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Republican Leadership Finalizes Cancellation of Healthier School Lunches
As the Republicans and the Trump administration continues their assault on anything that the Obama administration did, Secretary of Agriculture (USDA) Sonny Perdue set his sights on school lunches almost two years ago. Back in MAY 2017, we posted that Perdue's Republican-led USDA was postponing rules to make school lunches healthier.
Now the next steps have been taken:
This week [12/8/18], the United States Department of Agriculture announced its final plans to lower nutrition standards for grains, flavored milks and sodium in school cafeterias that were part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 and that Michelle Obama, the former first lady, had advocated.
....rules required that schools must serve entirely “whole grain-rich” foods, meaning that the product — whether it is pizza, pasta or hamburger buns — must contain at least 50 percent whole grains.
Trump administration is allowing schools to serve low-fat flavored milks, rather than just the nonfat version. Miguel Villarreal, director of food and nutritional services for the Novato Unified School District in Northern California, said the district had chosen not to serve flavored milk at its schools at all because of the sugar content. “It’s like giving them a can of soda,” he said.
Schools will still have to reduce sodium in lunches, but they will not be required to do so as aggressively.
One in five US children is obese, the US government says. With regard to school chidren not eating healthier school lunch items, 2 major studies from the past few years found that new standards for low-income students both improves diet and actually decreases food waste.
Karen Perry Stillerman, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it was unclear why the Trump administration would backtrack when schools were in good standing with the nutritional goals. A 2016 news release from the U.S.D.A. said that more than 99 percent of schools in the country reported that they were meeting the Obama-era standards.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/us/trump-school-lunch-usda.html
http://smartdissent.com/article/agriculture-department-lowers-nutritional-standards-school-lunches