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Not all college football players are excited to eat their vegetables. But Bill Belichick’s staff at North Carolina has found ways to make sure their players are.
Through a precise food science that requires chopping vegetables into “micro” pieces, or even sneaking extra grains and vitamins into the batter used to fry chicken, the staff is taking every liberty to gain a competitive advantage in the lunch room. UNC’s nutrition, hydration and training strategy has become more critical than ever as the team looks to make a second-year jump, as each player has a specific strategy curated to them and their biology.
The strategy even includes a contingency plan, when the team is on the road, sometimes in locations where access to anything but fast food is limited. Public records show the team spent $129,644.38 at vendors that classify as fast food or fast casual during the 2025 season, but head nutritionist Amber Rinestine-Ressa claimed there was a scientific method behind those transactions.
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Head coach Bill Belichick of the North Carolina Tar Heels watches from the sideline during the first half against the TCU Horned Frogs at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Sept. 1, 2025. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
UNC football head chef Josh Grimes was the New England Patriots executive chef under Belichick from 2018-24. When they came to UNC last year, they recalibrated the nutrition strategy, an NFL-style approach, and Belichick says it is aligned with the fundamental purposes of Tom Brady’s approach to nutrition.
“In New England, we had a lot of components and certainly some of Tom’s things were important,” Belichick told Fox News Digital.
“In the NFL we trained a lot of players who were significantly older than our players are here, and so some of the things that Tom did have more application than players who are older. But still fundamentally, good nutrition, good hydrations, pliability in the muscle tissues and so forth are are fundamentally good things that Tom worked with and that we embrace as well.”
For UNC and its players, the strategy may also have NFL Draft implications.
“When you look at an NFL performance. Everything’s important and everything that leads to your performance is important. So preparation training nutrition hydration, technique, fundamentals, it all adds up,” Belichick said of whether he previously looked at a college player’s diet and nutrition program when scouting them for the NFL.
Cooking up trick plays
Director of nutrition Amber Rhinestine-Ressa and Grimes aim to make food that players actually want to eat in order to keep them eating in the team cafeteria, and not out. To do that, they prioritize flavor, and work in the nutrition from there.
“If they’re not going to change for me, I have to change my approach for each one of them,” Rhinestine-Ressa said.
“We don’t live in a perfect world, and to create buy-in, I have to have a little leniency… 80% of our diet, we are eating great food for us.”
Of the remaining 20%: “Would we rather eat brown rice or a piece of bread? Well, brown rice might have more fiber, but how does our whole day look? Okay then, maybe we could eat this piece of bread.”
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She admitted that some players have harder times eating their vegetables than others.
“Some of these kids come in and they see a whole green bean, and not a canned green bean, and they’re not receptive to it,” she said. “A lot of guys come in here and they have a very small box.”
Once they work what kind of food the players want to eat, then come the “sneak” plays to make it as healthy as possible.
“Anywhere we can manipulate an ingredient to where it tastes good, but they don’t know, we do,” Grimes said.
The kitchen micro-dices vegetables into barely-noticeable pieces, and mixes that into several dishes, along with quinoa, to bolster the vitamin value.
The nutrition team even has a way of manipulating batter for deep-frying things like chicken, Grimes said through a combination of whole wheat flower and Avocado oil.
“We kind of use the fried stuff as more strategic, kind of morale. Like, we try to keep them happy,” the chef said.
Grimes said he gave the players a suggestion box when building the menu, and the number one-selected suggested dish that came back was Oxtail. Thus, Oxtail has become a recurring favorite in the team cafe, and a critical play by the staff.
Famed Kansas City Chiefs former head dietitian Leslie Bonci employed similar strategies when curating food to keep the Chiefs healthy through the start of the Patrick Mahomes era and their first two Super Bowls in the last decade.
“Hide the health. Start with familiar and then amplify the nutrition for the intuition in the kitchen,” Bonci told Fox News Digital in response to UNC’s strategies.
Cheat plays
The university credit card statements for Rinestine-Ressa, during the 2025 season and training camp (Jul. 1 to Dec. 4), were been obtained by Fox News Digital via a public records request.
Of the $129,644.38 that was spent on fast food or fast casual, the team spent the most money at was Al’s Burger Shack, at $15,803.
“Al’s Burgers, they use 90-10 meat with me,” Rinestine-Ressa said, adding they often purchased the burger place for post-game meals last season, for up to 260 people. “So I can influence what they use because we’re buying it in such quantity.”
Chick Fil-A was second at $13,092.03.
“Chick Fil-A is only ever done when we’re about to get on a plane, because it’s heavy, they’re about to go on a plane, they’re about to sleep, and we have no activity for the rest of that day. So I don’t really care that much.”
Jersey Mike’s was third at $12,613.51 and Mission BBQ was fourth at $12,598.52. Other big spends on the statements were made at popular national chains like Zaxby’s, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Dave’s Hot Chicken, CAVA and Panera Bread.
Still, there were zero transactions for American fast food staples McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, KFC, or Taco Bell. That is where Rinestine-Ressa draws the line.
“Hell no, those are hard no’s, because I can’t manipulate those, I can manipulate every other place,” she said.
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As UNC looks to improve on its 4-8 record from 2025, it will lean on the creativity and discipline of its chefs and nutritionists to make sure the players are fueled to do their jobs.
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