A term once reserved for granola-eating hippies, “crunchy” moms has evolved into a label for women who embrace a more natural lifestyle for their families.
These are women who favor herbal treatments over physician-prescribed and over-the-counter medications, cooking with butter or beef tallow instead of seed oils, examining food labels at the grocery store, and exercising caution about vaccinating their children.
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran for president—first as a Democrat and then as an independent—these moms were among his most vocal supporters.
Fighting chronic disease, improving children’s health, and addressing corporate influence on government agencies were vital parts of Kennedy’s campaign platform.
Ultimately, Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign and backed the Trump ticket in August 2024.
Since then, Kennedy has launched his Make America Healthy Again campaign, with the intention to curtail what he calls America’s chronic disease epidemic. He is seeking to have toxic chemicals from the nation’s food supply removed and he wants to address what he has branded the corporate capture of federal health agencies, among other objectives.
In November, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Kennedy to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the latter promptly pledged to make sweeping changes to its subsidiary agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Several moms told The Epoch Times they are ecstatic about the possibility of Kennedy as HHS secretary, pending Senate confirmation.
“With RFK Jr., we have a champion in our corner,” Lyndsey Mulherin told The Epoch Times.
A homesteader in northwest Ohio, Mulherin has devoted her life to being a stay-at-home mom caring for her three children, including her middle son, Jack, who was diagnosed with autism at age 2. She blames a vaccine.
“Everything we put in or on our body affects our health. In its simplest form, that is what crunchy moms are all about,” Mulherin said.
“People have questioned our decisions to not vaccinate our [other] kids, and avoid certain foods and cleaning products among other items we use in everyday life.
“Now, because of Kennedy’s platform, Trump nominating Kennedy, and what Kennedy plans to do, people are starting to learn what we learned a long time ago,” Mulherin said.
Kristen Taylor is a South Carolina mom who embraces a holistic lifestyle. She wasn’t always that way.
“There was a time I believed and trusted conventional doctors. I thought they knew everything about health. I believed what the media told us about health,” she said.
“I thought vaccines were necessary and getting my children vaccinated was a sign I was a good mother. Simply put, I was indoctrinated.”
Taylor was motivated to dig deeper into products when she investigated the ingredients of a self-tanning wipe she used and found they included parabens, which have been linked to causing cancer.
“I started reading the ingredients of every single product our family was putting on our skin and if I saw an even somewhat questionable ingredient, I trashed that product. I woke up.”
A fitness enthusiast, Taylor has a Master’s degree and taught in public school before she decided to become a stay-at-home mom and a homeschool teacher.
“The collaboration between Trump and RFK Jr. gives me hope that I haven’t felt in a long time. Those of us who are crunchy, holistic, natural—whatever you want to call it—believe in RFK Jr. because he is one of us and he didn’t dismiss us,” Taylor told The Epoch Times.
“He takes the time to deeply learn about a topic, and if he finds reason to stand up for it, he does it loud and clear. That’s why so many of us back him, regardless of political beliefs, because he genuinely cares and is committed to making positive change,” she said.
“That’s been lacking in our health care agencies for a long time,” she added.
Krista Cobb, a 41-year-old mother of three, grew up in the hills of southeastern Kentucky where her grandparents taught her all about canning, gardening, and hunting.
After moving to an urban area in the Dayton, Ohio, area and living there for a few decades, she grew tired of the “concrete jungle” and bought a small property in rural western Ohio last year.
Since then, she has transformed the land into a homestead with chickens, goats, ducks, and gardens.
“I wanted to get back to my roots,” Cobb told The Epoch Times.
An ardent Trump supporter, Cobb told The Epoch Times she is “ecstatic” that Kennedy might be days away from becoming HHS secretary.
“It’s long overdue for vaccine schedules to be addressed, for toxins to be removed from our food, and for government health agencies to be managed by people who have no ties to Big Pharma and Big Ag,” Cobb said.
“I believe that Kennedy will do what he says he’s going to do, and we as a country will be better off.
“It will take some time. I don’t think it will all happen overnight, but just knowing he will be in a position to make those changes is a great feeling.”
Mulherin said her son, Jack, developed autism when he was 2. She stopped all vaccinations, eliminated all processed foods and artificial dyes, went to a chiropractor instead of a pediatrician, and took him to occupational and speech therapy.
She said Jack is now a thriving 15-year-old high school student. She has three children, and her youngest is not vaccinated.
Mulherin is hopeful that Kennedy is confirmed as HHS secretary, after which she would like to see detailed studies to determine if vaccines are a cause of autism.
Kennedy has said for years that autism is likely tied to childhood vaccines and has pushed for a robust study to investigate.
In December 2024, Trump said that he would give Kennedy the freedom to investigate the potential link between vaccines and autism as HHS secretary.
“What Kennedy wants to do is show through actual science the truth about vaccines and food. No matter what your political allegiance is, it would seem like you would want that.” Mulherin said.
Christina Weisner, who is raising two grandchildren, was diagnosed with Celiac disease 15 years ago. That led her to start paying attention to labels of food products.
“At the time, I thought it was a negative because I had this uncomfortable health condition, but it ended up being a blessing because I learned all about the junk I was eating and [was] not aware of. It changed my life for the better,” Weisner said.
When she learned she had Celiac disease, Weisner poured herself into learning about environmental toxins and vaccine dangers. That is when she first heard Kennedy’s views about those topics.
Weisner believes she was injured by a vaccine and she now advocates for informed consent, in which a health care professional informs a patient of potential side-effects before he or she consents to receiving a vaccine. Weisner makes her own cleaning supplies, researches “every food item in the house,” and uses holistic medicines and essential oils.
Weisner told The Epoch Times that she “loves so many things that Kennedy stands for” and she applauded his decision to leave the presidential race and endorse Trump.
“When we look back a few years from now, I think that moment—when Kennedy and Trump announced the unity ticket—will be remembered as an important step in turning this country’s health around and actually studying vaccine safety instead of pushing them on people,” she said.
The widespread discussion of the MAHA movement in mainstream media, Trump nominating Kennedy to lead the HHS, and the changes Kennedy plans to implement if he is confirmed by the Senate “is validation of what we as moms have been saying and practicing for years,” Weisner said.
“This shouldn’t be a political issue. It’s a health issue, and we are all humans. Kennedy has a proven track record of being passionate about his causes and following through on what he says he is going to do,” she said.
A 40-year-old mother of two, Samantha Adams is the founder of Hadassah’s Herbs for Health and Healing.
She was born and raised in the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio and still lives there.
Adams developed an interest in foraging for herbs and plants when she was a little girl and was inspired to make her first tincture when her oldest son (who is now 18) caught whooping cough when he was 2.
“I felt helpless because I had to rely on the hospital to treat it, and at the time I also started learning about ingredients in and potential problems with vaccines, and how they can impact the body,” she said.
Adams immersed herself in learning about foraging and identifying herbs and plants that were readily available on the 100-acre property where she lived at the time.
Over time, Adams started treating her children’s strep throat, ear infections, and other ailments with homemade herbal remedies.
When she was in a near-fatal car accident in 2021 and suffered a lengthy list of injuries, physicians placed her on pain medications and would not allow her to use herbal treatments at the hospital, she said.
Once she returned home, she stopped using pain medications and turned to turmeric, ginger, frankincense, and cinnamon.
“I fully recovered without side effects,” she said.
Adams launched a holistic business centered on herbal tinctures, teas, and capsules. She was told by naysayers that relying on herbal treatments over pharmaceuticals for her children was “dangerous” and “irresponsible.”
“I knew, from my own experience and from several years of treating my children with the plants that God provided, that they work, but there were many times when I felt I was all alone in that thinking. Now, I don’t feel like I’m alone,” Adams told The Epoch Times.
She said she would like to see a Kennedy-led HHS remove chemicals, preservatives, and artificial dyes from America’s food supply, much like other countries have done.
She would also like to see vaccine manufacturers be held liable again, vaccine safety studies enhanced, and vaccine mandates abolished in every state.
“These changes will improve the health of children and adults, and they will give informed consent and medical freedom, which is still severely lacking in this country,” Adams said.
She would also like insurance companies to add holistic doctors to their policies.
“Right now, it’s rare that holistic options are paid for by insurance, so just as it costs more to buy clean, organic food, it costs more to go to holistic physicians, and many people can’t afford it,” Adams said.
“That needs to change, and Kennedy as HHS secretary is a start towards those changes and other improvements.”