Brooke Rollins’ claim that Americans can eat nutritiously for $3 a meal sparks ridicule amid rising grocery prices
President Donald Trump’s agriculture secretary has been mocked after boasting that the government devised a new way for Americans to eat for just $3 a meal amid a nationwide affordability crisis.
Brooke Rollins claimed in a TV interview that her team had “run over 1,000 simulations” to find the most optimal nutritious dinner on a shoestring.
All of that work, she told NewsNation, led to a major finding: “It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla, and one other thing.”
Appearing on the network to promote the administration’s new “Make America Healthy Again” push, which urges people to eat less sugar and ultra-processed food, Rollins argued her approach would “save the average American consumer money,” even as she conceded that beef remains pricey.
Within hours, her meager menu was being ridiculed across social media as completely out of touch. “Even a dystopia would say ‘damn, that’s dystopian,’” wrote one X user.
Another posted, “I’m glad they ran a thousand simulations to figure out one chicken one broccoli one tortilla and the other thing,” with a third saying Rollins’ brag of 1,000 simulations to land on such a miserly plate was the “most insulting part,” and a fourth adding, “You can do this in Excel using solver in like 45 minutes.”
Several X users—including the Ways and Means Committee Democrats and Rep. Ted Lieu—used AI to create tragic-looking empty plates featuring Rollins’ suggested ingredients.
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