In the spring of 1990, the most powerful man in the world stood in front of reporters and picked a fight with a vegetable. George H. W. Bush had the nuclear codes, a customized Boeing 707 and a galley crew trained to cook almost anything at cruising altitude. He used that authority to make sure one green thing never touched his plate again. Broccoli was out, at the White House and in the air.
The Ban Went Public In March 1990
The story broke in March 1990, when U.S. News & World Report reported that the president had banned broccoli from Air Force One.
On March 22, at an outdoor news conference, a reporter started asking about an Office of Personnel Management plan to pay workers on merit. Bush cut in: “On broccoli?” Then came the question of whether he had lost the broccoli vote, and he did not walk anything back. “I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid, and my mother made me eat it. And I’m President of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli,” he said.
He then threw his wife under the bus. Barbara loved the stuff, he told reporters, and she could go out and meet the caravan of broccoli that was headed for Washington.
Ten Tons Of Broccoli Showed Up At The White House
The caravan was real. California growers, who produced about 90 percent of America’s broccoli at the time, pledged to send several trucks of it straight to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. George Dunlop, president of the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, handed Barbara Bush a bouquet of broccoli along with 10 tons of it in trucks.
Growers also mailed in their best recipes, hoping the kitchen staff would find something the president could stomach. Nothing worked. The 10 tons never made it onto a presidential plate; it went to the Capital Area Community Food Bank in D.C. instead.
He Worked It Into A State Dinner For Poland
The night before that news conference, on March 21, Bush had hosted a state dinner honoring Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the prime minister of Poland. Reporters checked the menu. No broccoli anywhere on it.
Bush, clearly enjoying himself, told the evening’s guests that not even his “totalitarian” wife could make him eat broccoli. His guest of honor was no help to the growers either. Mazowiecki admitted he had never even tasted it.
Growers Braced For A Hit And Got A 10 Percent Sales Bump
Broccoli farmers assumed a presidential insult would cost them money. The opposite happened. Apio Produce, a California shipper, told the Los Angeles Times its sales rose 10 percent on the back of all that publicity, and a sales director said “Broccoli has never enjoyed so much publicity.”
The timing helped. Broccoli was already on a tear through the 1980s, and Gary Lucier of the Department of Agriculture had called it the “vegetable of the 80s.” Per-person consumption roughly doubled over that decade, from about 3 pounds a year in 1980 to a peak of 6.2 pounds in 1988. Picking a public fight with the fastest-growing vegetable in the country turned into free national advertising for it.
Barbara Bush Refused To Back Him Up
The First Lady ate broccoli regularly and had tried for years to get her husband to do the same. When reporters asked what message all this was sending to American kids, she pointed out that her husband had eaten broccoli until he was 60, and suggested children do the same.
Brands piled on. Campbell’s and Woman’s Day magazine ran a recipe contest called “How to Get President Bush to Eat Broccoli,” with $7,500 going to the winner. Paid out in 1991, that is about $17,700 in 2025 money, which is a lot of cash to throw at a man who had already made up his mind. Nobody changed it.
He Brought It Up 70 Times In Office
This was not one offhand remark that the press refused to drop. Eric Ostermeier, a researcher at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, counted 70 separate instances of Bush mentioning his hatred of the vegetable during his presidency. He never softened the line from that day to the end of his term.
Democrats noticed an easy target. During the 1992 campaign, Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore were photographed holding a sign reading: “Let’s put broccoli in the White House again.”
Even in retirement he would not fold. In 2016 he tweeted about a boy named Cooper who had written to him about loving broccoli, calling the kid’s enthusiasm genuine but unpersuasive. The grudge ran in the family too: in 2001, his son George W. Bush gave broccoli a public thumbs-down at the ranch of Mexican President Vicente Fox, who happened to grow the stuff. When he eulogized his father at his 2018 funeral, the younger Bush brought the broccoli up again.
The Other Thing You Will Never Find On Air Force One
Broccoli is not the only thing missing from the plane. There is no deep fat fryer on board, which is a safety call rather than a presidential tantrum. That is a real limitation on a plane where burgers and fries are a regular order, and frequent fliers say the fries always come out soggy.
The chefs on board are trained to cook almost anything and have nearly every tool imaginable, yet anyone unhappy with the menu can usually get a sandwich slipped to them instead. Everyone who flies walks off with a box of Air Force One M&M’s.
Shopping for the plane is its own operation. The plane’s Air Force flight attendants buy the ingredients themselves, from ordinary supermarkets and warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam’s Club, and then cook what they bought.
The Press Gets A Bill
Staff do not eat free, and neither does the press. Reporters in the traveling press pool are charged for their meals, with the cost billed to their news organizations, and the catering for the press is handled separately from what comes out of the kitchen for the president.
The food itself is not sad airline fare. Press pool meals on a May 2026 swing through Las Vegas and Phoenix included beef ragu with a spring salad and key lime pie, and lobster salad with a croissant and chocolate cake. Two full galleys run the service, staffed by military flight attendants who source and prepare everything, and between them they can feed 100 people at a time.
Every New President Rewrites The Menu
What ends up in those freezers changes every four or eight years. When a new administration takes over, the food selection at the White House and on the plane shifts to match the new boss’s taste. No president is sitting down with a clipboard choosing every item, but the menu reflects personal preference more than any official standard.
The aircraft is a heavily modified Boeing 747-200B, and the Air Force keeps two identical planes ready. Roughly 4,000 square feet of interior includes an executive suite, a conference and dining room, and a doctor on board at all times. Meals are served on presidential china trimmed in gold. In 1962 John F. Kennedy became the first president to fly in a jet built specifically for presidential use, a modified Boeing 707.
Tastes swing hard between administrations. At the 2013 Kids’ State Dinner at the White House, Barack Obama announced that his favorite food was broccoli, which is about as direct a reversal of the 1990 policy as you can get.
Who Actually Won The Broccoli War
Bush got exactly what he wanted. Nobody, not even Barbara, could make him eat it, which is more than most people can say about their own kitchen.
The growers did better. They traded 10 tons of produce and a bouquet for a 10 percent sales bump and months of free national coverage, then watched the whole load go to a D.C. food bank. When Bush visited its volunteers that April, he allowed that the broccoli “that my wife loves so much found a good home.”
