Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offers high praise to a nationwide fast-food company that is embracing the Make America Health Again (MAHA) values and changing its food offerings to eschew ultra-processed food and incorporate whole food into its menu items.

Ultra-processed foods are fueling America’s chronic disease crisis. Under President Trump’s leadership, we flipped the food pyramid and put REAL FOOD back at the center of the American plate. 🇺🇸

Now, the food industry is responding.

Companies like Steak ’n Shake are answering Americans’ demand for real ingredients and better food. This is how we Make America Healthy Again: disrupt the status quo, raise the standard, and give Americans better choices.

Not only has the Steak 'N Shake MAHA menu been terrific promotion and public relations, but sales at all their locations have increased.

This past June, the restaurant introduced 100 percent grass-fed, grass-finished beef burgers nationwide.

As a result, owner Sardar Biglari said in his annual letter to shareholders that the company's financial performance in 2025 was 'the biggest story of the year,' with a 13 percent increase in same-store sales over the past year, and 10.7 percent the year before that.

He chalked much of the success up to the newly created position of 'Chief MAHA Officer' Michael Boes, who stepped into the role to 'restore the original spirit of American fast food.'

With the rollout of the MAHA menu, Boes emphasized the restaurant's dedication to nutritional integrity and ingredient transparency.

'Customers should never have to choose between taste and health, when restaurants commit to both, they serve better food and they build lasting trust,' Boes said in a press release.

While Steak 'N Shake has gotten much of the attention lately, the classic Southern California fast-food chain In-N-Out has also been making some MAHA moves.

On Tuesday, the California-based burger joint announced that it had made changes to the ingredients of its buns, salt and ketchup, in an effort to provide “the freshest, highest-quality food possible.”

In-N-Out said it would be removing sesame flour from its buns in 10 states, replacing iodized salt with sea salt in its seasoning packets, and making its ketchup with real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup.

In-N-Out's first MAHA change was in 2025, when it removed Red Dye #40 from its iconic lemonade and strawberry shake, but it is clear the company is working to align more closely with real food over ultra-processed food, albeit at a slower pace than Steak 'N Shake.

There are many who say that government has no business influencing food choices. What they fail to recognize is that government has had this outsized influence for over 50 years, and not for the better. MAHA's aims are to provide the tools for Americans to make better choices and use the existing apparatus to make real food more accessible and more affordable for all Americans, particularly where a good portion of the U.S. population accesses and consumes its food. 

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The fact that fast food chains are willingly making these shifts, customers are following, and new customers are being produced is a good indicator that Secretary Kennedy is on the right track.