Michelle Obama made it her mission during her 8 years in the White House to eradicate all taste from school lunches. Afterall, what kind of self-respecting liberal would she be if she allowed school districts and families all across the country to actually choose what food best suited their communities and children?
She even made inspiring videos like “Turnip For What!?”, a clever play off Lil Jon’s track (great role model for children, btw)…see what she did there?
Unfortunately, no amount of cutsie jingles or rap lyrics were sufficient to make the following school lunches appealing to young school kids…and we can’t imagine why…
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In fact, in the end, rather than eating a meal with slightly too much sodium, kids simply stopped eating lunch altogether. As the Washington Times pointed out back in 2014, over 1 million students stopped eating school lunch in the 2012-2013 school year alone. Meanwhile, schools all around the country reported they were buying food that just ended up getting thrown away or fed to pigs at local farms because no one would eat it.
The National School Lunch Program saw a sharp decline in participation once the healthy standards went into effect during the 2012-2013 school year. A total of 1,086,000 students stopped buying school lunch, after participation had increased steadily for nearly a decade.
The report found that 321 districts left the National School Lunch Program altogether, many of which cited the new standards as a factor.
The decline was “influenced by changes made to comply with the new lunch content and nutrition standards,” state and local officials said.
But, in one of his first actions as Agriculture Secretary, Sonny Perdue took steps today to reintroduce some common sense into school lunches noting that “If kids aren’t eating the food, and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition – thus undermining the intent of the program.”
Per The Hill, in an interim final rule, aimed at giving schools more flexibility, Perdue and his department are postponing further sodium reductions for at least three years and allowing schools to serve non-whole grain rich products occasionally as well as 1 percent flavored milk.
The rule allows states to exempt schools in the 2017-2018 school year from having to replace all their grains with whole-grain rich products if they are having a hard time meeting the standard.
Sodium levels in school lunches now must average less than 1,230 milligrams in elementary schools; 1,360 mg in middle schools; and 1,420 mg in high school.
Before Perdue’s rule, schools were expected to reduce sodium even further to average less than 935 milligrams in elementary schools, 1035 milligrams in middle school lunches and 1,080 in high school lunches by the week by July 1, 2017.
Further reductions were set to take effect by July 1, 2022.
Unsurprisingly, the School Nutrition Association and kids everywhere praised Perdue’s efforts to Make School Lunches Great Again.
The School Nutrition Association, which represents nutrition directors at schools across the country, was quick to praise Perdue. The group has been lobbying Congress for more flexibility in what the have called “overly prescriptive regulations.”
SNA claims less kids are buying lunch because they no longer like the food and schools are being forced to spend more money on lunches that largely end up in trash.
The former standards required all grains, including croutons and the breading on chicken patties, to be whole grain rich.
“School Nutrition Association is appreciative of Secretary Perdue’s support of school meal programs in providing flexibility to prepare and serve healthy meals that are appealing to students,” the group’s CEO Patricia Montague said in a statement.
“School nutrition professionals are committed to the students they serve and will continue working with USDA and the Secretary to strengthen and protect school meal programs.”
Of course, just like when Mayor Bloomberg’s Big Gulp ban got overturned, it’s unclear how/if families will be able to cope with returning to a world where they actually have to make their own decisions regarding sodium intake.
If you make the food crappy enough, they’ll skip lunch, which in many cases would be a good thing. Kids need to learn early – you can never be too rich or too thin.
“SNA claims less kids are buying lunch”
I see that they still have functional illiterates writing for the com-Post.
You know, maybe it would be a good idea not to limit the types of food that local schools can serve, but instead, limit the purchasing decisions of the district to only being able to purchase food that is, well, actually food. Maybe have contracts with local farmers instead of Sysco Foods and other national food distributors. Not this frankenfood, crap. There is nothing necessarily wrong with some bread, or sugar etc. when you are a kid, however the transfat, hydrogenated artery clogging, cancer causing preservatives and other lab experiments that is put in even ‘whole grain’ food that is killing us and making us sick.
Somehow, I survived the school cafeteria in the 80’s without every other kid being a blimp and full on diabetes. We had no food police, just real food.
too much labor ,anon–
travis below is correct-
I agree with you completely, Anon. Unfortunately, our government is soft-fascist, as Ron Paul described it, and all our regulators are in bed with the big industries, including factory farms and GMO producers, like Monsanto, and Big Pharma (which profits from the sickness resulting from the others).
My question is: Why the hell is the federal government involved in deciding what should be served in school lunches?
This is a microcosm of what’s wrong with this country.
Eliminate program, make lunch at home. Carry in bag or box. Why is .gov worrying about school lunch? Nothin better to do?
Growing up in the 60’s a school lunch wasn’t “provided” but was available for purchase.
And it was a rare treat to do so to break up the monotony of the daily sack lunch (sandwich, chips, fruit and cookie) made by my working mother.
It was where I found out “hamburger” didn’t necessarily mean all meat but more like a meat-like substance (oatmeal filler, I think).
Those were the days.
Now get off my lawn.
I never got up in time to have breakfast before school (although my mother tried), so I always looked forward to lunch. This was in the late 1960s until 1980 (graduation). We had soup and PBJs, which were actually good and one of my favorites, and pizza. We always had a meat, two veggies and a desert at the minimum. But we also had hamburgers that I’m sure had soybean fillers, and hotdogs that had a pink dye that bled into the buns. And we never had chips, never, although they gave us fries with the hamburger and hotdogs. And we still had salt and pepper shakers on the tables. When my son was in school, these had disappeared.
I think I was in the transition between real food and fake food.
My son, born in 1996, usually took his lunch from home. And I don’t blame him.
Graduated from HS in 1960 – school lunches were provided, and this was at a regional HS comprising 3 small towns. My town, Chester CT, was at that time 2,000 pop. or less.
This was a good thing as I don’t remember ever having breakfast.
Bagged lunch from 71 to 84. Never bought a school lunch but I did trade for a square pizza once.
When the progressives finally take over completely they will just force them to eat what they are given.
Feed these little bastards peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.Most of them get it free anyway.
When Big Mike was in London she shut down a street so she/he could get fish and chips.When first elected pres Big Mike had PIZZA FLOWN IN .Same pedi pizza?
BB;
Peanut butter allergies?
Bread with gluten?
Good god man, you’ll kill a snowflake in the Skool system.
Why are you still referring to Michelle/Michael Obama as a woman? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvuulZPbfBg