Nothing in the Rollins/Kennedy announcement supports plant-based diet, notes Harvard critic
WASHINGTON, D.C.––Brooke Rollins, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services, on August 24, 2026 announced what they claimed were, “Sweeping new efforts to strengthen school meals by connecting more American farmers with local schools, investing in school kitchen infrastructure, and giving states and school districts new tools to serve healthier, more nutrient-dense meals to America’s children.”
Harvard University Vegetarian Resource Center administrator Maynard Clark sees considerable reason for skepticism, issuing a detailed critique of Rollins and Kennedy’s announcement within hours.
Words not delivered with a manure fork
What else did Rollins and Kennedy say?
“If we want to Make America Healthy Again,” said Rollins, “we have to start with our children, and that means improving what we put on their lunch trays every single day. Harvest to Hallways,” the new program that Rollins and Kennedy jointly announced, “is about bringing more American agriculture into the school cafeteria.
“School nutrition professionals need to prepare real food,” Rollins declared. “When we strengthen the connection between the farm and the lunchroom, everybody wins: our children eat better, our farmers gain new markets, and our communities grow stronger.”
Added Kennedy, “Every school meal should make a child healthier.”
More $$ for stoves & refrigerators than for food
Then came the pledge of money.
“Harvest to Hallways,” Kennedy said, “includes up to $70 million in investments in school cafeteria infrastructure, an effort to expand schools’ use of local food procurement options, and up to $25 million in additional Farm to School Grants for fiscal year 2026.
The bullet points in an accompanying media release began with, “USDA will launch a major education and outreach campaign around the ‘Local Option’ School Procurement Program, an existing procurement pathway that can allow schools to be reimbursed for purchases of locally produced foods.”
For example? “The Local Option has already been used in Union County, Kentucky,” said the media release, “where school districts purchased locally produced beef.”
Trump administration killed $660 million Local Food For Schools program
This comes after the Donald Trump administration on March 11, 2025 canceled the Local Food For Schools program, begun under the Joe Biden administration in 2021, cutting $660 million that school cafeterias formerly used to buy fresh, minimally processed, locally grown produce and meats from regional farmers.
Then the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the signature accomplishment of the second Donald Trump administration so far, signed into law on July 4, 2025, cut as many as 1.5 million children from eligibility receive free school breakfasts and lunches through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Center for American Progress estimated that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would cost the affected families from $1,900 to $2,200 per year in additional food costs for their children––if they had the money to spend.
Rollins & Kennedy pledge to restore 4% of the money
Rollins and Kennedy on August 24, 2026 restored a little less than 4% of the money for school lunches lost through the Local Food For Schools cancellation by “up to $25 million in new, additional Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grants for FY 2026,” mentioning also that “Previous projects include the Pennsylvania Beef Council’s work with 175 local schools to bring locally raised beef to nearly 300,000 students.”
Kennedy further pledged that “Health & Human Services will invest $30 million in research to identify practical, cost-effective ways to improve the nutritional quality of school meals.”
In other words, more money is designated for “research” than for actual Farm to School food purchases.
“Elements that plant-based advocates will likely favor”
Began Maynard Clark, “Whether American vegetarians and vegans can trust initiatives from the USDA, Health & Humane Services, Brooke Rollins, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. depends on how they weigh the policy’s actual mechanics against its political branding.
“Looking directly at the ‘Harvest to Hallways’ initiative,” Clark said, “the policy contains elements that plant-based advocates will likely favor, alongside specific elements they will strongly oppose.
“The initiative’s focus on bringing more fruits, vegetables, and ‘nutrient-dense’ local foods into schools aligns with vegetarian and vegan principles,” Clark assessed––but neither Rollins nor Kennedy actually mentioned more fruits and vegetables, at least not in their joint media release.
“50 million for cold storage and stoves,” as Rollins and Kennedy did specify, “allows schools to cook real, raw ingredients, like scratch-cooked grains and fresh vegetables, rather than just reheating ultra-processed, pre-packaged convenience meals,” Clark observed.
“Goal shared by many vegetarians & vegans”
Further, Clark acknowledged, “The ‘Make America Healthy Again’ platform championed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. heavily emphasizes removing synthetic dyes, additives, and ultra-processed foods from children’s diets—a goal shared by many health-conscious vegetarians and vegans.”
But Clark noted that the Rollins/Kennedy joint media release “explicitly highlights local procurement successes” using beef sourcing as premier examples.
“For vegans and vegetarians,” Clark observed, “using federal funds to increase children’s beef consumption directly contradicts the health and environmental goals of plant-based eating.”
Further, Clark noted, “While the media release mentioned ‘nutrient-dense’ foods, it does not explicitly carve out protections or expansions for plant-based milk alternatives, like soy milk or oat milk, or require schools to provide daily vegan entree options.
“Vegetarians have long distrusted the USDA”
“Vegetarians have long distrusted the USDA,” Clark finished, “because the agency is legally mandated to do two conflicting things: advise Americans on nutrition, and promote American agricultural commodities, including the powerful dairy and meat industries.”
Asked for comment, the Healthy Kids Happy Planet plant-based food advocacy organization failed to respond to ANIMALS 24-7 by deadline.
Neither did the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, long critical of the USDA school lunch program, issue an immediate response to the Rollins/Kennedy announcements.
PCRM sues Kennedy & Rollins for “illegally influencing” Dietary Guidelines for Americans
But the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine [PCRM] did on August 19, 2026 initiate a lawsuit against the Department of Health & Human Services, under Kennedy, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Rollins, alleging that they “illegally influenced the recommendations in the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.”
The case, filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, according to a PCRM summary, charges that, “The Guidelines, released on January 7, 2026, emphasize fats, meat, and dairy products, shocking many health experts. The ‘scientific foundation’ for the Guidelines was hastily assembled by consultants with financial ties to the meat, dairy, and low-carb diet industries.”
“Procedural bait & switch”
Explained PCRM, “In December 2024, after a transparent two-year public process, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans’ 20 independent nutrition experts issued the Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, recommending in part that the Dietary Guidelines should advise Americans to consume more plant-based meals, prioritize beans and other plant-based protein over animal protein, and make water, rather than milk, their beverage of choice.
But instead of issuing those Dietary Guidelines, PCRM continued, “Health & Human Services and the USDA disregarded federal law through a procedural bait and switch, replacing the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s recommendations with recommendations of a hastily assembled panel of industry insiders, without any oversight or input by the public.
“Conflicts of interest”
Eight of the nine members of that panel, according to PCRM, “had conflicts of interest including ties to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Dairy Council, the American Egg Board, the National Pork Board, and the low-carbohydrate diet industry.”
Their identities, and their recommendations, only became known, PCRM alleges, on “the day the Dietary Guidelines were released.”
Reminded PCRM, “Prior to the issuance of the 2000 Dietary Guidelines, the Physicians Committee sued, arguing that six of the 11 then-Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee members had financial ties to the meat, dairy, or egg industries and that these financial ties might increase the likelihood that unhealthy foods would remain in the Dietary Guidelines.
“A federal court agreed that the government had violated both laws.
“The Physicians Committee also challenged improprieties in the 2010, 2015, and 2020 Dietary Guidelines in federal court,” PCRM mentioned.
Please donate to help our work:
www.animals24-7.org/donate
Discover more from Animals 24-7
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Whether bull-, horse-, chicken-, or pig-, whatever comes out of the mouths of these grifters might as well come from out of the other end. I would be amazed and shocked that anyone takes anything they say as truth, but of course, by now, I know better.
Those of us who were raised to think for ourselves and delve into anything that smacks of chicanery may have an advantage. Maybe not, in the long run. Bottom line, in this as in all things, money and power are the only motivators.
Thanking you for continuing to expose the lies.
I can’t imagine any family doing anything DUMBER than expecting the government to tell them the truth and to be considering their health and welfare.
I know my family made their own decisions based on their own knowledge, experience and values and when it came to health matters, they asked our family doctor. in my own life, I do my own research and make my own health-focused choices, notably vegan.
If I had children, I would be even more vigilant about that. Frankly, I would probably homeschool.