In past video, Oz suggests higher food prices would encourage people to eat healthier

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Meat at $90 a pound was apparently a suggestion by Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz years ago to encourage people to eat more healthy food.

Democrat John Fetterman's campaign jumped on the report, saying Oz is out of touch with average Pennsylvanians. 

Dieticians will tell you that red meat in your diet is not always the healthy choice, but pricing meat to make it unaffordable to average families isn't something most candidates would suggest.

"If we did not subsidize the food in this country, a pound of meat would cost us $90, and you wouldn't be eating a lot of it," Oz said, appearing at the Aspen Institute's health forum more than a decade ago.

Oz argued against federal food subsidies for farmers, saying higher food prices would discourage people from buying unhealthy food. 

"It's probably important for us to have higher prices for some foods so that people don't take advantage of subsidies that make foods that aren't ecologically sensible and create huge imbalances and prevent them from selling them at the magnitude that they sell now," he said. 

The Fetterman campaign reacted quickly to the report. 

"John Fetterman is working hard every day to campaign on solutions to reduce costs and help Pennsylvania families fight inflation, and for Oz to suggest that the average Pennsylvania family should pay $90 a pound for meat is so unfathomable and out of touch," said Fetterman campaign manager Brendan McPhillips.

Citing Oz's recent TikTok posting on crudités, or veggie trays, where Oz complained about high food prices, Fetterman's campaign called Oz a hypocrite.

"He'll go talk about food prices as if it's something he wants to fix, and then out of the other side of his mouth he'll talk about consumers should be paying more for meat because that's the latest elite idea floating around his circles. I think it shows he's hypocritical and voters can't trust what he says," McPhillips said.

KDKA asked the Oz campaign to respond to Oz's original comments at the Aspen Institute and to the claims made by Fetterman's campaign manager. Oz campaign senior advisor Barney Keller responded, "Only an idiot would think such an outlandish claim was true."

The animosity between these two campaigns is pretty obvious. The election is less than a month away.