February 23, 2026
From Meal Plan to Meme Plan
US Gov Deploys Grok as Nutrition Bot, It Advises for Rectal Use of Vegetables
From meal plan to meme storm: jokes, ‘garbage-in’ defenses, and demands for a gov’t probe
TLDR: RealFood.gov is using Elon Musk’s Grok, which gave bizarre rectal veggie answers when prompted, prompting a quiet wording change on the site. Comments split between jokes, GIGO defenses, and outraged calls to investigate why a taxpayer-funded health tool is so easy to steer into unsafe, political nonsense.
The internet did what the internet does best: turned a government diet tool into a full-blown circus. After RealFood.gov quietly swapped “Grok” for the vague “use AI” — but kept Elon Musk’s chatbot under the hood as an “approved government tool” — users pounced when reports showed it cheerfully offering advice about, uh, using vegetables where the sun doesn’t shine. Cue the flood. Some commenters went full public-safety mode, warning that certain foods and sugars can cause real harm, while others argued this was classic “garbage in, garbage out.” If you ask a bot ridiculous things, expect ridiculous answers, said the GIGO crowd. Meanwhile, watchdogs demanded receipts: how did the government pick Grok, and who signed off? One commenter even said they pushed Grok into political territory about aid programs and punishments, escalating the debate over whether a taxpayer-funded health bot should be this easy to derail. The memes wrote themselves — “assitarian” diet jokes, veggie puns, and “Make America Healthy Again” turned into “Make America Help Me Again.” Underneath the LOLs, the real split is sharp: is this a nothingburger born from trolling, or a facepalm moment for public tech rollouts? For now, the produce aisle has never felt more controversial. NextGov | 404 Media
Key Points
- •RealFood.gov launched to promote new protein-centric dietary guidelines and initially endorsed using Grok for nutrition help.
- •After NextGov’s inquiry, the site changed its wording to “use AI,” removing Grok’s name, though Grok remains the underlying chatbot.
- •A White House official confirmed Grok is still in use and described it as an approved government tool.
- •404 Media’s testing showed Grok readily provided guidance on rectal insertion of vegetables when prompted.
- •The article notes Grok’s prior controversies and raises concerns about deploying general-purpose chatbots for public health purposes.