Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired back at CNN after the network challenged his cooking show’s meal prices, accusing anchor Erin Burnett of having “abandoned both common sense and basic arithmetic.” The dispute centered on whether an ingredient’s entire purchase price should count toward a recipe that uses only a small portion. Kennedy defended calculating the quantities actually used. He also accused Burnett of allowing her hostility toward President Donald Trump to interfere with her judgment.
The controversy followed an August 19th segment on “Erin Burnett OutFront,” where correspondent Tom Foreman investigated a meal featured on Kennedy’s “The Real Food Show.” Chef Andrew Gruel joined Kennedy for the program’s premiere, preparing crispy salmon cakes accompanied by an apple, white bean and greens salad. The administration’s cooking series promotes home-prepared meals as part of Trump’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.
Foreman bought groceries and prepared the dish himself, reporting a checkout total of $70.54 against the show’s advertised price of less than $20 for four people. His calculation included purchasing containers of ingredients that the recipe would only partially consume. Kennedy subsequently challenged that approach in a response to the segment shared on X, defending the show’s method of assigning costs to individual meals.
In his response, Kennedy wrote, “CNN wants us to incorporate the full package price of every ingredient, regardless of what is used in the recipe.” He compared the network’s calculation to a restaurant billing a customer for an entire ketchup bottle when the customer used a small amount on a hamburger. Kennedy described his program’s approach as “standard recipe costing.”
The grocery comparisons included an onion and avocado mayonnaise. According to CNN’s transcript, the show assigned eight cents to the onion portion, while Foreman spent more than a dollar purchasing the whole vegetable. The mayonnaise allowance was 40 cents for the quantity used, compared with more than $11 for the container. “They’re only pricing parts of it. And grocery stores don’t sell things that way,” Foreman said.
Foreman also reported a difference in the salmon price, finding the closest frozen wild-caught sockeye option for more than $24, compared with the program’s $8.99 figure. He acknowledged that the preparation was manageable and that his finished dish resembled the version shown online. His report included HHS’s explanation that its pricing method accounted for ingredients used across multiple meals.
Watch Kennedy and chef Andrew Gruel prepare the salmon meal here:
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The department’s published recipe specifies one egg, two tablespoons of diced red onion and two tablespoons of avocado mayonnaise for the salmon cakes. The cakes also call for one tablespoon each of Dijon mustard and nutritional yeast, plus ¾ cup of panko breadcrumbs, alongside 1½ pounds of salmon. HHS lists the meal at approximately $5 per serving using frozen wild salmon and says canned salmon can reduce the cost further.
Kennedy said the unused ingredients remain available for subsequent meals and described building a pantry as part of the program’s purpose. The series’ official page pairs its cooking demonstrations with practical techniques and nutrition information. Other featured guests include chef Geoffrey Zakarian, who prepares an omelet and salad, and Daphne Oz, whose episode features a chickpea salad requiring no stove.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.