Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited West Virginia on March 28 to promote his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda at an event where he cruelly criticized state Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s weight. Kennedy suggested that he would host a public weigh-in and celebration once Morrisey had shed 30 pounds, and Kennedy had an idea about how the governor could do it: “We’re going to put him on a carnivore diet,” Kennedy said.

Weeks before, science journalist and meat enthusiast Nina Teicholz argued in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled “Meat Will Make America Healthy Again” that when the US government updates its dietary guidelines this year, it needs to keep meat firmly at the center of the plate.

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“The Trump administration can ensure that federal dietary guidelines recognize the role of high-quality protein in improving Americans’ health,” Teicholz wrote. (In her view, “high-quality protein” comes from animals, while protein from plants is “inferior.”)

Meat industry groups, such as the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Board, have made similar pleas. Lucky for them, Kennedy and US Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins — who so far has acted in lockstep with the meat industry — are in charge of publishing the new federal dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years.

But the push to get Americans to eat more meat goes against what the government’s own nutrition experts recommend. In December, a government-commissioned expert committee recommended the federal dietary guidelines be updated to encourage Americans to eat less........

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