With nearly one in five American youths suffering obesity, schools should provide optimal nutrition in the meals served daily to 29.5 million students a day, said former agriculture secretaries Ann Veneman and Dan Glickman. The co-chairs of a prevention initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center, Veneman and Glickman said the Trump administration proposals announced last week “would reduce the nutritional quality of foods served to children in both school breakfast and lunch programs.”
“We are disappointed that the latest proposed rule rolls back progress made during multiple prior administrations, and regulations stemming from bipartisan legislation,” said Veneman and Glickman in a statement. Glickman was agriculture secretary during the Clinton era and Veneman led USDA during George W. Bush’s first term.
The 2010 child nutrition law required schools to serve more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy in their meals and to cut back on salt, sugar and fat. The reforms also applied to snacks and beverages sold a la carte. “These [rules] are consistent with current nutrition science and Institute of Medicine recommendations commissioned by USDA during the George W. Bush administration,” said Veneman and Glickman. “More than 99 percent of school districts were deemed to have met the updated nutrition standards before an earlier set of rollbacks was announced by USDA in late 2018.”
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the administration proposal would give schools “more common-sense flexibility” in meal planning and would reduce food waste. Skeptics said the result would be more pizza, burgers and fries rather than balanced meals.
In a “notice to stakeholders,” the USDA defended its proposal against what it said were mischaracterizations and misinterpretations. For example, the proposal would cut in half the amount of fruit, now one cup, that is served to students who eat breakfast in the classroom. “It defies common sense to allow schools to serve elementary children one banana in the cafeteria, but force them to serve two in the classroom even when they know one goes in the trash,” said the USDA. It said a quarter of school food is discarded.
As far as pizza, burgers and fries every day, the USDA said it would allow schools to sell lunch entrees on the a la carte line for two days following the item’s appearance on the lunch line, “only a small change” from the current rule that entrees can be sold a la carte for one day. “The rule makes no change to side dishes sold a la carte (such as French fries) but requests comments on such flexibilities.”
The anti-hunger Food Research and Action Center said the USDA proposal could reduce the amount of red and orange vegetables served at meals. “This rule also would create loopholes in the current nutrition standards to allow for more pizza, hamburgers, and other foods that are high in calories and saturated fat or sodium to be sold a la carte,” said FRAC.
The comment period on the proposal ends on March 23.
The Federal Register notice on the school food proposal is available here.