I Just Watched RFK & Mike Tyson Destroy Processed Food

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Isabel Brown Show

Episode: "I Just Watched RFK & Mike Tyson Destroy Processed Food"

Date: February 12, 2026
Host: Isabel Brown (The Daily Wire)
Special Guests: Mike Tyson, Secretary Rollins, Secretary Kennedy, Chef Andrew Gruel, Dr. Bobby Mukamala

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on a groundbreaking event at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in Washington, D.C., marking the launch of major dietary policy changes in the U.S. The guest lineup—ranging from boxing legend Mike Tyson to prominent chefs and federal officials—underscores the national commitment to reduce processed foods and prioritize whole food nutrition, epitomized by the new rallying cry: "Eat Real Food." The episode critiques past federal nutrition guidance, celebrates new science-based policies, and spotlights both personal stories and institutional reforms targeting the country’s chronic health crises.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cultural Shift: The “Eat Real Food” Movement

• Federal agencies (HHS, USDA) are rolling out extensive new dietary guidelines, boiled down to the simple message: “Eat Real Food.”
• Mainstream media’s neglect of this issue is challenged; Isabel argues it’s a generationally defining moment.
  • Quote: “[This is] a generationally defining policy shift inside of Washington, D.C., because…that is a national security issue, that's a spending issue…It could totally change our health industry.” (04:28, Isabel Brown)

2. Mike Tyson’s Emotional Testimony

• Shares deeply personal loss: his sister Denise died at 25 from obesity.
• Candidly recounts his own past struggles with weight and self-image.
  • Quote: “I was so fat and nasty I would eat anything. I was like £345, a quart of ice cream every hour. I had so much self hate…just wanted to kill myself.” (02:01, Mike Tyson)
• Links poverty and processed food in his upbringing, describing processed food as the norm in disadvantaged communities.
• Motivated to “fight” for this cause, framing the movement as the biggest battle of his life.
  • Quote: “This is the biggest fight of my life. I want to be a hero in this particular field because it affects my life... I have an affinity for [those struggling].” (14:18, Mike Tyson)

3. Policy Change: Institutional Endorsement and Action

• The American Medical Association, represented by Dr. Bobby Mukamala, announces new practice guidelines centering preventive nutrition.
• USDA and HHS leadership highlight the systemic failures of prior dietary standards—specifically, the prioritization of ultra-processed foods and political motivations over science.
  • Quote: “For decades, Washington lied to Americans. They told us that real food was no better than ultra processed food. That claim defied science. It ignored common sense and it betrayed American families.” (10:53, Secretary of Health and Human Services)
• Goals include immediate reforms to school meals, federal nutrition assistance programs, and reduction of toxic additives.

4. Chef Andrew Gruel’s Practical Wisdom

• Elevates the conversation with a chef’s practical viewpoint: real food is intuitive, ancestral, sustainable, and affordable.
  • Quote: “Real food is common sense. It's intuitive, it's in our DNA…Over the past 20, 30, 40, even 50 years, we've been confused…I get a lot of pushback…but just close your eyes…you can eat all of that for less than $15 a day in some parts of America.” (05:59, Chef Andrew Gruel)
• Shares stories from diners, especially a 96-year-old couple who attribute their longevity to home-cooked, unprocessed foods.
• Calls the new guidelines a “North Star” for chefs and consumers alike.

5. Critique of Industry and Media

• Isabel directly addresses skepticism, especially accusations that the guidance will just benefit certain industries (dairy, beef).
  • Points to the revolving door between regulatory agencies and industry, calling for reform and transparency.
  • Quote: “To have the audacity for food magazines and newspapers to suggest that Rollins and Kennedy are the ones responsible for buddying up to their friends in dairy and beef when this has been going on for decades, is insane to me.” (17:23, Isabel Brown)

6. Broader Implications: National Security, Chronic Disease, and Legacy

• Chronic illnesses linked to nutrition (obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease) are framed as the defining health crisis of our time.
• Secretary of Health and Human Services statistics:
  • 40% of American children have at least one chronic condition.
  • Nearly 1 in 5 teens has fatty liver disease.
  • 6 in 10 American adults live with at least one chronic disease.

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Notable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• [02:01] Mike Tyson: “My sister's name was Denise. She died of obesity at 25...I was so fat and nasty…I had so much self hate…”
• [03:40] Chef Andrew Gruel: “The newly issued Dietary Guidelines for Americans...help slow or reverse our nation's growing chronic disease burden…”
• [05:59] Chef Andrew Gruel: “Real food is common sense…We've lost our relationship with food.”
• [10:53] Secretary of Health and Human Services: “For decades, Washington lied to Americans…It justified hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for ultra processed products...”
• [14:18] Mike Tyson: “This is the biggest fight of my life...I want to be a hero in this particular field because it affects my life.”
• [16:32] Secretary of Health and Human Services: “We were able to reduce hundreds of pages of dietary guidelines...to about six pages. But it's just three words. Eat real food.”

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:01] Mike Tyson’s emotional family story and critique of processed food
• [03:40] Chef Andrew Gruel’s support for the new guidelines and emphasis on whole foods
• [05:59] Chef Gruel details practical, affordable real-food eating and stories from restaurant patrons
• [10:53] Secretary of Health and Human Services delivers stats on children’s health and historic policy failures
• [14:18] Mike Tyson’s keynote: linking his personal transformation to the national movement

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Tone & Language

• The overall tone is passionate, personal, and reform-minded, with a blend of policy critique and motivational language.
• Isabel maintains a conversational style, candidly expressing frustration at the media and industry entanglements, and infusing hope and urgency about the possibility of real change.
• Guest speakers mix scientific authority (Dr. Mukamala), pragmatic experience (Chef Gruel), and raw personal testimony (Tyson).

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Conclusion

This episode powerfully weaves personal stories, expert insights, and landmark policy changes into a cohesive narrative about America’s new nutrition revolution. The message is clear and accessible: eating real food is now a national priority, bolstered by both high-level policy reform and a grassroots call for cultural change. The combination of government officials, health experts, culinary voices, and celebrity endorsement signals a serious, broad-based effort to reclaim American health from decades of processed food dominance.

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Main Takeaway:

“Eat Real Food.”
This isn’t just a slogan, but a bipartisan, science-backed policy shift with the potential to reshape American health for generations.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

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[Mike Tyson]

My sister's name was Denise. She died of obesity at 25. She had a heart attack. I was so fat and nasty I would eat anything. I was like £345, a quart of ice cream every hour. I had so much self hate when I was like that, I just wanted to kill myself. We're the most powerful country in the world and we have the most obese, fudgy people. Something has to be done by processed food in this country.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, we're supposed to hear from various speakers today across the board, from various industries. I know some Members of the military are here. We've got people in the prison system speaking, famous chefs like chef Andrew Gruel, who I'm a huge fan of, and many, many more about what we are doing in America to change policy forever so that our kids can grow up eating real food. Let's go check it out. Back at hhs, at it again, where the magic happens to make America healthy again. Once I got inside, the room was absolutely packed with people so psyched about the progress we are making against processed food. Eat real food, people. If you're not a major medical nerd, you might not know that this is Dr. Bobby Mukamala, who is the head of the American Medical Association. The fact that the AMA is on stage with RFK right now is a really big deal because it means that they're updating their guidelines for how doctors should practice nutrition with their patients for preventative health purposes. This just came a few days, by the way, after they just changed their guidelines on child gender transition. So maybe following the science doesn't just mean blindly following Dr. Fauci anymore. We're actually following the science. Big deal.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

The newly issued Dietary Guidelines for Americans reinforces what science and clin clinical experience have long shown. Choosing protein rich whole foods while limiting heavily processed foods that are high in sodium and added sugar can help slow or reverse our nation's growing chronic disease burden, particularly cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. The path forward is clear. We must champion healthy eating not just as a suggestion, but as a national priority. We must work together to build a future where sound nutrition is recognized for what it is and a cornerstone of longer lives, better health, and stronger communities. Thank you so much for involving us in this effort.

[Podcast Host]

I said this at the beginning of the episode too, but this is one of those things that's really never going to get any important coverage in the mainstream media because it's not flashy or sexy or interesting. They made fun of the food pyramid when they literally flipped it upside down. And I was here at HHS a few weeks ago, but that was it. That's all I ever saw was a few headlines poking fun at how stupid it was that government bureaucrats were flipping the food pyramid upside down. This is a generationally defining policy shift inside of Washington, D.C. because if we can start helping people understand what they're supposed to be eating, to eat real food, that is a national security issue, that's a spending issue. It might help our national deficit and our budget substantially. It certainly will help our spending on health care and could totally change our health industry. In this country to not be reactive to when we are so, so sick that we need pharmaceutical intervention, but embrace proactive health instead. There are so many, so many down trickle stream effects of all of this that I'm so psyched about and I hope that we can continue using our platforms in the best way possible as new media to cover this appropriately because Fox News and CNN and msnbc, they're not covering it the way that they should be. They also brought on stage one of the coolest chefs in the world, Chef Andrew Gruel. If you're not familiar with him, he is an absolute rock star, but has been incredibly outspoken about the entire MAHA initiative well before it was ever popular in America. And I actually didn't know he said in this space speech. He also happens to be a city counselor for the city of Huntington Beach, California. So fun little side quest lore about Chef Gruel there. He's amazing. If you're not already following him on social media, you absolutely should be.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

You know, I bring a chef's perspective to this and I can tell you that absolutely real food is common sense. It's intuitive, it's in our DNA. It's been in our DNA for hundreds, thousands of years. You see, intuitively, people know how to eat. But over the past 20, 30, 40, even 50 years, we've been confused. There's been way too much noise out there. We've lost our relationship with food. Now, I say that real food is wholesome food, is nutritious food. It's also sustainable food. But most importantly, one thing I've been leaning on is that real food is also inexpensive food. And I get a lot of pushback on that. But just, but just close your eyes for a second and imagine this, right? You wake up in the morning, two farm fresh eggs, runny yolks, crispy toast, whole butter slathered on that crispy toast. Some fresh food for lunch, a slow roasted chicken thigh with maybe a quinoa and vegetable salad, extra virgin olive oil vinaigrette, some good high quality vinegar. Then for an afternoon snack, an American tart apple with sweet and salty nut butter. And for dinner, you've had braising all day long, an inexpensive cut of meat that you bought, perhaps on Sunday, maybe a chuck roast espresso rub, coffee rub, sweet and smoky with caramelized onions and some, I don't know, making this up as I go, maybe some roasted baby Dutch yellow potatoes. And heck, for dinner, let's even throw in there for under $15 a day, how about some frozen bananas in a blender with whole milk, cocoa powder peanut butter. You got yourself some banana peanut butter, homemade ice cream. Or just relegate yourself to that whole fat, high protein ice cream. You can eat all of that for less than $15 a day in some parts of America. Maybe In California it's $315 a day, but nonetheless, it's 15 to $20 a day. And the reason why people say, no way, I can't have that is because they don't understand food. We've lost our relationship with food. We've been living out of a processed food box. We've been living out of a Cheez it box for the past 20 to 30 years. TV dinners. You know, I had a couple that came into the restaurant the other day. They were 96 years old, they'd been married for 50 plus years. And I asked them, as the cliche goes, but I swear I really did ask them this. I said, what's the secret to living this long? And a lady looked at me and she said, cooking your own food. We've been cooking all of our own food in our own kitchen our entire lives. Albeit they come out to eat at my restaurant once every couple months, hopefully more than once a month actually. I'm really trying to drill down into my sales strategy there. But nonetheless, the reason that they've been doing that and they've eaten through so many different food pyramids and food, dietary food guidelines. But what's hilarious is we've come full circle because the new dietary guidelines, they're a North Star. They're a North Star for chefs. They're a North Star for consumers and, and getting us back in the kitchen. Re establishing that relationship with food. And those, that elderly couple, you know, they've been eating bacon and butter and real fats, tallow, no seed oils. They've been eating that same type of food in their house for the past 50, 60, 70 years. And they're 96 years old. I think that's a testament to cooking our own food.

[Podcast Host]

The branding for this campaign is amazing. And I finally snagged my steak eat real food sign, which I've wanted for a while, but you could find, feel the excitement and anticipation in the room. This feels like a really big shift happening in Washington. Then just before our main speakers started, Kennedy and Rollins, they played the Maha commercial from the super bowl, which I've seen a couple of times now. And honestly, I think I like it better every single time. It really packs a punch. See what I did there? Well, good morning everyone.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And what.

[Secretary of Agriculture]

Listen, I didn't have on my 2026 bingo card a picture with a Mike Tyson tattoo on my face. But how amazing is this? I mean really, how awesome. I'm happy to announce that today, today right here we are at USDA releasing new guidance for all regional and state directors of our child nutrition programs, encouraging them today to familiarize themselves with the key recommendations and consider how these guidelines and how they will be incorporated into program meals and snacks as we continue to promote and build healthy outcomes and healthy families. This release today kicks off an effort to update USDA's child nutrition programs based on our DGAs. In this guidance, including through rulemaking and education, we are working to have a proposed school meals rule by mid spring in just about a month so that children across America can reap the benefits of the MAHA wins that we're here to celebrate today. Please stand up and give him the applause and the thank you he deserves. Our Secretary of Health and Human Services, my incredible partner.

[Secretary of Health and Human Services]

For decades, Washington lied to Americans. They told us that real food was no better than ultra processed food. That claim defied science. It ignored common sense and it betrayed American families. It justified hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for ultra processed products fueled by nationwide health collapse that drove trillions of dollars in health care cost that now threaten our economy and our future and make our children the sickest generation in our nation's history and the sickest children in the world. Today, more than 40% of American children suffer from at least one chronic condition. Nearly one in five teenagers suffer from fatty liver disease. We're watching. We've watched cap latencies of ischomes and industry officials gaslight Americans into looking at chronic disease as just a normal feature of childhood. Previous dietary guidelines downplayed the dangers of added sugar, so much so that federal school lunch standards allowed unlimited sugar in meals served to young children. That was a failure of leadership. Parents saw the damage in their own homes, physicians saw it in the exam rooms and we all saw it in the national bill for health care. We now see the consequences everywhere. Rising rates of obesity, diabetes, metabolic disease in our children. Six in ten American adults now live with at least one chronic disease. Four in ten live with two or more. This is not a small crisis. This is the defining health crisis of our time. Today I extend my hand in good faith to anyone willing to put the health of our children above politics. Improving school lunches, reforming snap, removing toxic additives. These were bipartisan, partisan priorities before and we will make them bipartisan again. This movement will not slow down. We are restoring communication sense you're putting real food back at the center of the American diet. And together we're going to make America healthy again.

[Podcast Host]

Finally, the guest of honor, the main speaker. Everyone came to see Mike Tyson. I just observed for a moment that the last few weeks have been the weirdest crossover. It's like the end of Endgame where all of the metaverse stories come together in one metaverse. In the last few weeks, I watched President Trump hold hands on stage with Nicki Minaj. And now I'm watching Mike Tyson get on stage to talk about processed food after Cristiano Ronaldo was like randomly walking around the White House the other day. Genuinely, what is happening? Is it officially cool to be a conservative and a Trump supporter now? Like, did we win the culture war? Maybe. I mean, I still think we have a lot more work to do, but this was just crazy.

[Mike Tyson]

First of all, I'd like to thank the President, Secretary Kennedy, Peter Arnell, Brett Ratner, and everybody that helped me and had anything to do allowing me to be part of the commercial for the Super Bowl. And once they were telling me the situation, what it was about, obesity, I was telling them my experience that I had a sister that died at 25 from obesity. And where I come from in Brownsville, Brooklyn is the most violent, poverty strucking neighborhood in the city of New York. Ultra classic food was just the norm. Everything was processed food. We didn't have much money, but we had food. We had the food plan, provided the candy, the shit and all that soda stuff and all that rocking stuff, and that's just all we knew. And the food that we ate was pretty much processed. It was hidden guts and stools and stuff. Weird animals. I just wanted to be a part of this because that was such a part of my life. I grew up upstate New York with a master fight trainer. And so he gave me a lifestyle. So obesity is totally out of my life. And sometimes I fool around. I gain 40, 20 pounds. I'm real lazy. But I have a lifestyle, losing like this. And that's what I'm. That's why I'm just such a fan of this. This is the biggest fight of my life. I want to be. I want to be a hero in this particular field because it affects my life. Every time I see someone who may be obese, I have an affinity for them. I want to be close to them, I want to talk to them. I want them to let them know that I'm their friend without saying, hey, you remind me of my sister. And I'm just very Grateful to be here and fight this fight. It's going to be a fight that I look forward to. Thank you very much, everyone, for allowing.

[Podcast Host]

Me.

[Secretary of Health and Human Services]

And thank you all very much and the message that I'm going to leave you with. We were able to reduce hundreds of pages of dietary guidelines, Brooke and my team to about six pages. But it's just three words. Eat real food. I ask you all to start doing that today if you're not already doing it. Thank you very much.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, that was awesome. They just announced, essentially, in, like, real people language, not policy speak in the D.C. beltway that they are releasing thousands of pages of new dietary guidelines between HHS and the USDA Department of Agriculture about what food should be consumed for safe consumption in America. But really, it boils down to just three words. I thought Secretary Kennedy said that so. Well. Eat real food. I implore you to do that. And he invited all of us to start changing our behaviors every single day today. I'm hungry now, and I snagged one of the steak rally signs, so I kind of want a steak for lunch. No, I'm taking it. Please. Everybody wants these. They're like, coveted gold here at these. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. But I'm so excited to see leadership on this issue here in Washington, because truly, Secretary Kennedy nailed it. They have lied to us and gaslit us for years. That process toxic chemicals, things that were invented for, like, engine exhaust, were safe for us to consume and should be the easy, cheap, accessible option for our food. We have poisoned entire generations all at one time, and that stops today. Okay, we're headed home. But I'm looking up what some people are saying about these dietary guidelines, and it is insane. Like, I cannot imagine being so dense to genuinely be against people eating real food instead of toxic crap. Like, what is wrong with these people? The Food Institute. How am I gonna hold this? I don't know. I don't know how I'm gonna hold this. We're gonna figure it out. The Food Institute, okay, says that this is supposedly insider baseball between Secretary Kennedy and Secretary Rollins and all of their buddies in the food industries that they like. So this stands to benefit the dairy and the beef industries the most, which is undercutting all of the other food companies. Let me just go off for a second. When I was in my master's program here at Georgetown, learning from the top, top people at the FDA and HHS and the CDC and the who, the most alarming thing in the entire world to me was that we do have legal protections to prevent insider baseball within the military industrial complex. It is illegal for certain periods of time for people to leave the Department of Defense, now what we call the Department of War, and go work for major military contractors and vice versa, because it's a massive conflict of interest. No such protections, no such legal restrictions exist for the food industrial complex or the pharma industrial complex here. So literally, like every five minutes, it's a revolving door between the top, top, top regulators at the FDA and the CDC and all these people then going to work for, for big pharma companies and big food companies. So it's all the same people. They just give green lights to their friends and red lights to everybody else. So to have the audacity for food magazines and newspapers to suggest that Rollins and Kennedy are the ones responsible for buddying up to their friends in dairy and beef when this has been going on for decades, is insane to me. The thing that I really will take away the most from this event, and I always do, every time I'm at HHS or I speak with Secretary Kennedy, is just the shocking, staggering statistics of how many kids are dealing with chronic disease and how bad problems like obesity and autism and diabetes and all kinds of things that we have just accepted as normal have become throughout my lifetime alone. Where we are today in 2026 would have been unfathomable when I was born in 1997. And so it's interesting now as a new mom and thinking about raising my own daughter and the rules that we're going to be implementing in our house and the food that we're going to be feeding her and how we're taking her to the pediatrician and all of these things. I don't know that our parents necessarily had the foresight to understand that so many of these problems exist because of the deep state. We've associated the deep state with weaponization of the justice system or the military industrial complex, but no one ever really thinks about it in terms of the food that we're eating and the medicine that we're taking and the doctor that we're going to see. And to know that there is massive overhaul reform happening right now so that my daughter's generation does not have to face the same problems that we do with chronic disease, with obesity, with diabetes, with autism, with so many other things that we've just kind of accepted as normal is incredible. If nothing else is ever left behind, of a legacy from this presidential administration that alone would be such a major win and would be culturally redefining for the next generation of our kids. I was also really pleasantly surprised to see the American Medical association there at the event and speaking at the event about the importance of limiting processed foods and encouraging people to put nutrition at the forefront of the conversations that they're having in medical settings. The AMA really issues tons and tons and tons of guidelines for physicians across the country in giving them recommendations for how best to treat their patients. As we talked about the other day, on a totally separate note related to child gender transition, these medical societies aren't regulatory bodies. They don't get to make regulation decisions, but they do get to provide lots and lots of guidance to the people who are part of the club. So, like the American Medical association works with mostly general practitioners, but doctors across the country to tell them, hey, here's the best practice for how you can best be a physician today. They just updated their specific guidelines on child gender transition last week, and now it seems that they are very excited about putting nutrition and preventative health proactive measures at the forefront of general family medicine as well for general practitioners. So it's interesting to me that a few years ago, if you would have seen said science has the capacity to change and that scientific guidelines can be updated based on knowing better than we did yesterday, you would have been ridiculed off the Internet almost immediately. Like you had your medical license be threatened to take be taken away. If you were a physician, you were kicked out of the scientific esteemed expert community. I can't tell you how many stories I heard from scientists and physicians that were completely ostracized because they kept the saying we shouldn't just be listening to the loudest voices. We should be following objective truth. Now, it seems that even the American Medical association that participated in a lot of that ostracization of physicians and pushing of propaganda, seems to be refining some things, changing some things, updating some things based on following the pursuit of objective truth and the real scientific method, rather than just following the science, aka Dr. Fauci. So I think we're in for a really interesting change of pace in our country.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

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