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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.”
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.
I like Meat and if PETA the Animal Rebellion and the kill joys like Soros Gates and Schwabe don’t like it tell them to GO POUND SAND
That’s weird… my wife and I just ate there for the first time yesterday. Food was excellent, and the prices were actually less than 5 Guys or other quality burger joints.
The chocolate milkshake was da bomb… and paired with at double bacon cheeseburger and fries, old flavors I haven’t had in years.
Yes, Steak ‘n Shake is great. I like it even better than In-N-Out Burger, Farmer Boys (none here,) Smash Burger, 5 Guys and Culvers (Midwest.)
There were 3 in Santa Clara Valley California, two here in San Jose and one in Campbell, next door, but they all closed down for some reason. The only two in CA are in Victorville and Yucca Valley, of all places. Victimville is just over the Cajon Pass on Interstate 15 in the Mojave High Desert on the way to Vegas, and Meth Valley is at the junction of the 247 and 62 desert highways in the middle of nowhere.
Maybe the dot head dot coms here in Santa Clara Valley complained about Steak ‘n Shake cow meat, or something.
Even Julia Child once said she liked the fries at McDonald’s, but that was when they, too, used beef tallow.
It struck me the other day that Trump may have taught RFK Jr how to lighten up and be happy.
After years of wandering in the desert, he’s getting the respect he’s due and he’s enjoying it.
I remember when fast-food fries were cooked with tallow instead of nasty seed oils. They were great. I hope they make a comeback.
My neighbor told me the reason McD’s had such great fries was they used beef tallow. He managed one for awhile in one of his early jobs.
That was when as kids we’d call our buddies on the cell phone, drive around with no money and sometimes buy a bag of fries in the drive through because it was about all that we could afford. MCDs was a favorite. Kidding about having a cell phone or using a drive through of course.
The dims have really looked bad on RFK. They painted him as anti-Vax and his first response was spot on with the Texas measles. He made certain people knew and had vaccines available, with a push towards getting vaccinated. Not an anti-vaxxer, but a pro safe vaccine advocate. Sounds like he has looked at the real data on beef tallow, or at least the more thorough research and sees it as no more unsafe than any other oil used.
Yeah, beef tallow tastes a lot better than veggie oil. Mexican Americans like to fry food in tallow and Manteca, which is why it tastes so good. Manteca is more piggy tasting than lard so you wouldn’t want to use it in a pie. I bet it would be good for biscuits, though.
And JFK is right about the measles vaccine. Nothing is safer than the inactivated polio vaccine injection, which is 100% harmless, but I had the measles’mumps/rubella vaccine among others at school when I was five and six and never caught any of them or suffered any bad effects from the vaccines. I guess I didn’t have the chicken pox vaccine because I did catch that.
JFK is also right that healthy people shouldn’t take any of the three Wuhan flu jabs, especially not kids, but I had the Johnson and Johnson one and it was no big deal for me. I don’t have any co-morbidities and I’m not dying of old age quite yet.
And JFK and Hannity obviously have good taste in fast food.
In addition, all Halal foods should be labelled as such, so that we can choose not to buy it.
Halal is just Islam cribbing from Judaism. While Halal is not Kosher, Muslims can be compliant with Halal and eat Kosher. Lots of similarities between the two observances since it began with Judaism, but Muslims freely mix meat and dairy.
Most used to be but I notice many companies have stopped using the halal sign on their products, probably because of people like me who refuse to buy any of them.
EAT BEEF NOT BUGS EAT POUNTRY or PORK not Plant Based Junk. Our towns new Butcher Shop sells Rabbit. And SCREW PETA
Rabbit is pretty good for a rodent.