Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Make America Healthy Movement have effectively united the country around the urgent need to address our nation’s costly chronic disease epidemic. Where there is less agreement is the debate over saturated fat.

Leading health authorities like the American Heart Association argue that it is amajor driver of heart disease. Others, including a growing number of wellness influencers, claim it has beenunfairly maligned.

But amid the fierce debates over whether butter is better than seed oil, one critical issue has been largely ignored: the large number of harmful chemical contaminants hiding in animal fat.

This conversation is especially urgent with imminent release of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and statements by Kennedy, calling formore fat from animal sources like beef tallow and full-fat whole milk products, which was echoed in the recently releasedMAHA Commission report. Although there is broad agreement on the need to cut down on ultra-processed foods made with seed oils, Kennedy and other MAHA advocates pushing full fat animal products are failing to acknowledge the toxic load that comes with industrial meat and dairy products, which make upat least 95 percent of the animal foods people eat.

The MAHA Commission’s Report identified cumulative chemical exposure as a key driver of the rise in childhood chronic disease, but fat’s capacity to store environmental toxins means that eating more fat increases one’s exposure to those very same chemicals. Dioxins, heavy metals like mercury and cadmium, and pesticide residues build up in the fatty tissues of animals, especially those raised in industrial settings. These risks have been well-documented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and National Institutes of Health.

Dioxins are among the most toxic substances known to science. According to the EPA, more than 90 percent of typical human exposure is through the intake of animal fats. Dioxins are produced as byproducts of waste incineration and industrial manufacturing, and they concentrate in animal fat through contaminated feed and environmental exposure. Long-term exposure to even low levels of dioxins is linked to cancer, immune dysfunction and reproductive and development harm. That means, a family’s Sunday roast, or the burger a teenager grabs after practice, is the primary route by which these poisons enter the body.

Heavy metals like cadmium and mercury also concentrate up the food chain, particularly in organ meats, dairy and seafood. A tuna sandwich tucked into a child’s lunchbox or a glass of milk poured at breakfast may seem wholesome, but these can deliver trace metals the body struggles to eliminate. Add to that insecticides like malathion, which is used widely on genetically engineered corn for animal feed.

Those chemicals don’t just stay in the soil — they accumulate in animal tissue, fat and milk, eventually ending up on our plates and in our bodies and those of our children. A comprehensive2024 study found that meat and dairy contribute significantly to human pesticide exposure, with livestock and poultry accounting for 39 percent of overall exposure and whole milk and dairy products accounting for 22 percent of all exposures.

Some of the most dangerous pesticides, such as DDT and other persistent organic pollutants, don’t simply vanish when they’re banned. They are lipophilic, meaning they dissolve and store in fat, especially animal fats. Even decades after DDT was banned, it is still found in measurable levels inbutter, meat andbreast milk.

For example, in 2023, out of 531 butter samples,DDE (a DDT metabolite) was detected in 188 samples (35 percent) and in 2021, bifenthrin (a neurotoxic insecticide) was found in 37 percent of butter samples tested. Essentially, foods that should be simple staples, such as a pat of butter on your toast, can still carry the chemical legacy of dangerous farming practices from generations ago.

Worse still, these chemicals don’t act alone. Meat and dairy often contain traces of multiple pesticides, antibiotics, and veterinary drugs like ractopamine — creating a toxic cocktail whose combined effects scientists are only beginning to understand. The FDA has approved over450 drugs for use in industrial livestock systems. Some, like ractopamine, are banned in China, the EU and many countries around the world. This isn’t about a single bad actor, it’s about layering risks on top of each other — and hoping for the best.

If we are serious about health, we need to stop exposing animals — and, by extension, people, especially babies and children — to a cocktail of persistent industrial pollutants and animal drugs. That means advancing policies that support farmer transitions away from chemical-intensive factory farming to diversified, regenerative systems as well as increased production of organic and plant-based foods, including animal feed, while reducing toxic chemical use across agriculture.

Given all the pollutants that accumulate in the fatty tissue of animals, we also need dietary guidelines that educate consumers about these risks and urge Americans to eat more whole plant-based proteins, fewer factory-farmed animal foods and more organic, pasture-raised meat and dairy products produced without harmful pesticides, antibiotics and growth-promoting drugs.

This is especially important since these guidelines influence the foods offered to younger school children, who are most vulnerable to the cumulative impacts of these toxic chemicals, as President Trump’s MAHA Commission report has acknowledged. The truth is, whether you believe that saturated fat is or is not a desirable nutrient, everyone should be concerned about the contaminants that accumulate in the fatty tissues of animals — and in all of us.

Kari Hamerschlag is deputy director of food and agriculture at Friends of the Earth and Liam Gray is founder and executive director of Wilberforce Institute, a nonprofit profit organization focused on free market and pro-liberty solutions to end animal suffering.

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