Lobbyists Protest New Standards That Would Limit Pizza, French Fries In Schools

Food industry lobbyists are up in arms over the Agriculture Department's recently released standards for school nutrition, reports NPR. The standards would limit “starchy vegetables” to two servings a week -- including corn, peas, lima beans... and french fries. The Center for Science in the Public Interest says the fries aren't healthy, and lure kids away from other foods more commonly thought of as vegetables, like carrots and green beans.

But John Keeling, the CEO of the National Potato Council, says that french fries are small potatoes in the obesity epidemic.

“The obesity thing, you won't solve obesity on the backs of a single vegetable. You won't solve it on the diet in the schools.”

Also under fire is frozen pizza -- the new standards would no longer let the tomato sauce count as a serving of vegetables.

LISTEN:

Comments

[jgsantos]

11:32 PM on 08/09/2011

I don't understand why cooking lesson is not being taught in school. After all we eat 5 meals a day so cooking and nutrition should be the most important subject to be learn. After one week eating raw food meals I lost 12 pounds. No one taught me raw food recipes so I search the internet.
http://lifelong-success-system.blogspot.com/2011/04/money-in-your-mind.html

[Species5618]

10:40 PM on 08/08/2011

Oh, and another interesting story......I was at the grocery store the other day and the woman behind me had her two kids with her. They were complaining about being hungry and asking if they could get some chips or candy bar at the checkout and she actually said "No, that's junk food. We're going to stop at McDonalds on the way home."
It's just so interesting that the smarter we get about our health and nutrition, the more junk we eat simply because it's the easy way out. We won't solve the obesity problem with vegetables in school. This is a lifestyle issue. And if the parents' lifestyle is to feed their kids junk outside of school, this fight is already lost.

[Species5618]

10:35 PM on 08/08/2011

I guess one of the school systems in my city has decided to start inspecting what kids bring in their lunches, too. If it's on the "bad" list for whatever reason, they are actually trying to prevent the kids from eating it. Now, I don't necessarily agree with that. If that's what the parent buys and lets the kids take in their lunches, that's their business. However, the best part about hearing this is that the woman complaining about it weighs about 300 pounds.

[drmindhealer]

06:54 PM on 06/13/2011

In the end business and the lobbyists will win out over the kids. How, you ask? Republicans and their minions will stir up ignorant parents into thinking that their parental rights are being usurped by liberals. These of course are the same parents who think nothing of pizza for dinner, fries and fast food as quality family dining.
Is it coincidence that this generation of kids is the first which may not outlive their parents because of health issues? I think not. It can be directly correlated with poor eating habits both at home and in school. Some may feel that allowing the government to dictate what can be served in a school cafeteria in overstepping, but from what I have seen many parents have been asleep at the wheel for too long and we will all pay the price in the end.
Teach responsible eating. Teach gardening. Teach cooking (bring back good ol' home economics). Teach nutrition. And not just to the kids - parents need to be taught too!

[VST]

05:07 PM on 06/13/2011

To make a real change, we must start teaching kids in kindergarten how to make good food choices. Or, as another article suggested, give them less choice. We didn't have any choice in the cafeteria when I was a kid, and the food, contrary to what a lot of people seem to remember, wasn't bad. Soup & sandwich day was always a treat, even though the soup was just leftovers & ketchup.

[Kamster]

12:46 PM on 06/13/2011

Having grown up in the Czech Republic, I went to school there for about 3 years (sadly not enough IMO). Every day school lunch consisted of home-cooked traditional meals (which are hign in carbs but the moderate portions help develop a healthy diet), so imagine my surprise when I moved here 13 years ago and was fed frozen pizza and burgers. Another habit which I see here much more often than in Europe is the frequent visits to fast food joints. In the CZ my family would indulge in fast food about once a month. On the regular my mother would cook, and between school lunches (as I said, modeled on home-cooked meals) and small dinners (which are usual to the country's norm), it is no wonder CZ is one of the healthiest nations in Central Europe. There were no vending machines with chips or soda in schools, and we barely had soda or juice in the house (most of the time we were drinking unsweetened, fresh-brewed tea home and in schools alike). Healthy diet doesn't just start with the "parents" as I see in many of the user comments, it starts in a society as a whole: from the advertisements kids see on tv (you barely see a McDonald's commercial and in Ostrava which is the 3rd biggest city we only had one McDonald's and one KFC), to the school lunches, to parenting.

[SeptimusDSX]

09:44 PM on 06/12/2011

"- the new standards would no longer let the tomato sauce count as a serving of vegetables."

What the hell? Since when was tomato sauce equivalent to a serving of veggies? Is this a joke?

[amgnme]

11:44 PM on 06/12/2011

I think it was Ronald Reagan that started that, with ketchup counting as a vegetable in school lunches.

[w84it]

12:44 PM on 06/20/2011

Nope. Not a joke. Pizza crust also counted as two servings of bread...the crust end as well as the crust under the sauce. Crazy.

[SeptimusDSX]

06:26 PM on 06/20/2011

Wow, just wow! What next, counting molecules? How the hell do they get away with this kind of fraud?

[Paul Houston]

04:19 PM on 06/12/2011

Perhaps the National Potato Council should try and take a leaf out of the British Potato Council and introduce some healthy ways to use potatoes apart from deep frying them. I like this recipe.

http://www.lovepotatoes.co.uk/recipes/light-bites/masala-potatoes-with-cumin-tomatoes/

[Tunghoy]

04:00 PM on 06/12/2011

For a long time, I've been saying that schools would have it easier if they changed their names. Instead of names like "Joe Schmoe Middle School", they should call themselves Halliburton, Blackwater, Boeing, Grumman and General Electric. That way, they can fool the government into funding them and they can afford high-quality food, like the mercenaries in Iraq.

[amgnme]

11:57 PM on 06/12/2011

Just be patient a little bit longer and it will happen. Privatization is gaining momentum.

[Viper]

02:49 PM on 06/12/2011

Republicans always complain that they want to go back to the good old days of the 70s, 60s and 50s.... However thats when we ran under NEW Deal DEMAND Capitalism now adopted by the rest of the world beating us... not trickle down Robber baron, supply side, race to the bottom , outsourced, deindustrialized and unregulated econony that keeps failing.

In the 50s,60s and 70s we did not allow the selling of sodas, or junk food at schools... the top tax bracket was 91%, we spent 5 times more on infrastructure. Unions were 35% of the wrokforce not 7%. Wages were increasing forAll Americans, we had trade surpluses and almost no debt and were the largest creditor nation in the world.. the down turn began in 1980 with supply side trickle down Robber baron economy and deindustrailization.


Corporate taxes were 35% of our tax revenue , not 6%.

Regards

[iisguy]

12:41 PM on 06/12/2011

In colorado they refused to take out the soft drink machines from schools. The repulbicans who prevented it, protecting their "pain for profits" corporate masters, said they didnt want infring on parents rights to teach their children to make choices.
Guess they should put cigarette mahcines in too.

[regulargal]

12:59 PM on 06/12/2011

Imagine sending your kids to "school" at Walmart. That's what a corporate school system will evolve into. What better way to sell merch than to have captive consumers.

[grammasher]

07:20 PM on 06/12/2011

Of course, we know it's all about the kids! I'm sure these lobbyists are just trying to do what's best for the kids. Actually, these businesses are amoral and only think about their profits.

[SangZe]

11:52 AM on 06/12/2011

Kill those kids! It's good for bizness!

[dbishop76]

11:42 AM on 06/12/2011

Does anyone REMEMBER how nasty school lunches were? A much better investment of all this money they sent to somehow prove that school lunches aren't healthy would have been to help school districts across the country develop community gardens. Planting local, seasonal food and learning how to grow and harvest that is the best thing that anyone can do help children learn about nutrition.

[Allthosewhowander]

12:27 PM on 06/12/2011

A local high school in my area is doing that very thing. They have taken an unused part of the grounds on campus and turned it into a farm. Vegetables and herbs are used in the culinary arts classes that are grown and maintained by the students. It is pretty powerful stuff, and the kids have taken ownership of and pride in what they are doing. They grow enough extra veggies that they have the capability to supply a modest salad bar in the lunchroom of the school. The school district will not allow it due to food distributor contracts. This is an amazing opportunity for students, teachers, and the school to make a positive contribution for the good of the school, and it is being stifled by the school district. It is clear, that schools are money making machines for some, at the expense of genuine learning and experiences for students, staff, and families.

[PenGoddess]

12:43 PM on 06/12/2011

Jamie Oliver, a chef, has made a tv series (or movie, I don't remember) about trying to bring healthy food into school districts. I think he started somewhere in Ohio and while it was initially greeted with skepticism, it resulted in great success. But, they wouldn't let him do it in LA because of the food contracts. But I think the idea of a community garden is excellent!

[Carrie Bennett]

11:23 AM on 06/12/2011

So make it Healthy Fries & Healthy Pizza. Replace regular fries with sweet potatoe fries. Replace regular nasty processed frozen pizzas with fresh whole wheat crust and fresh ingredients.

[dbishop76]

11:29 AM on 06/12/2011

Right...and people are going to be falling all over themselves to pay for that.

[Carrie Bennett]

12:45 PM on 06/12/2011

Right....it is much better to be falling all over themselves to be lining the pockets of the physicians, pharmacetical companies, insurance companies, hospitals, disease specialists, because the food our kids are being fed are killing them.
Whether it be by the obesity epdemic, cancers, diabetes, one way or another we are all paying for that!!!!

[iisguy]

12:39 PM on 06/12/2011

Its not the potateos that unhealty,it the frying.

[JWerner]

01:17 AM on 06/14/2011

Precisely. Even if you use vegetable oil, it's not exactly healthy. Not to mention that most fries have a lot of salt and pepper added, to make them 'flavorful'. We've made our own fries at my place, slicing up potatoes and frying them. . .it's a different kind of taste from what people normally consider 'fries', i.e., fast-food fries.

[JJeter]

11:14 AM on 06/12/2011

Excerpt from "Love Letter from Corporate America to Its People"

"And yes,it is true we have no concern for the health of your communities.Screw your communities.If you cared about them you would see to their health.And we have no concern for your own health either.Why should we?All that is wrong with you and broken is a million times more profitable to us than anything that is healthy.Your sickness,your fear,your confusion,your loneliness --- we feast on these things,we fatten on them.The oil of your misery is our delight.It is precious to us."

[PenGoddess]

12:49 PM on 06/12/2011

Very true. And based on my own experience, I really think a diet that consists of the carbohydrate and fat combination (muffins, chips, twinkies, cakes, brownies, fried anything...) makes people angry, short tempered, impatient, reactionary, and depressed.  When I quit eating that kind of junk, my whole attitude towards life changed. It was shocking, actually.