The New Food Pyramid Wants You to Comply.
Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has declared an end to the "War on Protein." And while everyone can agree protein is essential, his reasoning might be more sinister than it would appear.
It has been a busy January for Trump 2.0. In three scant weeks, the administration has been accused of committing war crimes, claimed rule over Venezuela on Wikipedia, defended ICE agents for murdering two citizens in the streets of Minnesota, increased pressure on the annexation of Greenland, pissed off our NATO allies, and created the Board of Peace, inviting notable peace-lovers like Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Saudis, and a bevy of private equity and venture capitalist goons. Lex Luthor apparently was unavailable.
Not to be outdone, Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had his own big announcement to make this month. Unless you have spent January living under a rock, and honestly who could blame you, you likely saw that, as part of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign, HHS and the USDA have taken the Food Pyramid and literally and figuratively turned it upside down.
Let’s take a look at what’s for dinner!
First off, steaks, ground beef and rotisserie chicken are now the healthiest foods in the world?! Hell yeah! Fruits and vegetables? Pretty dumb unless they are pre-packaged. Get outta here, bananas! A stick of butter is now the superior oblong yellow foodstuff! Whole grains? That’s where they literally drew a line!
In his press conference, Kennedy gave a full throated pledge to end the alleged “War on Protein” — decades of research and advice that have focused on limiting the saturated fats contained in most animal products, in order to guard against cardiovascular disease, the number one cause of death in America. Or he calls it, an unfair demonization of red meat, saturated fats and other animal-based proteins.
Finally! As a red-blooded American, I am relieved to be able to once again say “Merry Rib-ness” instead of “Happy Hollandaise.”
So good news, cave-them! Living under a rock seems to be exactly what this administration is striving for. We’re going from Flintstones vitamins back to Flintstones steaks so big they make your car fall over. And much like the chalky Bedrock bullshit we were fed in the 80s, they don’t want to include Betty Rubble.
While the new MAHA Food Pyramid was played off mostly as a funny late night joke when it was announced, the battle lines seem clearly drawn. And whoever was fighting the “War on Protein” is very much losing, because protein is now fucking EVERYWHERE. You can get protein infused Pop-Tarts. PepsiCo CEO Robert Lagurta announced in October of 2025 that they’re developing protein packed Doritos. Need a lil’ pick me up? Starbucks is now injecting an extra 15g of protein in the cold foam on your latte, in addition to the 36g of protein they’ve already added to the latte itself, if you feel so inclined. If coffee isn’t your bag, there are several options for protein water, which, I guess, is better than the lead-tainted water 186 million Americans are exposed to annually.
Don’t get me wrong: protein is absolutely essential to human health and development. The Mayo Clinic recommends 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. For example, a person who weighs 165 pounds, or 75 kilograms, should consume 60 grams of protein per day. There are several factors that can alter that daily total, including age, fitness, exercise routines, etc, but Mayo’s findings indicate that “most people in the U.S. meet or exceed their [protein] needs.”
This dramatically changes for people who are taking glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1’s, like Ozempic, Trulicity, Wegovy and others. In order to prevent serious muscle loss and preserve metabolism, people taking GLP-1’s need to consume a significantly higher amount of protein per day. According to UCHealth dietitian Shannen Christen, “the goal here should be about 1.2 grams of protein per day per kilogram of body weight.” Using the same example above, a 165 pound person taking a GLP-1 needs to be consuming 90 grams of protein a day — a 50% increase.
It makes sense then, from a purely greedy capitalist perspective, why Big Snack is now all in on pumping protein into its products. God forbid you STOP buying Doritos on your journey to what is advertised as healthier living! But the White House’s agenda here screams insidious. If you recall, Trump has been promising to lower prescription drug prices across the board at mathematically impossible levels — 1000%, 600%, 500%, 1500% were touted in one run-on sentence from his podium in 2025 — essentially, pharmaceutical companies were going to pay us to take drugs. However, according to the White House’s own Fact Sheet released November 6, 2025, other than a small handful of insulin and migraine related products, the only drug prices Trump successfully negotiated down were for GLP-1’s. Ozempic and Wegovy are literally the first bulletpoint!
Meanwhile, the marketing teams at GLP-1 manufacturers have spent the last few months securing big name celebrity endorsements. Some you might expect, others, not so much. Serena Williams, for example, widely considered one of the greatest athletes of all time, is currently the face of Zepbound, sold by Ro. Also in the Ro portfolio is 11-time NBA All-Star Charles Barkley. To compete, on January 12th of this year, Tom Brady was named Chief Wellness Officer of eMed, a company that hocks GLP-1’s. And while I do not diminish the insecurity these athletic titans may have felt at some point about their aging bodies, the danger of these endorsements is best summed up by actress, advocate and all-around amazing human being Jameela Jamil, who wrote on August 25th, 2025, “celebrities have access to doctors others don’t have access to. [...] If things go wrong, you don’t have a billion dollars to fix it.”
But these drug’s side effects, which range from cancer, paralysis of the gastric system, pancreatitis, osteoporosis, to a downstairs mixup with your genitals, male or female, be damned! As we plunge into 2026, keen-eyed social media users are starting to see this mindset take hold with influencers, particularly on TikTok and Instagram. After years of promoting body positivity and learning to love yourself, the tendency amongst many prominent online personalities has shifted back to the goals of the late 90’s and early 2000’s: impossibly skinny if not skeletal, and at times looking absolutely unhealthy under a serious amount of glam. On TikTok, low-rise jeans are back — now with only a 4 inch in-seam! On the runway, Vogue Business reported in October that of the 9,000+ runway looks observed in 2025, only 2% featured “regular sized models” – models wearing a women’s size 4 or above in the US, approximately a 26”-28” waist. Only .9% of the looks were considered “plus sized” at a US women’s size 14 – a 32-34” inch waist.
In a video reposted by Bonnie Roney, RD, dietician and host of the Diet Culture Rebel podcast, an influencer who will remain anonymous declared “Collar bones are the ultimate fashion accessory. It doesn’t matter what I wear. When my collar bones are out, I just look girly and feminine and sophisticated.”
Roney says, “I am seeing more and more content like this popping up. Content that promotes thinness and reinforces this skinny culture that feels so insanely prevalent right now.” As Roney notes, this message isn’t new, but it’s now aimed at our young girls aimlessly doomscrolling through social media, intent on an early brainwashing.
In her 1991 book, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women, author and activist Naomi Wolf wrote, “A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.” You can’t throw a molotov cocktail at your oppressor if you’re vomiting in the kitchen sink.
And that certainly seems like the point. Sera Lavelle, PhD, a clinical psychologist who specializes in eating disorders has noted a new trend in her patients who are taking GLP-1’s.
“I noticed this kind of flat affect, like ‘What’s the point of life?’ Not suicidal, but just this lack of pleasure.”
Two more side effects, brain fog and emotional flatness, can be the price of a slim waist line. And paying that toll, sadly, is right where the government wants you. Jab more drugs. Eat more protein so they work. Get thin. Check out. Shut up.
RFK Jr. has elevated red meat to the highest platform of his upside down Food Pyramid. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has transformed “no_fatties_26” from a gooner Reddit handle into military policy. Collar bones and zippers too small to cover a vulva are the hottest TikTok trend. Washington’s fight in the alleged “War on Protein” and their push towards these miracle weight loss drugs feels like a 180 degree psy-ops campaign to keep the population confused, delirious and compliant.
As a cis white male in his 40s, I don’t honestly know if this is my story to report. For that, I turn again to Jameela Jamil, speaking on the Should I Delete That podcast:
“Fuck those people. Whenever we start to swing towards conservatism or fascism or authoritarianism, women’s rights start to be decimated immediately. Abortion rights are normally first on the chopping block. The next thing is to make a woman’s beauty standard be so super thin that they will be too tired, too distracted and too compliant to resist, and that is exactly what is happening all over again.”
When it comes to women, Trump wants you thin and compliant. And as he burns the world down, I scream. You scream. We all scream. For protein?
 | A guest post by
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"Jesus Christ, just send robot dogs into my bedroom or something you fucking lunatic." 👍🏻
Ryan, this one really stuck with me! The way you connect protein, GLP-1s, and thinness as a form of compliance feels uncomfortably plausible. It made me pause and wonder how much of “wellness” right now is about health versus quiet obedience. Curious how you see people pushing back without swinging into denial or fear?