It Turns Out We Didn’t Need An Act of Congress, Just A New HHS Secretary

“We're getting an extraordinary outpouring of cooperation from food companies who, without forced regulation, are standing up to remove harmful dyes and other non-nutritious ingredients from their foods,” said Secretary Robert J. Kennedy Jr.

When America's biggest cereal manufacturer, General Mills Inc., announced that by summer 2026 it would remove all “certified colors” from its U.S. cereals and K‑12 school foods—and eliminate artificial dyes entirely from its retail portfolio by the end of 2027—it marked something of a tipping point. No Congressional hearings, no new federal legislation. Instead, it was driven by the quiet yet compelling authority of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), whose “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) campaign has spurred rapid, voluntary commitments across the food industry. Suddenly, companies are racing to reformulate. Gone are petrochemical dyes; in are natural alternatives, smaller ingredient lists, and a fresh corporate confidence that health-forward reform can be good for the public while also being good for business.

When the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and HHS teamed up in April under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership to target petroleum-based synthetic dyes and peel away authorization for dyes like Red 3—and call out Red 40 and Yellow 5 as next in line—it set an implicit industry deadline: phase them out by end-2026, ahead of a likely federal mandate. Wasting no time, major conglomerates like General Mills, Kraft Heinz, Nestlé, Conagra, J.M. Smucker’s, Tyson, Hershey and others joined in signing on to aggressive timelines. 

Even fast-food chains and restaurant groups are getting in on MAHA. In‑N‑Out Burger announced the removal of controversial and artificial dyes Red 40 and Yellow 5 from its offerings—replacing them with beet juice and turmeric respectively—and a promise to ditch high-fructose corn syrup in favor of natural sugar substitutes. Steak ’n Shake will now use beef tallow, rather than seed oils, to cook its fries, onion rings, and chicken tenders. Previously, in March, they also pledged to use 100% Grade A Wisconsin butter, sourced from a family farm, to replace an existing blend containing seed oil.

Kennedy’s next targets include Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Co, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, all of whom were invited to the White House—along with nearly 50 other farm and food heavyweights—to discuss MAHA’s goals and initiatives. 

Kennedy argues that there are over 100 chemicals commonly found in U.S. foods—including Red 40, potassium bromate, butylated hydroxyanisole, butylated hydroxytoluene—which contribute to America’s worsening mortality rates. “If just one of them can cause all of these problems, imagine what they’re doing in combination. That’s never been studied,” he posits.

The studies on artificial dyes that do exist have found potential links to ADHD, developmental issues, and even early animal cancer findings. Despite this, both the FDA and the nation’s largest food manufacturers have insisted, until now, that the approved synthetic dyes are safe. 

Kennedy, who previously ran for U.S. President as a Democrat, has become something of a pariah to many on the Left, who were quick to label him a conspiracy theorist for his “alternative” views on nutritional science. However, public opinion backs Kennedy: about two-thirds of Americans support removal of artificial dyes from food. Similarly, 87% of Americans believe the federal government should do more to improve food safety, including “updating nutritional guidelines, adding labels to foods that contain artificial dyes, or decreasing exposure to pesticides.”

“It’s no coincidence that Americans die earlier than Canadians or Germans or Italians or Japanese or Koreans or Australians or most any other comparable country,” Kennedy said. “It wasn’t always that way. Until the early 90’s, our life expectancy was the same or better than other developed countries. Then, suddenly, more and more Americans began suffering from chronic diseases, from obesity, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, Alzheimer's, heart disease, and all kinds of autoimmune diseases.”

One must wonder why—if Kennedy’s views were bunk—the scions of “Big Food” which once resisted change are now proudly and publicly transitioning away from cheap oils and synthetic dyes. That’s what makes this moment so unique: Kennedy, as an individual, is central to this rather rapid, almost immediate change across the food industry when past federal efforts to curb unhealthy food haven’t exactly moved the needle. 

For example, First Lady Michelle Obama launched the “Let’s Move!” campaign in 2010 to combat childhood obesity. Her efforts focused less on targeting potentially poisonous chemicals and more on, in the words of Vox, “pushup competitions with Ellen DeGeneres [and] dance-offs with Big Bird.” That is to say the campaign focused more on physical activity and limiting portion sizes, and less on making dietary changes. Others have called it an “incredibly successful initiative.” Despite that glowing praise, childhood obesity has only increased, not lessened, across the nation. 

By 2022, the prevalence of obesity among U.S. children and adolescents increased to nearly 20%—meaning one in five American youths aged 2–19 years have a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile for age and sex. Those numbers were 3% lower on the day when Obama launched her campaign. Similarly, while some voluntary school lunch guidelines reduced some sugar and sodium, this did seemingly nothing to halt the rise in diet-related diseases.

Likewise, all the lip service to “clean labels” and “no artificial flavors/colors” in prior years only filtered so far down the product line—while brightly engineered cereals and candy aisles remained unchanged. The food industry, absent a compelling motivator, would not elect to use healthier and more costly ingredients by their own volition. For the first time in recent memory, Kennedy is showing how the HHS’s bully pulpit can be used properly to fight chronic disease triggers—and corporate America is, perhaps shockingly, not resisting.

“The MAHA movement is growing across the country,” Kennedy told Fox News. “We're getting an extraordinary outpouring of cooperation from food companies who, without forced regulation, are standing up to remove harmful dyes and other non-nutritious ingredients from their foods.”

What happens next? 2026 to 2027 will be critical years. Companies will test natural replacements for taste, cost, and stability. Other ingredient categories—sweeteners, seed oils, preservatives—are likely next. And mid-sized brands will feel some pressure to follow, or to move even farther ahead. MAHA has—at least so far, and against its detractors’ wishes—done more to change the American diet than any other movement in the 21st Century in such a short span of time.

And, even more impressively, they’ve done it without a single federal ban on any single oil, dye, or chemical.