New York City’s vegan mayor wants the city’s students to have healthier options, saying "children have been calling" him to ask for better food in schools. 

“In one voice, we talk about fighting childhood obesity, diabetes yet you go into a school building every day and you see the food that feeds our health care crisis,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference at City Hall on Monday.

Adams specifically singled out chocolate milk, which he supported banning in public schools when he was Brooklyn borough president due to its high sugar content. 

While he said he does not want to be a “nanny mayor,” he wants students to have different options.

“The children have been calling me and saying they want better food in schools, and I'm going to do the best I can to give them the options of a more healthier diet so we can stop feeding the crisis,” he said.

His comments came as part of the unveiling of his administration’s climate agenda, where he announced key appointments to the leadership team and the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice.

Part of his administration’s environmental justice agenda includes access to healthy foods, he said.

“We have to do a better job in the food that we serve and we have to move away from our fixation on the products that are also destroying our environment,” the mayor said. “That is often not talked about. We talk about fossil fuel, we talk about ‘we need electric vehicles.’ No one is talking about the plate.”

He went on to say: “The plate is not only destroying mother nature, it is destroying our mothers and our children as well.”