Yuen: Can Minnesotans support RFK Jr.’s war on junk food? It’s a matter of trust.

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Let’s start with the nice things we can say about Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

He speaks for a lot of people, no matter their political party, when he zeroes in on how to make food safer and Americans healthier. For starters, we need to reduce our exposure to environmental toxins and break our addiction to ultraprocessed foods, which Kennedy rightly says are driving the obesity epidemic and rise in childhood chronic disease.

His crusade against junk food raises the question: Can you support parts of the MAHA movement without subscribing to the wackadoodle smorgasbord of Kennedy beliefs?

I’ll get to those beliefs later, but it should be noted that Kennedy’s willingness to challenge the food industry, particularly its use of artificial food dyes, should be applauded.

In April, Kennedy announced that major food brands “voluntarily agreed” to phase out petroleum-derived artificial dyes. While some observers reacted with skepticism, food titans such as PespiCo, KraftHeinz and Golden Valley-based General Mills pledged to phase out the additives from their products.

Soon we’ll learn how far Kennedy will go to Make America Healthy Again, and whether the Trump administration is willing to recommend serious policy changes that involve government regulation.

Zimmern notes that although Kennedy may say the right things aligned with current public outcry, he’s gutting the very agencies that are responsible for protecting us.

For everyday parents, here’s how the administration could win trust: Help us make informed choices about the food we’re ingesting and feeding our families.

Those ingredient labels on the back of the packaging? Impossible to read (especially if grocery shoppers of a certain vintage left their cheaters at home). Zimmern says mandatory warning labels for ultraprocessed foods and products high in sugar, saturated fat or sodium should be on the front of the box, and they should be in “big, bright, strobing neon.”

He notes that even smoothies found in the produce aisle and targeted toward children might be loaded with sugar. Parents are busy. We’re loading up our carts between work, making dinner, caring for aging parents, shuttling kids to activities and helping them with homework. Yes, consuming unhealthy food is a choice, but our sense of agency is limited by a number of factors, including time, money and a lack of nutritional education.

Zimmern takes it a step further.

A MAHA report detailing the administration’s recommendations was expected to be released to the public Tuesday, but it appears that we’ll have to wait a few more weeks.

The problem with MAHA is that it blends real concerns about issues such as nutrition with claims that are widely rejected by the scientific community. Kennedy has promoted long-debunked conspiracy theories, such as denying the relationship between HIV and AIDS. He has long amplified misinformation about vaccines and recently announced the cancellation of $500 million of mRNA vaccine development.

Michael Osterholm, Minnesota’s longtime infectious disease specialist and a Biden White House adviser, worries that the nation is not prepared for future pandemics. He’s coming out with a new book called “The Big One,” and he’s not even talking about COVID-19. Osterholm told my books editor colleague Chris Hewitt that he’s troubled by the health secretary’s leadership.

“If Kennedy has his way, there will be no vaccines on the market in 18 months,” Osterholm said.

Sometimes Kennedy speaks to our own fears. But he exaggerates the evidence, sometimes shaming us. He has said children are being “poisoned” by medications that treat ADHD. He has supported the unfounded claim posing a link between antidepressants and school shootings. He’s likened the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to “Nazi death camps.” (And it’s understandable why CDC employees, in light of Friday’s shooting at the campus, blame Kennedy for impugning their work for years.)