These days, a certain smell permeates some areas of the West Wing, and it’s not floor polish or coffee. It’s cabbage. Some of the most powerful men in the nation consumed spoonfuls of fermented, tangy, slightly sulfurous cabbage. Somewhere along the way, a few Trump administration officials came to the conclusion that eating a jar of sauerkraut was the key to having clearer skin and a flatter stomach, and they haven’t looked back.
The cast of converts resembles an attendance sheet from a cabinet meeting. After years of experimenting with diets ranging from raw milk to intermittent fasting, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is said to have arrived first approximately a year ago. JD Vance, the vice president, joined the team during Lent and, remarkably, remained there long after the season was over. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick came next. If it weren’t so meticulously recorded by reporters who obviously couldn’t resist it either, it’s the kind of detail that would sound made up.
The diet itself isn’t particularly unique. It mostly avoids alcohol and sugar in favor of grass-fed steak, eggs, berries, pickles, and generous amounts of kimchi and sauerkraut. Dr. Sean O’Mara, whose consultations reportedly start at $8,000 and rise to $18,000 for a direct visit, is said to provide advice to several officials. It’s difficult to ignore the irony of a White House cabinet rediscovering peasant food through a luxury wellness pipeline, and fermented cabbage was a survival food in Central Europe long before anyone called it a gut-health hack.
By most accounts, Vance has turned into a believer. Eggs, pickles, sauerkraut, and berries are typically served for lunch, while more fermented cabbage is typically served with beef or lamb for dinner. He has been known to eat grass-fed jerky as a snack instead of reaching for processed food, even on Air Force Two. Kennedy, for his part, has discussed how it can help with joint pain and weight loss, but he has also acknowledged that it doesn’t always taste good. This group seems to be drawn to the tension between discomfort and outcomes.
At home, things haven’t been totally easy either. Cheryl Hines, Kennedy’s wife, has made jokes in public about being given bags of sauerkraut to carry, something she has graciously but firmly refused to do. One small, strangely human detail in a story about national politics is the reported “domestic friction” from the diet’s odor, which is the kind of thing that makes the entire trend feel less like policy and more like an office lunchroom quirk that got out of control.
The president himself is conspicuously absent from the conversion. Trump was seen eating fries, pizza, and his typical Diet Coke at the NBA Finals earlier this month. It is said that Trump has previously opposed dietary changes. It appears that his own doctor has encouraged him to exercise more and adopt healthier eating practices, implying that the sauerkraut trend hasn’t yet reached the White House and might never need to.
It’s still unclear if any of this constitutes significant health science or is just the newest craze to sweep through a status-conscious city. Concerning the more general claims being made, nutritionists have expressed some caution. However, fads in Washington tend to spread through proximity, ego, and a little bit of peer pressure, just like they do everywhere else. As of right now, sauerkraut seems to have outcompeted kale, keto, and everything else on the cabinet’s table.
