Honestly, I don't see why a cheeseburger is such a big deal. When purchased at a fast food place the Food Police act like it is poison. But when you make the exact same sandwich at home no one bats an eye. It's not like an occasional trip to McDonalds is going to kill anyone... if that were the case, there'd only be about 12 Americans left.
I think that is mostly a photo op, since McDonalds played along with Trump working there a few minutes. Which bascially in my opinion, McDonalds was making a statement that they endorsed Trump for President at the time. McD helped him and now he is helping them with a little publicity--- and McD is hoping that Robert will go easy on them.
I saw a "tweet" that looked like it came from Kennedy's account (but may have been a fake one) saying to bring back tallow fat and get rid of hydrogenated veggie oil to make fries healthy again. And you may be aware that Trump has been a McDonald's addict forever.
With Trump, I think a large part of it is the optics. What better way for a very wealthy president to connect to regular American people than to give off the perception that he loves fast food? While he may enjoy the stuff, I strongly suspect he doesn't live on a steady diet of it.
I'd imagine most people don't even consider the fat & salt content of 5 Star Restaurant food, much less their local eatery's fare. I wonder what Kennedy's diet looks like, not only the food types but where he sources his ingredients.
Bill Clinton was the same way; he loved fast food. Of course after the quadruple bypass he became one of the insufferable diet fanatics.
I had read that Trump liked McDonald's because he could watch his food being prepped. He was wary of poisoning, especially since running for the White House. Saturated fats got a bad rap from the diet police in the 1950s through 2020 because of cholesterol. Several studies have shown that dietary cholesterol has little effect on blood cholesterol and that total cholesterol has little effect on health--you have to look at the other lipoproteins for that. (I know @John Brunner you are not comfortable with that). Anyway, some are now saying that the polyunsaturated fats are unstable and the saturated forms of fat are better for you than the oxidized oils, so tallow and lard have become the new "health foods" for non-vegetarians and vegans. Olive oil is a compromise, as is coconut oil as it contains MCTs (medium-chain triglycerides) which are thought now to be healthful.
Fast food is way safer than restaurants where the food is fresh and where meats and veggies are prepped in proximity to each other (Chipotle, anyone?) Freezer-to-Fryer leaves little room for problems, and the salad stuff comes pre-prepped. Just read your local Health Department inspections and see who has violations and who routinely gets a passing grade. It's almost humorous. Regarding cholesterol: I don't have strong feelings, but have been put into a state of paranoia when my cholesterol goes about 300 if I stop my statins. I got a Community Vascular Screening 7-8 years ago and everything was clear, FWIW. My mother had very high cholesterol but was in good health until dementia took her at 82. She was on heart meds, but I suspect that was anxiety-driven. I'd still like to see what Kennedy eats on a daily basis.
I was a health inspector and can't figure out how Chipotle passes. Health inspections are a matter of filling out a checklist and adding up the number of points, although some things can close you down regardless of the total number of points. In buffet setups used at Chipotle, the meat ingredients must be maintained at a set temperature. Although I forget the temperature now, it's high enough to dry out any meat that might be there. I did not inspect the only Chinese food place in the city I worked for on buffet days because there was no way I could have passed them, and everyone would have hated me if I closed down the Chinese buffet. The restaurants I liked the most weren't the ones that performed best on my inspections. Unfortunately, the inspection sheets did not allow for much subjectivity; it was a numbers game. Since I was single and ate most of my meals at restaurants, I would not do more than one inspection per day, and I avoided rush hours. Inspecting a restaurant during a lunch rush wouldn't have been fair. Usually, I would go into the restaurant with my clipboard so they would know that an inspection was coming up. But I would order something to eat-- or at least a coffee--before doing the inspection. That would give them time to frantically make any corrections that might need to be made in the kitchen, given that any really big ongoing stuff probably wouldn't be able to be fixed during a meal. On topic, perhaps in this thread, but maybe not, I have heard that Robert Kennedy would prefer that McDonald's go back to using the fat that they used to use in their French fries when they tasted better. Seemingly, like many other food recommendations, that is healthier than the stuff they were forced to change over to several years ago.
I'm pretty sure he said to go back to beef tallow and stop using hydrogenated veggie oil. But that would get the vegetarians/vegans all spun up (they are why McDonald's changed in the first place.) I mostly use reduced butter fat, lard and reserved bacon grease when I fry. There are a few things I'm interested in seeing a public discussion on. First is the compromises required to keep the price of food low. Second is producing enough with a long enough shelf life to transport the stuff and have it available all the time nationwide for 350,000,000+ people. Third is getting Americans used to the fact that real produce does not look perfect all the time. Fourth is the amount of food we import and our limited ability to control what those sources do, PLUS getting us used to the fact that we cannot have every product available all year round. Fifth is our shrinking farmland and the foreign ownership thereof.
Hydrogenated vegetable oil is trans fat, and is what Americans were convinced was the "healthy alternative to lard" in the 1950s when Eisenhower was having his heart issues. Crisco and such was the way to go until it was found to be a lot more harmful than the lard that people used to use. I am sure that when we go looking we will find a LOT of harmful stuff in the food chain here. I saw a post by a guy who just got home from a month in Europe, and he commented on how much better the food tasted in Europe than here. He also said the produce appeared fresher and tasted better as well.
They don't make labels easy to read for anyone, but I will look for sure if I have to use a magnifying glass. There is so much crap in foods, they can't fit them on a label w/o shrinking the text so small. RFK is on the right track, and I think he'll do a great job to get things headed in the right direction. There's going to be a lot of balking over it though. People are literally addicted to sugar for one thing. Grocery carts are just full of sugars and it makes me wonder if they have any clue at all. I suppose it's just believing another lie like "eat fat, get fat" thanks to good ole Anson Keys I fell for that one.
I've been reading a lot of comparisons to food in Europe, but our dispersed population can't be served by their model. From what I read, Europeans go to market way more often than Americans do, and store much less at home. I wonder if they have "in season" foods as we did growing up, or if they import to any degree so as to have variety the entire year. I'd be curious to see a cost comparison, but there's a lot of drivers (regulatory, production, transportation, retail costs) that make such a comparison almost valueless. I guess one thing we can all agree on...the corruption in Washington knows no limits.
I read Italians live long lives, olive oils and noodles must not be too bad. Lots tomatoes, creams too.
Yeah, I saw that in Japan as well--no freezers and few large refrigerators. Everything is bought the day of use or one day earlier. We could do something similar in some parts of the country, but food would be more expensive, as it is in both Europe and Japan. We don't need to be bringing produce to the Midwest from Chile though.