Remember when ketchup was considered a vegetable? This was the butt of many jokes when I was a kid and still gets referred to from time to time. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, back in 1982, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed to reclassify ketchup and pickle relish from “condiments” to “vegetables” – thereby allowing schools to cut out a serving of cooked or fresh vegetables from the school hot lunch program. This was nothing more than a short-sighted way to save money on federally-funded school lunch programs when USDA was facing a budget crunch. As you can imagine, this proposal was met with outrage from nutritionists and millions of moms across the country. Because of the outcry, it never went into effect.
Almost 30 years later, our fiscal situation is even worse than it was then. So it should come as no surprise that we see similarly misguided efforts to shortchange our school-kids to save a few bucks.
Here is some quick background: the Obama Administration has correctly proposed new school lunch standards that limited the use of potatoes, sodium and added more whole grains, fruits and vegetables to the lunch menu in schools across the country. But with the current federal budget woes, congressional leaders refused to fund the school lunch program adequately unless some of the Administration’s proposed dietary changes were relaxed. This time, Congress wants to allow schools to be able to classify pizza sauce as a vegetable, among other things. Ostensibly, the change advocated by congressional leaders would simply give local school districts more flexibility about their menus. But here’s the end result: good-bye spinach and carrots… hello pizza and French fries!
To be clear, I believe in local control. I don’t think the federal government should be telling school districts what to feed the children in their schools. And I certainly don’t think the feds should be paying for it. But that is a much bigger rant for another day. In the meantime, the feds will continue to dictate what school children eat in cafeterias from Bakersfield to Buffalo. And according to our government, it’s now okay to count the tomato paste on a slice of frozen pizza as one vegetable serving.
I get that times are tough, but are we really saying that we can’t afford some broccoli and a few carrots? Am I the only one who thinks there is something wrong with this picture? The proponents of rolling back the USDA’s proposals were – shockingly - the food manufacturers who supply most of the hot school lunches across the country. Are we really going to put their bottom line above the health and nourishment of our children?
In the near term, we’ll save a few bucks – but in the end we won’t make a dent in the deficit or the debt no matter how pizzas we feed our kids. The real cost of this stupidity is untold. We are facing an obesity crisis and a diabetes epidemic in this nation. This is the worst time to scale back nutritional requirements for our school-kids. For many children in low-income areas, a school lunch is the healthiest meal they get all day. Can you imagine the long term ramifications of this decision?
If you are a parent, what does this mean to you and your family? If schools are going to skimp on fresh fruits and veggies, you cannot afford to do so. If your kids are eating hot lunches at school each day, they’ve already had the equivalent of a fast food meal full of sugar, sodium and saturated fat. Don’t ever think about stopping at McDonald’s on your way home.
What can concerned parents do? Well, the first and easiest strategy is… pack a lunch for your kids. Include fruits and vegetables along with a healthy sandwich of lean meat – and bottled water instead of soda or juice.
Don’t stop at your own kitchen, however – make your voice heard. Reach out to your representative in Congress and tell them how angry you are about these misguided policies. Go to www.house.gov and click on the link in the upper right-hand corner called “Find Your Representative.” Enter your zip code and fire off a short email.
Feel free to use a text like this:
Dear Representative X:
As a concerned parent of a school-aged child, I urge you to restore the USDA’s proposed school lunch nutrition standards. The recent changes passed by Congress would substitute pizza for fresh fruits and vegetables, and would do incalculable harm to the health of our kids. Please stand up for America’s children and make sure that they have healthy school lunches as a cornerstone of a healthy life.
The future health of America hangs in the balance, and a seemingly small act of citizen engagement can produce big results.
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