Nutrition Group Lobbies Against Healthier School Meals It Sought, Citing Cost.

[elleng]

When the Obama administration in 2012 announced long-awaited changes to require more fruits and vegetables and less sugar and salt in government-subsidized school meals, no group celebrated more than the School Nutrition Association.

The group had anticipated the changes for three years, and it was enthusiastic in thanking President Obama and his wife for their efforts to “expand children’s access to healthy school meals.”

Two years later, the association has done an about-face and is leading a lobbying campaign to allow schools to opt out of the very rules it helped to create, saying that the regulations that have gone into effect are “overly prescriptive” and too costly for schools that are trying to replace hamburgers and fries with healthier alternatives. . .

“They sold their souls to the devil,” said Stanley C. Garnett, a former Agriculture Department official who ran the agency’s child nutrition division. He was a member of the School Nutrition Association who resigned in protest of the lobbying campaign.

The devils in this case, the association’s critics say, are the dozens of food companies that have paid millions in sponsorship fees to the School Nutrition Association, covering over half of its $10.5 million annual budget.

Reacting to the association’s change of heart, the House Appropriations Committee has passed a spending bill with a provision that would allow schools to waive the nutrition standards during the school year that begins in the fall. A vote by the full House is tentatively set after the Fourth of July recess. A similar amendment was offered for Senate spending bills, but Democrats canceled the debate after disagreeing with Republicans over that and other amendments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/02/us/nutrition-group-lobbies-against-healthier-school-meals-it-sought-citing-cost.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LargeMediaHeadlineSum&module=photo-spot-region&region=photo-spot&WT.nav=photo-spot

[Jefferson23]

1. Disgraceful. K&R for more people to learn about the turncoats, School Nutrition Association. n/t

[Archae]

2. Even if more fruits and veggies get onto the lunch trays...

Are kids going to eat it?

When I was in school nearly 40 years ago, the lunch people tried a new menu, more fruits and veggies.
Went over like a lead balloon, the fruits and veggies being tossed out.

The school went back to the old menu after a month.

[Jefferson23]

3. Too bad they gave up so quickly. n/t

[CTyankee]

4. what is really infuriating is that affluent students will have good nutritious food and thus

healthier lives, while the poor will have lousy nutrition and shorter, more challenging lives.

[Igel]

5. My kid's schools have always had "bring a parent to lunch" days.

I've gone. I've gone and had lunch with him at other times, too. He's always brown-bagged it.

All groups of kids have a tendency towards more starch and salt and sugar and fat. That's pretty much how our taste buds are wired from birth. Got evolution?

But some kids' home training overrode this. And that broke down by social group. Yes, there are outliers. The poor kid who really did eat salads and only drank low-fat white milk. There were more wealthy kids who crossed the boundary the other way, liking their pepperoni pizza and chocolate milk (boys more than girls).

But most kids ate and drink what they were used to. And that broke down to more affluent kids being used to having salad, fruit, lower-fat food at home and going with those choices in school; and less affluent kids having less salad, starchier fruit, and high-fat foods at home and going with those choices in school.

It didn't matter that the poor kids could get the same food for less than the wealthier kids. Same food options in front of them, the affluent students had good nutritious food while the poor had lousy nutrition. On average. And by choice. Conditioned choice or not, it was still by choice.

And we confuse the war for the battle. The war is good nutrition consumed by the kids. The battle is between us, the have-nots and them, the haves. Take away the battle, the us-versus-them bit, and much of the interest in the war goes away even though the war is still being lost. The war isn't what's important for some. Yet we like to think the only reason for the battle is the war. That's just not the case and that's sad, because then it's only superficially for the kids and essentially all about us.