Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has launched his own cooking show, in which his obsession with a pungent diet involving vast quantities of fermented foods such as sauerkraut will play a major part.
The “Make America Healthy Again” advocate will host online episodes of The Real Food Show starting Thursday, encouraging families to cook healthy meals for less than $5 a serving whenever possible.
The first episode is already available to view online and features Kennedy and celebrity chef Andrew Gruel showing viewers how to prepare crispy salmon cakes with apple, white bean, and salad.
However, as noted by USA Today, Kennedy’s cooking show will also feature recipes that include kimchi and sauerkraut, allowing others to follow the potent fermented-food diet that he and several members of the Trump administration have adopted.
Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Kennedy, Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had all been following the diet invented by Dr. Sean O’Mara, which sees them eat lots and lots of the pungent German delicacy.
The sheer amount of sauerkraut being consumed by the Trump administration is reportedly causing some “domestic friction” because of the strong smell it emits. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he was also convinced to try the diet after bumping into Duffy and noticing how good the transportation secretary’s skin looked.
In an interview with USA Today ahead of the first episode of The Real Food Show, Kennedy said he had become so obsessed with following the diet that he used to take his own store-bought sauerkraut to restaurants.
“I used to carry it with me, but I got too many complaints,” he said.
The health secretary also offered some advice on how people should eat the fermented cabbage dish if they want to follow the diet.
“The way that you’re supposed to eat it is bite for bite,” he said. “You take a bite of the meat, take a bite of the sauerkraut. That is kind of the prescribed, perfect way of eating it. I don’t do that perfectly every time that I try.”
Kennedy’s wife, Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines, bemoaned last October how annoying it could be for the health secretary to need a constant supply of sauerkraut with him at all times.
“We’ll be in the car, dressed up. I’ll have my little clutch, right? One of my good bags that I only take out every once in a while, because I want to keep them nice,” Hines told Katie Miller’s podcast. “And he’ll hand me a bag of sauerkraut and say, ‘Can you put this in your bag?’ And I’ll say, ‘I actually cannot.’”
Hines also recalled how people would often ask, “What’s that smell?” whenever they came into their home while Kennedy was preparing sauerkraut.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s my husband’s dinner,” Hines said.
