to be continuing the policies and regulations that have saved many lives and fed many hungry mouths, rather than cutting them off or changing them.

Michelle 00:23:40  We need to be lowering the cost of food. Holy cow, I'm so sick of wanting to cry every time I look at the receipt when I go to the grocery store. We need to bring people together rather than distancing them by planting these ideas in their heads that then make them at odds with other people. Like, let's bring people together, not spread them apart or push them apart. We need to be realistic, not far fetched. We need to be logical, not unreasonable. We need to look at the evidence, not creating conspiracies. And we need to be putting individuals in charge of this project who are experts, not a lawyer who has a weird history with animals. So those are my thoughts on this. I may revisit this topic as things develop and come back with some more things. As I said, look forward to a seed oils episode in the future. Well, we'll dig deeper into that specific topic. I may do one on raw milk as well. Let me know if you want to see that in particular.

Michelle 00:24:43  It'll give me a little incentive for making that a priority. But on that topic, if you have anything in particular that you're like, I would really love for her to talk about this. Feel free to send me. In the show notes of the episode. There is a button or a link that says to send me a text message. That is a fantastic place to let me know any request you have on future episodes. Keep in mind I'm not able to reply to that. I just like, literally don't have the ability to. It's purely for you to send feedback and suggestions. It's not a two way communication channel. So anything that you say there, like please do use that resource, but don't be offended that I don't respond because I would love to. I just I can't it's not a two way communication thing. So I hope that you enjoyed this episode, or at the very least that you were able to learn something or take something away today. if you've been loving this show for a while and you haven't done so yet, I would really appreciate if you left a rating or review.

Michelle 00:25:40  It's so helpful for my show to be found more. I get suggested more The more ratings and reviews there are. So that would be super supportive to the show and to me and to the business in general. If if you have a second to do that. Again, I know that because of this topic being political in nature, it's just it's going to be divisive no matter what. People are coming into this topic with preconceived notions and ideas. And, you know, a lot of times we're not very open minded to having our beliefs challenged. And people are probably saying that about me, by the way. You know, you might be somebody who's listening and you're like, well, you need to challenge your beliefs. And you know, to that I say, douche. Let's continue to question what we believe and evaluate all the evidence and make decisions based on logic and reason and what we know, instead of fear based messaging and conspiracy theories. Until next time, stay nourished and free.