The School Nutrition Association, with 55,000 members, laid out its case for a pause in the calendar of change set by a 2010 law while Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack defended the law as a “generational change” in food standards. “The law is working,” he said. Donna West, child nutrition manager at Brownwood Elementary School in Scottsboro, Ala, said,”We need to keep moving forward…It will take a number of years.”
Lynn Harvey, director of child nutrition for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, said expenditures for school meals were up by $17 million, “far surpassing” a $14 million increase in revenue. “We all need to reassess,” said Wendy Weyer, nutrition director for the 47,000-student Seattle School District. Weyer, Harvey and a food service director from New Mexico cited resistance to whole-grain products. Other SNA members cited the 25 cent-per-meal cost of fruit and vegetables.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved language last week that calls on USDA to see if there are enough good quality whole-grain items to school demand. USDA also announced last week it would give schools and foodmakers two years to find whole grain-rich pasta and noodles that do not fall apart when prepared in large batches.
In a statement, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, an Appropriations Committee member, said a waiver from requirements for healthier meals and to “remove unhealthy snack foods is a naked attempt to appease special interests.” The think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in a blog “any school district that received a waiver wouldn’t have to comply with any of the new standards.”