Trump’s nutrition advisor urged kids to eat food fresh from the ground at a MAHA event. Then he brought up hot dogs

Dr. Ben Carson, President Donald Trump’s nutrition adviser, spoke at an event on Monday that aimed to promote nutritious school meals sourced from local farmers. He suggested children should learn about and taste food that comes fresh from the ground.

According to The Independent, Carson recalled a recent school visit with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. He said they gave the children whole milk, and the students appeared amazed. According to Carson, the children said, “I didn’t know milk could taste this good!”

He then raised the idea of connecting students more directly with farming. “And what if we introduced them to food fresh from the ground? Teaching them, making these relationships with the farmers so they learn about the soil. They learn about irrigation. They learn about the effect that it has on their crop,” Carson said.

Carson listed tomatoes, sweet corn and hot dogs during the farm food discussion

Carson went on to describe specific examples of foods students might try. “They get an opportunity to eat a tomato fresh off the vine. It’s a different food than you get in the store, quite frankly. Fresh sweet corn and hot dogs,” he said. The audience responded with laughter.

He continued by stating that tasting these items makes a clear difference. “But what a difference it makes when they can taste these things. They won’t have a craving for the unhealthy foods that are so prevalent in our society,” Carson said. Carson’s nutrition advice comes as the administration has also focused on beef imports, such as when Trump announced a deal for 300,000 tons of cheap foreign ground beef but refused to say which countries it would come from. 

Carson is a former neurosurgeon who opposed Trump during the 2016 presidential election. He was sworn in last September as the national advisor for nutrition, health, and housing at the Department of Agriculture. He also previously served as Trump’s Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the first presidential term.

Carson appeared at the Agriculture Department’s Washington, D.C., headquarters on Monday. The event supported Rollins and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new “Harvest to Hallways” initiative, which forms part of the administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.

The initiative includes a $50 million investment in school cafeterias. Part of the funding is intended to help pay for new equipment, while up to $25 million is set aside in grants for schools to supply students with locally grown foods.

These school meal investments arrive at a time when a packed lunch for children costs more than $6, and many Americans face higher grocery bills. While many school districts still offer free or reduced-price cafeteria lunches, fewer children automatically qualify because of changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program made under the Trump administration.

In related comments from other officials tied to the same agenda, Kennedy presented a recipe on his cooking show focused on healthy and affordable meals. He calculated costs based on the price per serving of each ingredient rather than the full package price. 

Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse later noted that this approach does not reflect how shoppers must actually buy whole items at the store. The debate over how to measure food costs continues, as when a woman compared the prices of cookies and sweet potatoes at the same store. 

Rollins earlier suggested a simple budget meal consisting of “a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla and one other thing.” The comment drew public criticism at the time, including a remark on X from Variety’s chief correspondent Marlow Stern, who wrote that “‘You should eat prison meals’ prob not the best message.”