Review: RFK Jr.’s YouTube Cooking Show Is Both Informative and Unsettling

People tend to think of propaganda as “war is peace” rhetoric, not as an instruction to add nutritional yeast to your salmon cakes because it’s “great for your microbiome.” The Real Food Show reminds us that sometimes propaganda can sound like a guy selling home-brewed kombucha circa 2010.

Produced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), this YouTube cooking show features HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. alongside a different chef each episode. Each of the first two episodes is a little over 19 minutes long. One features chef Andrew Gruel making salmon cakes with an arugula, apple, and white bean salad, and one features chef Geoffrey Zakarian making a French omelet.

The show’s aim is to translate updated federal dietary guidelines into meals, according to an HHS press release. “Each episode combines simple recipes with the science behind them,” relying on inexpensive ingredients and basic kitchen equipment.

It’s not a terrible concept, and I learned some things while watching. Meals were prepared simply and quickly, they looked delicious, and I came away feeling both like I wanted to cook this food and like I could. I also liked how nutrition science was woven in. Honestly, I might love this show—if it weren’t coming from the federal government.

But we can’t separate the show’s pleasures from the fact that it’s a glorified government messaging machine, and not a subtle one. There are mentions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (which regulates U.S. fisheries), a recent executive order on advancing regenerative agriculture, and the supposed dangers of screen time. New federal dietary guidelines are repeatedly cited. It’s not all bad advice. (Eat more seafood; protein is OK.) But it’s unsettling when injected into otherwise fine lessons on lemon zest and whisking techniques. A government big enough to insert itself into American kitchens for benign purposes can insert itself for sinister ones, too.

RFK Jr.’s MAHA Cooking Show Is Government Propaganda. I Kind of Love It?