Vice President JD Vance told White House reporters he owes his visible weight loss to a high-protein, sauerkraut-heavy diet prescribed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a regimen now spreading through the Trump cabinet.
Vance fielded the question at a White House briefing room press conference, the first held since former press secretary Karoline Leavitt's departure. Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Peter Doocy noted that Vance had "lost a ton of weight recently" and asked how much sauerkraut the vice president eats. Vance leaned into the moment with characteristic self-deprecation, telling reporters:
"So, when you're the vice president of the United States, and one of the first questions at a press conference of the White House is how much weight you've lost, you must have gotten very fat."
Vance then walked through the backstory. He said he was talking with his wife on Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, and told her he planned to give up sugar for Lent. As a self-described "devout Christian," he wanted to observe the season seriously. But before he could start, he called Kennedy for advice and got a different answer entirely.
"And Bobby Kennedy says, 'No, no, no, no. I've got something that's way better than that and way more intense.'"
That "something" turned out to be a strict regimen built around high-protein foods and fermented staples, above all, sauerkraut. Vance said the results were immediate and unmistakable: "If that was Fat Tuesday, Fat Wednesday never came."
Vance is not the only senior official following Kennedy's lead. Newsmax reported that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have also adopted the program, which was developed by Dr. Sean O'Mara. The diet centers on fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi, grass-fed steak, and whole foods, while cutting out alcohol, sugar, and processed foods.
Kennedy himself has been the most vocal evangelist. He claimed to have lost 20 pounds within 30 days on the diet and said publicly that Vance "is also on the diet and you can see how different he looks." Fox News reported that Kennedy also claimed he lost 40 percent of his visceral fat within a month and 20 pounds in 20 days.
Dr. O'Mara, whose protocol appears to have influenced Kennedy's approach, told the Wall Street Journal he prefers working with older clients because, as the New York Post reported, "the ROI is so much greater.... It's like taking over a sinking ship, a company that is headed to bankruptcy." O'Mara's diet combines carnivore-style red meat with fermented foods, eggs, pickles, berries, and aged cheeses.
The diet's reach extends beyond personal health. Kennedy's new federal dietary guidelines include, for the first time, recommendations for fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, and kefir, a shift that aligns with the broader "Make America Healthy Again" public health agenda Kennedy has championed since taking over HHS.
Not every Trump administration official has stuck with the program. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on The Katie Miller Podcast in an episode published August 11 and called it "a crazy diet."
"This is a diet that consists of eating sauerkraut and meat. This is not a sustainable thing; like you can't just walk into it."
Rubio said Kennedy "has to travel with coolers of sauerkraut" and made clear he had no interest in following suit. "I'm not gonna travel the world with a cooler full of sauerkraut. It's ridiculous. I can't do it. It's not sustainable." His wife, Jeanette Rubio, interjected that Kennedy can "sustain" it, a point Rubio did not dispute but clearly did not find persuasive.
The diet was not the only discipline Vance took on during Lent. He told reporters he also stepped away from social media, directing his staff to post on his behalf. "I'd tell these guys to tweet something for me, and I'd otherwise try to stay off social media," he said. Vance did not specify whether the social media fast lasted the full Lenten season or how strictly he maintained it.
The Washington Examiner noted that Kennedy was the first administration official to adopt the red meat and fermented food regimen before recruiting Vance, Lutnick, and Duffy. Vance's public endorsement at the briefing gave the diet its highest-profile moment yet.
Vance closed his answer with a line that doubled as both a testimonial and a warning:
"My advice to you is that if you want to lose weight, call Bobby Kennedy. And if you want to enjoy what you eat, do not call Bobby Kennedy."
In an administration that has made personal health a policy priority, the vice president just put his waistline where his mouth is, and credited the man running HHS for the results.
