Rfk Jr. Takes Push To Get Junk Food Out Of Hospitals To Florida

MIAMI — HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chose President Donald Trump’s home state of Florida to roll out a new health initiative aimed at overhauling hospital food.

Having revamped the food pyramid and pushed state food assistance programs to restrict soda and other processed foods, Kennedy has turned his sights on U.S. hospitals, arguing that providing healthy food to patients can aid healing and reduce readmissions. And the announcement taking place in Florida is another signal of the state’s continued alignment with MAHA movement priorities being heralded by the Trump administration.

“We shouldn't be giving people who are sick Jell-O, Cheerios, rubber chicken and sugary drinks,” Kennedy said at the event, hosted by the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute think tank. “We have the best medical technology in the world,” he continued. “We have the best doctors. We have the finest hospitals in the world, but for some reason for many years they haven't recognized the most important tool of medicine today is good food.”

During a press conference at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, Kennedy announced that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent a notice to hospitals Monday morning asking them to “align their food purchases with the dietary guidelines in order to enjoy continued eligibility for Medicaid and Medicare payments.” Hospitals, he said, were eager to participate and needed an incentive to do so.

CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, who also appeared at the event, criticized a majority of hospital food being treated as an “afterthought” which is “poorly prepared” and “lacking nutrients of the nature that you actually need for a full recovery.”

Florida is quickly taking up the Trump administration’s new edict, with state Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson telling attendees at Monday’s event that a program pairing food banks with in-state farmers and ranchers would be expanding to health care facilities.

The announcement follows other moves state Republicans have made to try to be first in copying the Trump administration’s MAHA focus. On health care, the Legislature voted to remove fluoride from drinking water, and Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo have pushed for the state to do away with vaccine mandates.

“Florida is ready to lead,” Simpson said at Monday’s event, pointing to hundreds of products grown in the state. “We are 100 percent on board with Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration's commitment to driving real food and advancing ‘Food as Health’ initiative nationwide. Because here in Florida, we just don't talk about it. We grow it.”

The Florida program connecting food banks with local farmers and ranchers, which was started last year, was a priority for Florida Senate President Ben Albritton. The programs help farmers, allow for fresher, seasonal food distribution and reduce waste, Simpson said.

Hannah Anderson, director of Healthy America Policy at AFPI, called Monday’s announcement the “first meaningful implementation of the new food pyramid for the sickest kids.”

“This means that kids getting cancer treatment will eat real protein from the producers here in Florida,” she said. “This means that kids getting treatment for debilitating diseases will get whole milk. And this means that the kids who are fighting infection are getting the vitamin C or vitamin A from food that's grown right here in Florida.”

Neither Florida first lady Casey DeSantis nor Ladapo, two officials who have championed Sunshine State MAHA efforts, were present for Monday’s announcement. The first lady and Ladapo recently launched the Healthy Florida First initiative, which aims to test consumer products and then publish the results online. Recent test results that discovered harmful metals in baby formula and high levels of glyphosate in some store-bought breads were billed by the first lady as a mission to help parents make informed decisions about their children, and seemingly align with Kennedy’s disdain for processed foods.

Also missing from the news conference was the state Agency for Health Care Administration, which falls under the governor's office and oversees most of the state’s Medicaid program as well as quality control for all health care facilities in the state. The governor’s current chief of staff, Jason Weida, is the former AHCA secretary.

The event came on the heels of Kennedy making a splash at the conservative CPAC conference last week. Event organizers jumped in to skip over a question from a reporter asking Kennedy whether he was concerned about Florida’s surge in measles cases.

HHS adviser Calley Means addressed the question later, defending Kennedy as someone who “has awoken in the country … an unimpeachable insight that 90 percent of our medical costs are on preventable chronic disease” and pointed to how medical groups have been more supportive of the nutrition piece of the secretary’s agenda even while waging lawsuits in other areas.

“This is historic,” he said. “This is uniting and this is what the administration is focused on.”