alt Hacker NewsRealfood.gov includes a Grok search box
Comments
> We are ending the war on protein
Damn, I already missed the war on christmas, now this too?
I asked
> Is saturated fat a health food? 100 words max.
It answered
> No, saturated fat is not a health food. Scientific consensus, including from the American Heart Association and recent meta-analyses, shows that excessive intake raises LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular disease risk. While some sources like dairy may be less harmful, replacing saturated fats with unsaturated ones (e.g., from plants) reduces heart risks by 20-30%. The 2025-2030 US Guidelines limit it to <10% of calories but controversially promote certain sources, drawing criticism. Moderation is key.
The HHS Secretary disagrees with this. The AI is poorly aligned to the administration.
While maybe not the best work ever done by govt. It's the first thing (as a non-US person) that I've seen that the govt is trying to do something about the unhealthy % population of the US.
Though I wish they'd go after sugar/processed foods/drinks industry. And increase healthy foods in stores. Get rid of white bread etc, put in real whole meal bread (like they have in Germany)
It just forwards you to Grok with a query string.. so Grok without grounding data is apparently our government's way of assisting Americans with nutritional advice.
Statement on the site, not the Grok link, but I'm seeing parallels between the two.
It seems to be mostly good advice, but there are definitely some questionable statements in there.
When has there been a war on protein?
When has the advice ever prioritised highly processed foods?
The way it's worded sounds as if it thinks this is ground breaking advice. Looks to me like the same old food pyramid that's been used since Jesus was a child.
Ain't nothing revolutionary here. Maybe if they put additional taxes on foods that were highly processed? Maybe if they forced cancer warnings on highly processed foods? Subsidise sales of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and protein rich "real food" to encourage it's consumption over processed salty, sugary items? Now THAT would be revolutionary!
it doesn't even make sense. it literally just links to grok; its not even a wrapper with system prompt.
what's the messaging here?
For comparison: Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2020 - 2025) https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/sites/default/files/2020-1...
That's not a search box.
I asked it "How trustworthy is realfood.gov?" It gave me a pretty long response that seemed decent. One part of it said:
"Ironically, the site integrates a Grok AI chatbot (from xAI) for answering nutrition questions, and reports indicate Grok sometimes provides responses that contradict or qualify parts of the site's own guidelines (e.g., noting concerns about evidence quality for certain emphases or that most Americans already get sufficient protein)."
Overall it was pretty positive about the site. Then I asked it, "Is HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a trustworthy source of nutrition info?" It responded with some positive things, but was happy to call out his bullshit as well, and concluded:
"In summary, RFK Jr. is a mixed bag as a nutrition source: authoritative by virtue of his position, with some valid points on processed foods that resonate with experts, but his lack of specialized expertise, history of misinformation, and controversial guideline changes make him unreliable for many in the scientific community. For personalized nutrition advice, it's best to cross-reference with sources like registered dietitians, peer-reviewed studies, or organizations such as the American Heart Association, rather than relying solely on any single figure or policy."
I wonder if they know what it "thinks" about him.
[flagged]
This appears to be vibecoded slop. I feel like I can instantly tell when a website is slop… I’m interested to know if others have noticed this ability start to crop up as these vibe codes sites appear on HN
I have no problem with this. Much less chance of getting biased answers.
Directly linking to it doesn't seem to work, search for "Use AI to get real answers about real food" on the page. There is no integration or site-specific prompt, it's just a box that opens grok.com for you.
Since there is no integration, results have nothing to do with the content of realfood.gov, and often contradict it. For example, you can ask "how much protein should I eat per day" and get a wildly different answer, since Grok is citing NIH and WHO recommendations.