Kevin McCarthy ran into Sean Duffy and noticed a big change.
He had to know what Duffy was doing – and what Duffy told him started a chain reaction nobody in Washington saw coming.
Now the Vice President is carrying it on Air Force Two and RFK's wife has drawn a hard line about her good purse.
The Trump Cabinet Sauerkraut Diet Taking Washington by Storm
A new Wall Street Journal report highlighted the diet that's become a craze in the White House and among Trump officials.
The diet is built around sauerkraut – fermented cabbage – along with kimchi (a spicy fermented Korean vegetable dish), grass-fed meats, and a hard stop on alcohol and sugar.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. started the diet about a year ago after meeting Dr. Sean O'Mara, a physician who spent years advising senior government officials – including during the Bush White House – before going into private practice.
O'Mara's approach is built around one simple idea: visceral fat is the enemy.
That's the hidden fat that packs around vital organs and drives chronic inflammation and heart disease – and it never shows up on a bathroom scale.
O'Mara uses full-body MRIs to find it, then builds a protocol around eliminating it.
Kennedy followed the protocol and lost 20 pounds in 30 days.
The diet also eliminated the atrial fibrillations he'd been dealing with and knocked out chronic aches and pains that had become part of his daily life.
Kennedy convinced Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick first – the two talked diet when they traveled to Colorado together in December 2025.
Lutnick had avoided red meat for years over cancer concerns.
He's now fermenting his own vegetables at home and has swapped Diet Coke for plain iced coffee.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy followed, and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy noticed the results before anyone told him what Duffy was doing – he spotted Duffy at an event and remarked that his skin was glowing.
McCarthy is now on the diet himself and has lost four inches off his waist.
JD Vance Weight Loss and the Fermented Foods Behind His Transformation
Vice President JD Vance initially signed on just for Lent earlier this year.
He never quit.
Vance's typical lunch is eggs, sauerkraut, pickles, blackberries, and raspberries.
Dinner is beef or lamb with sauerkraut.
On Air Force Two, he snacks on grass-fed beef jerky or a burger with cheese and no bun, with a side of fermented vegetables.
Kennedy said publicly at a Michigan event this week: "JD Vance is also on the diet and you can see how different he looks."
Photos of Vance from earlier this month flooded social media with comments about his transformation.
The Cabinet members swap tips when they're together at the White House.
Kennedy travels with a stash of sauerkraut everywhere he goes – his wife Cheryl Hines has started declining his requests to put the bag in her good purse.
This Is MAHA in Action
In January 2026, Kennedy and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins unveiled the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans – the first overhaul to explicitly call out fermented foods and gut microbiome health as national priorities.
The new food pyramid flipped the old one upside down: protein and healthy fats at the top, ultra-processed grains at the bottom.
Kennedy put it plainly: "The new framework centers on protein and healthy fats, vegetables, fruits and whole grains."
That's not a fringe diet.
That's the official nutritional policy of the United States government – built on exactly the science O'Mara has been putting into practice with Cabinet-level patients.
His private practice charges $8,000 for an optimization plan and $18,000 for a direct consultation – but he says the drive isn't the money.
The good news for the rest of us: a jar of sauerkraut at any grocery store runs about three dollars.
"Nothing will improve somebody's appearance more and their performance," O'Mara said.
O'Mara loves working with older patients because the return is so much greater – "like taking over a sinking ship, a company that is headed to bankruptcy."
The establishment media called it a quirky story about sulfurous odors in the Cabinet Room.
What it actually is: the Vice President, two Cabinet secretaries, and a former House Speaker dropped serious weight eating food that costs three dollars a jar – while 55% of Americans still get more than half their daily calories from ultra-processed junk.
The Left spent years demanding the government tell Americans what to eat.
Now that it is – and the advice is real food, fermented vegetables, and grass-fed meat instead of seed oils and government cheese – they hate it.
Sources:
- Natalie Andrews, "Everyone in Trump's Cabinet Is Eating Sauerkraut," The Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2026.
- Trinity Gentry, "RFK Sparks Diet Craze in the President's Cabinet," The Daily Wire, June 18, 2026.
- "Protein, Gut Health and Opportunity: New Dietary Guidelines Promise to Make America Healthy Again," NutraIngredients, January 8, 2026.
- "Kennedy, Rollins Unveil Historic Reset of U.S. Nutrition Policy," HHS.gov, January 2026.
- RFK Jr., remarks at meat industry conference, IFT Food Technology, March 11, 2026.