Yeah, I had no idea of what was really going on until you unravelled this great mystery for me. :rolleyes:
I expressed my stance earlier in this thread-- I don’t want the good folks in Washington DC telling us what our kids can and cannot eat in our local schools. If that means we don’t take the federal subsidies, so be it. Kids’ eating habits are formed by what the do at home, not by what they are force fed at schools. Kids have a more weight problems today than they did when I was in elementary school (in the 60s), but I’d be surprised if the food they get in the cafeteria is worse than the crap we got 40 years ago.
Well, based on the confusion you expressed upthread, it’s hard to tell it wasn’t a mystery to you. Are you really sure you’re clear on the subject because it’s still looking dim.
You realize the good folks in Washington have been telling us what schools should be providing for school lunches since 1946, don’t you? And since 1966 has established dietary guidelines for the meals it serves to children. It isn’t folks in Washington telling you what you can or cannot send with your child to school in his/her lunchbag. That’s happening on a much more local level.
Also, you realize that it’s not politicians determining to raise the nutritional standards being discussed here, but the good folks at the Institute of Medicine of the non-governmental National Academies, right? Essentially, by dismissing the recommendations of those medical professionals, Congress is allowing corporate lobbies to determine the nutritional standards of the food paid for by the American taxpayer fed to schoolchildren, to reiterate, many of whom rely on subsidized school lunches for a decent meal.
And what of the children who are fed as a direct result of those subsidies? You realize the federal government got involved because a significant percentage of children were coming to school malnourished. You realize that numerous studies are showing that malnutrition is proliferating in the form of widespread childhood obesity and diabetes due to improper diet?
Up until recently, school lunches were prepared on site in the school kitchens. In the 1970s, the elementary school I attended baked its own bread and made its own sloppy joes, carrot salad, and served whole white milk. It wasn’t fine dining, but it was freshly prepared for the most part and had some semblance of nutritional value. These days everything is processed and precooked off-site shipped to schools where it can be reheated and served in neat little packages of shelf stabilized frankenfood.
By the time I got to high school, I was served prepackaged bean burritos, mini-pizzas and 20-oz Mountain Dews full of sodium and sugar. That was over 20 years ago. It’s no wonder today’s children are sicker than we were. They never had a fighting chance to get a healthy meal in school or at home. We’ve been brainwashed since the 1980s by the multi-billion dollar food industry and we’re collectively passing on the damage to our unsuspecting children. We’re also reaping the reward of this lack of general concern over health and nutrition in the form of skyrocketing health costs.
I don’t expect private industry to take the high road and stop bombarding children with cheap, easy, fun and yummy fat- and sodium-laden products that net them a healthy profit. But I don’t appreciate the government basically acting as a shill for that crap at the expense of kids’ health.
If our government is going to be in the business of feeding children it’s educating–and nothing is going to change that by ignoring the nutritionally-barren garbage the industry is trying to pass off as food on our kids–then they have a responsibility to do so sensibly. They need to realize that educators are missing a golden opportunity to educate children (just like we do in health and P.E.) on proper nutrition regardless of what those children are served at home.
Additionally, they owe it to parents to restrict public schools from undermining the nutritional values that sensible parents do provide by feeding children crap. Poor lunch programs send the message to kids that it’s perfectly normal and okay to consume pizza, cheeseburgers, tater tots, breakfast sweets and sweetened chocolate milk several times a week to daily (in the case of sweetened, flavored milk). They are doing children a disservice.
It seems obvious the government can’t force parents to take more initiative to feeding their kids more nutritionally sensible diets, but they can and should most certainly improve the quality of the food served in public schools and paid for with taxpayer dollars. And if that comes at the expense of the privately owned vendors who can’t make as much profit on a nutritionally quality pizza with actual vegetables and whole grains, well I’m not going to lose sleep over that, honestly.
Why should they suffer? Don’t their children deserve to eat? Cut back on their profits and you’ll have more kids that need subsidized meals in schools, meaning you’ll need more funding. Without more funding you’ll end up with crappier food.