Food & Climate
President Donald Trump’s nominee to become U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Casey Means, rejects the ultra-processed foods and alternative meats and advocates for natural foods. Why are some people upset about her selection?
Means is the co-founder of Levels, a company that sells glucose monitors, and author of the diet and self-help book Good Energy, along with her brother Calley Means. The siblings served as advisors to RFK Jr’s presidential bid and were key voices behind his decision to endorse Trump, according to a report seen by “Food & Climate” platform.
Calley is currently serving as a health advisor to the White House, and his sister could join him in the government role if confirmed. Means graduated from Stanford Medical School, but dropped out just before finishing her residency in 2019 after becoming disillusioned with America’s “exploitative” healthcare system.
She is now a wellness influencer who carries many of the same views as RFK Jr, and is a leading voice in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. She is a proponent of raw milk and rails against Big Food and Big Pharma, and advocates for regenerative agriculture and the dismantling of the meatpacking monopoly.
Ultra-processed foods refuse
As soon as Trump nominated Dr. Kacey Means, she faced criticism from various quarters. On the left, she is viewed as unqualified for the position of Surgeon General, given her lack of a valid medical license and training in nutrition. On the right, she represents a shift in Robert Kennedy Jr.’s agenda from a focus on vaccines to a prioritization of food.
Means’s confirmation process is likely to be heated, complicated, and uncertain, given the complaints from both sides of the aisle. If she makes it through, she could have a major say on the future of agriculture and food tech in the US.
Meat alternative makers could be in for a storm if Means is confirmed, mainly due to her fierce criticism of ultra-processed foods (UPFs).
“Ultra-processed foods cause serious chronic disease and are highly addictive. Junk food causes more deaths globally than tobacco. We should move to put warning labels on every one of these products, akin to the Surgeon General warning for cigarettes,” she wrote after Trump’s victory in November, noting that such policies have even been pushed by leftist politicians like Bernie Sanders.
The ultra-processed foods tag has already been a major thorn in the side of plant-based meat, whose sales have dipped continuously over the last few years. In 2024, they fell by 7% in the US. This has coincided with a rise in meat consumption (which reached record sales) amid a wider cultural shift, and RFK Jr’s own criticism of UPFs and “fake meat”.
Means herself has lambasted plant-based meat. In a post promoting her brother’s appearance on Fox News, she wrote: “Fake meat is toxic sludge, never eat it. Make today the day you never buy an ultra-processed food again. Ultra processed foods are quite literally how the system is making us sick, dependent, profitable, controllable, mentally ill, and leech our precious minds (Alzheimer’s, a largely lifestyle illness). Don’t fall for the scam. Don’t buy it.”
Regenerative agriculture
Means isn’t necessarily against plant-based eating. While she is not a fan of meat alternatives, she has championed whole foods and traditional plant proteins.
“I’ve moved away from personally being plant-based,” she said on a podcast last year, adding: “I think there’s absolutely a way to have a metabolically healthy plant-based diet.”
She went on to reveal that while 75% of her current protein intake comes from animal products, she still loves ot get her protein from “nuts, seeds, beans, [and] legumes”.
In an op-ed for Women’s Health magazine last year, she recommended eating whole-food animal and plant sources, including “tofu, tempeh, nuts, and seeds”. In fact, one of her tips for healthy eating on a budget involved replacing meat and fish with “plant-based proteins, like beans and lentils, for some meals”.
With scientists recommending the US Department of Agriculture priorities traditional plant proteins over red meat in the upcoming dietary guidelines, Means’s stance could be crucial.
Like RFK Jr, Means is an outspoken advocate for regenerative agriculture amidst her criticism of the “highly destructive practices of industrial farming”.
“Reform crop subsidies and create programmes to rapidly increase the adoption of Regenerative Farming practices,” she wrote in her policy wishlist for the Trump administration. “Studies have suggested that with current industrial farming practices, American soil will be unsuitable for growing food within 50 years. It will be fully destroyed by glyphosate and other pesticides and fertilisers and devoid of the nutrients needed to grow food.”
She suggests that “choosing regeneratively grown foods is one of the most powerful choices you can make as a health seeker or environmentalist”, since crops grown this way help sequester carbon from the atmosphere, lower fossil fuel use via pesticide reduction, protect water systems, and replenish soil and nature.
Moreover, Means has encouraged consumption of regenerative meat and dairy, and said she eats “regeneratively raised” elk, bison, and venison, according to “green queen”.