In 2017, on just his sixth day in office, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue made chocolate milk safe for schools again, along with white flour and salt, in the name of “regulatory flexibility” for school food programs. On Thursday, the USDA said it will make permanent the “flexibilities,” which roll back healthy-food initiatives backed by Michelle Obama when she was First Lady and endorsed by Congress in 2010.
As part of an effort to reduce childhood obesity, the 2010 overhaul of child nutrition programs called on schools to serve more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy in their meals and to cut back on salt, sugar, and fat. Some schools complained that the changes were expensive to carry out and that students didn’t like the foods. Lawmakers decrying nanny-state over-regulation repeatedly delayed implementing the requirements to cut back on salt and to use more “whole grain-rich” breads and pasta.
Early on, Perdue sided with the opposition in a proclamation allowing 1 percent flavored milk — his favorite is chocolate milk — in schools and freezing the salt and whole grain rules. “We’re just slowing down the process,” he told reporters after lunch with fifth graders at Catoctin Elementary School in Leesburg, Va., on April 30, 2017 — less than a week after he started the job. In late 2017, the USDA said it would consider “long-term availability of the flexibilities.” That review led to the regulation unveiled on Thursday and scheduled to appear in the Dec. 12 Federal Register.
“We’re empowering local schools by providing more options to serve healthy AND appetizing food,” said Perdue on social media. “Nutritious school meals don’t do anyone any good if kids throw them into the trash.”
In response, the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest said, “The Trump administration is putting politics before children’s health in ways worse than were expected.” It said the new USDA rule “locks in dangerously high levels of salt and brings back more refined white flour to school meals. … The administration also is allowing flavored low-fat milk back into schools without any calorie or sugar limits.”
Instead of requiring that all foods be whole grain-rich, the USDA lowered the standard to one-half of foods. It also gives schools several more years to reduce salt content in meals and eliminates the final sodium-reduction goal. The CSPI said that virtually all schools already meet the first-tier target for sodium reduction and that 85 percent have met the target for whole grains.
“The final rule strikes a healthy balance,” said the School Nutrition Association, which speaks for food directors. The group campaigned for relaxing the 2010 standards. “None of these adjustments will impede the progress achieved in school cafeterias,” it said.
Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts, who said school food rules were unduly rigid, applauded the new regulation as regulatory relief for schools. But Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro said it “will only undermine child nutrition by allowing school meals with fewer whole grains, more sodium, and added sugar that our kids do not need.”
On Twitter, the American Bakers Association said, “Thank you @usda @SecretarySonny for recognizing both whole and enriched grains are important nutrition sources for America’s 30M children in school meal programs. @AmericanBakers appreciates the flexibility and the extensions of sodium reduction targets.”
To read the 75-page rule, click here.