By Renee Hickman

(Reuters) – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lowered a raw Thanksgiving turkey into a bubbling pot of cooking fat in a video posted to social media last November. 

“This is how we cook the MAHA way,” said Kennedy, who the Senate confirmed as head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday, referring to his Trump administration slogan, Make America Healthy Again.

Kennedy was cooking with beef tallow, or rendered beef fat, which he has repeatedly claimed is healthier than canola or other oils from seeds. 

Beef tallow, used primarily for cooking but also in products like soap and biodiesel, has been championed by a subset of online wellness influencers. Its nutritional merits compared to seed oils, however, have been disputed. 

The market for beef tallow was worth an estimated $480 million in 2023, up from $446 million in 2018, according to the North American Renderers Association, and producers expect that to grow as a result of Kennedy’s enthusiasm.

Some companies had taken note of rising interest even before his confirmation.

In January, Indianapolis-based fast food chain Steak ‘n Shake announced it would begin cooking its shoestring fries in beef tallow. The chain posted a photo on social media of Kennedy in a car with the window rolled down, with the caption: “Did this man just pull up in our drive thru?”

Other restaurant chains have also jumped onboard. Sweetgreen, the Los Angeles-based salad chain, is eliminating seed oils from its menus and using products like olive and avocado oil instead, while Blue Collar Restaurant Group, which owns restaurants in Wyoming and Montana, is replacing seed oils with butter and beef tallow as well as olive and avocado oil.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump nominated Kennedy to lead the sprawling health department in November, the former environmental lawyer’s claims about food – from beef tallow to raw milk – have come under scrutiny. 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit consumer advocacy group, has said that seed oil opponents overstate the risks of inflammation, heart disease and obesity from seed oil, and that a diet rich in saturated fats such as those found in meats, butter and cheese poses a larger health risk. 

Yet a shift away from seed oils in cooking could accelerate with Kennedy as Health and Human Services Secretary.

Kennedy may hold sway in appointing advisors to a panel that determines the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a document created every five years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, according to Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. 

The guidelines are used in everything from the preparation of school lunches to the determination of daily values on food nutrition labels. 

Sorscher said Kennedy may influence research funding and push for regulation or even bans on products such as seed oils.

He could also use the visibility of his new position to pressure companies to follow his lead on seed oils and beef tallow without having to enforce any changes in policy, she added.

“Those companies that are seeking to please him and secure favor might reformulate to remove products that he’s targeted and remove ingredients that he’s targeted,” Sorscher said.   

Eric Gustafson, chief executive of California-based animal fat refiner Coast Packing Company, said he watched in the 1990s as fast food companies like McDonald’s led a wholesale shift away from beef tallow to vegetable oils in response to medical research linking animal fats to heart disease. 

Gustafson said he has started to see the pendulum swing back, with sales increasing steadily over the past decade. 

Kennedy, often referred to by his initials RFK, used tallow from one of Coast Packing’s customers in the Thanksgiving video, Gustafson said.

“We’re trying to figure out how (that customer) can get to RFK to give him a few more cases of tallow and tell him thank you,” he said.

(Reporting by Renee Hickman in Chicago, editing by Emily Schmall and Nia Williams)

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