Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could well be the first secretary of health and human services since the department was rebranded in 1981, and maybe even the first since the Department of Health, Education and Welfare was established in 1953, to be determined to take positive and concrete steps actually to improve the health of Americans rather than to line the pockets of Big Pharma or promote the nationalization and bureaucratization of the health care system. With precisely the goal of improving Americans’ health in mind, RFK Jr. traveled to Florida over the weekend and stopped by the popular burger joint Steak ‘n Shake.
Fox News reported Monday that RFK made the trip to Steak ‘n Shake to honor its announcement that “it would be cooking its iconic shoestring fries in beef tallow.” RFK said, "Steak ‘n Shake has been great. We're very grateful [to] them for RFK'ing the french fries. They turned me into a verb."
RFK was referring to a March 2 post on X, in which Steak ‘n Shake declared with Trumpian exuberance: “RFK'd Fries! Too much Flavor! Too much Winning!” Quite aside from the health benefits of cooking fries with beef tallow instead of vegetable oil, this in itself was a significant cultural moment. There are still numerous corporations out there that will happily feature all manner of leftist cultural figures in their advertising, and do so without a second thought. They would recoil in horror, however, at the prospect of featuring Trump or anyone who supported him.
It has been this way for as long as fast food joints have eschewed beef tallow, and possibly longer. American popular culture has treated leftism as the default mode, and patriotism as some sort of weird anomaly that only deserved marginal tolerance at best. Whenever a patriot broke out of this cultural straitjacket and made an appearance in a nonpolitical forum, leftists made such a hue and cry that usually the sponsor of the forum in question immediately backtracked, apologized, and, of course, dropped the patriot.
Remember, to take just one of a myriad possible examples, back in 2003, when Rush Limbaugh briefly became a professional football commentator for ESPN? The outcry was so shrill and so insistent that ESPN tacked hard in the opposite direction, not only dropping Rush but becoming a woke propaganda organ that occasionally pretended to be a sports network.
It’s a significant indication of how much the times have changed that now Steak ‘n Shake is clearly thrilled that RFK stopped by, thanking not only him but also Sean Hannity, whom he was with, for dropping by. Leftists are expressing the usual self-righteous rage in the comments, but Steak ‘n Shake is clearly not worried about a backlash. The left has lost its cultural power, which not too very long ago seemed absolutely invincible.
RFK and Hannity were tucking into burgers and fries at Steak ‘n Shake because the company opted to heed Kennedy’s recommendation and start using beef tallow to fry its fries. Kristen Briede, Steak ‘n Shake’s chief global development officer, said, "The consumer wants the best and deserves the best. By adopting 100% beef tallow, Steak ‘n Shake is delivering the best fries possible."
This isn’t just about what tastes best. Fox notes that RFK Jr. “has touted beef tallow as a healthier alternative to seed oils, which is often one of the main components of processed foods.” He explained, "We want to do everything that we can to incentivize these companies to be transparent, to switch over from ultra-processed food, and to be part of this movement to make America healthier. We are poisoning ourselves and it's coming from, you know, principally, these ultra-processed foods."
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The secretary added, "People should be able to make their own choices. If you want to eat a donut or seed oils, you should be able to. You should be able to exercise informed choice. You should know what that product is, what's in your food, and what the health impacts are. That's all we're going to do." That is simple common sense, and RFK Jr. had more, saying that “studies from Stanford and Harvard show how mental illness, including anxiety and depression, can be related to food.” He explained, "Food is medicine. By changing your diet, you can lose some of those diagnoses."
That sounds like something worth celebrating, or, for the skeptical, at very least worth trying. Meanwhile, Steak ‘n Shake deserves the gratitude of every patriot for bucking the left’s claim to cultural hegemony. Celebrate with a burger and fries.
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