ORANGE PARK – After meeting with the heads of four hospital groups and officials from two universities, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy and U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean delivered a unified message:

“Don't wait on Congress to pass a bill to make you healthy.”

Kennedy and Bean met with Ascension St. Vincent’s Clay CEO Bryan Walrath, Baptist Health Clay CEO Ed Hubel, HCA Florida Orange Park Hospital CEO Chad Patrick and UF Health Jacksonville’s Senior Vice President Patrick L. Green and the medical school administrators from Jacksonville University and Lincoln Memorial University on Wednesday, Oct. 21, to emphasize the importance of teaching Kennedy’s 40-hour nutrition plan.

The trip to LMU on Wells Road included a tour of the new school. The meeting, however, was to convince more institutions to encourage more medical, nursing and osteopathic schools to emphasize nutrition. So far, more than 80 institutions from 36 states have committed to the plan.

“Lincoln Memorial is one of the first hospitals in the country to adopt our 40-hour nutrition education for medical students,” Kennedy said. “It’s a commitment that we’ve asked all the hospitals in the country, all the medical schools in the country.”

Kennedy said one of his first priorities is for hospitals to switch to healthier food.

“If you go to a friend’s house and say, ‘This tastes like hospital food.’ It’s not a compliment. It’s low-quality food. It’s food that often has some sugars and salt and other ingredients that actually aggravate your system.”

Bean, who represents Clay, Duval and Nassau counties in Washington, D.C., stepped away from his demanding re-election campaign to connect some of Northeast Florida’s leading medical officials with Kennedy.

“We talked about making better choices for all of us,” Bean said. “We just completed a sort of a roundtable with all of our great providers and health systems. We talked about some of their challenges. But really, it comes down to making better choices. We all can make better choices of what we put in our bodies and what's served to us.”

Kennedy said hospital directors and medical school officials seemed receptive of the plan during their roundtable meeting. He said he believed many said they may join the coalition.

“I'd say [there was] mass enthusiasm for it,” Kennedy said. “It was really gratifying to me to meet this kind of pantheon of extraordinary medical leadership from the medical schools, from the hospitals, in the Jacksonville area. Just to see the enthusiasm for both these things – the understanding that nutrition, that food, is medicine. If we want to make America healthy, it's got to start with nutrition.”

Kennedy said when he took over at HHS, the U.S. military was being served “appalling” food that was purchased primarily for shelf life. The cost was $18.50 a day for each soldier, he said. The military got rid of its freezers, and now they’re being served healthy food, with 25% of it being locally sourced. The result: cost dropped to $10 a day.

“We're going base by base and changing the food menu,” Kennedy said. “The chef who is changing the military, yells over and over, you do not need more money. I buy good food. To eat good food, you just need to buy a smart.”

The Advancing Nutrition Education Initiative forced changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. In Florida, SNAP benefits no longer can be used to buy soft drinks or any other food item deemed to have little or no nutritional value. It also provides 30 million school and senior center lunches and 50 million breakfasts.

Kennedy’s office also reimagined the food pyramid, by eliminating grains like bread, rice and pasta, fats, dairy and sweets.

“In the first time, it’s science-based,” he said. “I put protein, clean grains, whole grains, vegetables and fruits at the center of the America palate.

Bean said Kennedy’s trip to Clay County was resoundingly successful.

“These medical schools have chosen to put in their curriculum, without any legislation, without anything, to put in the curriculum that food is indeed medicine,” Bean said. “It causes problems when you eat the wrong thing. But it can make you healthier when you eat the right stuff.”